Yay, the “new” iPad is here!!!…meh. But the thing is that Apple does not need to bring out cutting edge, insanely great devices at the moment. Even their old iPhones, iPods and iPads are playing in another league compared to any other device on the market. And the new iPad is proving this once more. Even with some rather small improvements it is selling like crazy, and currently it seems to be nearly impossible to pre-order one online as Apple’s servers are constantly down.
Hence, rather than concentrating on the new iPad, I think it’s worthwhile to talk about the iPad 2 which now starts at $399.
This makes it at least $100 cheaper than the competing devices on the market right now, and the other tablets did not get an upgrade a couple of hours ago. So, it’s basically still the same landscape just with the change that the leading device is now cheaper than its competitors. Well played, Apple.
Secondly, the iPad 2 is now “only” twice as much as a Kindle Fire. Still quite a lot, but also more interesting for people who can actually afford both. And in this case it is almost clear which device is going to get shipped.
Last but not least, with the education discount of $50 per device and iPad2 for schools now comes in at $349 – that’s about $150 less than this morning. All of the textbook content that has been announced earlier this year has been built for the iPad 2 and works just fine. And there is no real need for retina display or LTE in the classroom.
Therefore, even if the announcement and the device didn’t blow me away (to put it nicely) it is a matter of fact that Samsung, Asus, RIM, Amazon and everyone else in the “post PC era” game need to prepare to eat some more dust.
I still bet on Windows 8 as only remaining competitor for Apple. Chris and I are going to talk about that this Friday on review:ed, for sure. What are your thoughts?
Picture: dtl
