A friend asked me this am — “Why should I buy the iPad 2? I already have an iPad and I don’t care much about Facetime?” The first smart-ass answer I gave him is that I probably shouldn’t say anything given what we know from watching science-fiction movies… if I answer the question it can affect the future. The second smart-ass answer is that I probably don’t need to tell him why he should get it, since he can just tell me why he DID get it when he DOES get it.
However, of course I did give him my opinion, because like the answer to ‘why do dogs lick their balls’, the same is true for ‘why does Scot give his opinion when asked’ (and even when not asked)…
If you haven’t heard by now, Apple had a huge media event yesterday unveiling the new iPad 2.
The simple answers to my friend’s query are:
- you can sell yours for 50-75% of what you paid if you want to
- they are so damn useful and everyone in the house wants to use it, so it’s better to just have more
- we develop iPad Apps so we can use as many as possible (full disclosure — my friend is my partner in The APP Company)
- not that expensive in the scheme of things, and we can always use more for the 2nd and 3rd reasons above
- with a product like this, it’s not necessarily about the features, it’s about the fact that it’s super cool, feels great to have — the mystical/religious reasons…
- the camera is actually really nice. It will be great to be able to do Facetime on the iPad and I assume video Skype will be coming soon. I now find myself Skyping on my iPhone late at night with overseas developers from my living room or bed. It frees me from having to go to my home-office computer. With the camera, it’s even better to do it on the iPad. This also makes it even more attractive to take the iPad take on trips instead of a laptop.
- don’t underestimate the huge viewfinder when taking HD video. I think this is a huge thing.
- the iMovie and Photobooth apps look great. Garage band too.
- the speed (twice as fast) and graphics (9 times as fast) improvements will likely make game playing incredible and also great for graphically intense apps.
