When the first iPad came about, I like much of the internet media and public rejected the idea as derivative and superfluous. I didn't see the market for an oversized iPod Touch, and didn't see Apple putting much thought into the design other than to say "it's magic". Well I like many others were dead wrong, and the thing sold like crack candy. I should know better than to doubt the success of an Apple-branded consumer device. But really, as little effort as Apple put into it, they touched on the desire for tablet computers way before anyone else, and because they were Apple, people flocked to it, eager to get a hold of the new form factor. Sometimes good timing is all you need.
So in the wake of an onslaught of competing tablets bursting at the seams for a release, we have the iPad 2, destined to continue the success of the original, again with very little effort. It's the first iPad, but with a thinner enclosure and faster hardware, and the cameras finally glued in place. In a nod to Moore's Law, it debuts at the same price of the predecessor, and from that perspective you can say they're at least not gouging people on it. But the reality is Apple's up to their old tricks of arrogance with a pinch of innovation, except in the case of the tablet market, their only selling point is that they came first. That helps them win the popularity contest, but things are going to become a great deal more cutthroat in a short amount of time.
As I said a couple months back, the tablet market is the wild west of computing all over again, with more competitors than ever experienced in the industry since the dawning days of personal computers. Literally anyone can make a tablet. The idea behind them is simple, the hardware is widely available, and the software being prepped for them is second to none. Probably the worst competitor Apple could ask for is Google, as their aggressive tactics are nearly peerless, and their ambition knows no bounds. Honeycomb is shaping up to be the OS to beat in the tablet space, and analogous with the PC market, their only real competitor is stuck on one set of hardware. That leaves all other hardware makers free to flood the market with Android 3.0 products, and a battle of attrition ensues from there.
Worse yet, iOS can't even claim superiority in any way shape or form. Flash support continues to be a problem, and yet the usability of the OS itself is already starting to feel dated. Google has taken great strides to utilize the tablet touch interface to the utmost efficiency. There's still a ways to go in this before we reach the ideal, but already we're seeing much better task switching and multitasking, functional Widgets, an unparalleled web browser, and a cleaner UI with a notification bar, custom app list views, and much greater customization. Google knows that they're a year behind, so they can't hold back any on features. The foundation is set for a very approachable and yet very powerful user experience that will take tablet computing to the next level, and frankly, Apple can't afford to be sitting on their laurels.
Then you have the hardware. That's the biggest change in the iPad 2, and yet, still very underwhelming. As far as core components go, iPad 2 has a good thing going. Its A5 chip is undoubtedly more than competitive enough with Tegra 2 and similar SoCs, and RAM and storage are fine too (keep in mind that while they use different OSes, memory usage is still largely dependent on web browsing, not the OS). However, external features still lag behind. The screen resolution is unchanged from the original, which hurts when competitors are bragging about full 720p support. We still do not have USB support, and we still cannot expand the storage with flash cards. The long-awaited cameras are a throwaway feature, decidedly last-gen in quality next to everyone else's.
So what are you left with? A new iPad that still has most of the problems of the old one, and is essentially more of the same. But for some, that may be just fine. Not a lot of tablet users are very discerning about such details, and that's the great thing about tablets, because they're open to users of any technical level. The main point for most people is to just be easy to use, comfortable, and convenient. Both iPads certainly deliver on that front, which has made them the success that they are. The new iPad simply increases some of the functionality, in rare cases where normal usage was hindered by performance, or when someone had the urge to do video chat. Certainly it's an easy upgrade choice for fans of the original, because there's really nothing dramatically different or disadvantageous about the new device. On the OS side, some people might prefer more of the same, so there isn't anything to relearn.
On the other hand, what would anyone lose by having a USB port, or an SD card slot? What customers would be driven away by a higher resolution screen? How might Apple harm the market appeal of the iPad 2 by adding exponentially more features instead of just a handful of them? I argue that it might actually hurt them more in the long run, as the market continues to intensify with new product introductions.
But competitors can't be lazy, either. Most of them already missed the window by a year, thanks largely in part to the prolonged gestation period of Honeycomb, but also because of timidness in approaching a new computing segment. Few people could break the ice as well as Apple, and it's perhaps fitting that they did, but now the water's warmed quite a bit, and it's already time for others to jump in. But on that token, they have to be products that really make a compelling purchase choice for consumers, as the cookie-cutter derivative behavior we see in other markets like netbooks won't necessarily cut it if they hope to make a big splash. Internal hardware is already showing plenty of variety, and hopefully external features show some individuality as well. Rush your product out the door too quickly though, and you might end up like the ViewSonic G Tablet.
At the same time, they have to compete with Apple's entrenched footing in the market, not just with the userbase, but with software. The iPad is leveraging not just the software offerings tailor-made for the platform in the past year, but others originally designed for smaller iOS devices going back much further. This is an extremely mature software market, and Apple itself is a big contributor to this. The productivity software being shown at the iPad 2 launch is the sort of stuff Android users wish to see on their platform, and can only hope the support ramps up fast enough that they don't have wait long for it. This is one of the few ways Apple tries to distinguish the iPad from the iPod Touch and iPhone, and it's done much to demonstrate how simply having a larger, higher resolution screen can grant you greater functionality than some might have anticipated. And this software advantage doesn't just stop there. One of the biggest types of software to benefit from Apple's extended presence is games.
Gaming is a particularly sensitive subject to most Android tablets, seeing as most of them are Tegra 2 powered. NVIDIA would like nothing less than to be the king of tablet gaming, and they feel their developer relations and general know-how give them the edge they need to eventually do so. But software is one of the areas most affected by having a head-start lead in the hardware field, and by having that head-start well in hand, Apple may have already secured their gaming dominance into the foreseeable future. One of the big contributors to this is the GPU used in the iPad 2.
Arguably Tegra's big claim to fame is the GeForce GPU. Utilizing trickle-down R&D from the latest and greatest of NVIDIA's graphics technology, the GeForce in use in the Tegra 2 sports some highly power efficient designs in an immediate mode rendering engine that boasts some very decent performance. But in the ultra-mobile space, absolute power is not really in contention, since at this level of performance, there are many viable competitors. That's why the Tegra 2 has a lot to worry about when it comes to PowerVR solutions. The problem with Tegra 2 is that it's available in a limited, set number of versions varying almost solely on clockspeeds. But if you're a device maker and you have the luxury of customizing your SoC, you have the option of choosing a different GPU, with completely different performance characteristics. At the moment, Imagination Technologies' best GPU offering, the SGX543, can be scaled from a single core (4-shader core) version all the way up to 16 cores. Even going with something conservative like two cores nets you quite a bit of gain over the Tegra 2's GeForce ULV, and that's exactly what the iPad 2 does. Beating NVIDIA at its own game in the desktop and laptop PC markets is no easy task. Beating them in the SoC space turns out to be much easier, and that coupled with the software support spells all sorts of trouble for NVIDIA's gaming aspirations in the tablet market.
Like it or not, the iPad line is here to stay. With few features to call its own, the most people can say about it is that it's available, it's not really expensive, and it works just fine. Sometimes good timing's all you need, but solid execution helps a lot too. Now if they hope to keep up that momentum, that will take some real magic.
