ipad 2, who should buy?

iPad 2 is since 3/11 on sale and was sold over the weekend 1 Million times, twice as much as estimated.
However, the big question is who should buy the ipad 2.
It is a no brainer for everybody who does not has an iPad yet. For sure the iPad 2is the fastest, best looking and best battery power of all tablets and there are over 65,000 applications available for the iPad. Androids tablets can right now not over more than 50 apps in best case.

But interesting is that 60% of the iPad 2 buyers are owners of the first iPad, this is a significant number which i cant really understand. The iPad 2 is twice as fast as iPad 1, 33% thinner and has two cameras (first version had no camera). But is this enough to replace the existing iPad? Not for everybody, especially that the iPad 1 resale price did fall under 50% of original price. this is a lost between $250 and $400 within less than a year.

If you have already an iPad, you should consider to wait for the October release of iPad 4G. Especially if you a traveller like me. My biggest problem today (with the ipad) is not solved with iPad 2. I like to watch movies through Netflix, but hotel Wifi is mostly slow and expensive. Hilton hotels are charging per day per device $10. And the Wifi connection is very bad, much too slow to stream movies. I am not a big first person shooter gamer, and i am right now happy with facetime over my iPhone.
Netflix movies streaming with 3G is not an option neither, it is just too slow.

Another consideration for buying an iPad 2, is to buy it with 3G or Wifi only. Normally i would say Wifi only if you have an iPhone and use tethering over the iphone, it costs the same as the monthly 3G fees on the ipad ($20), however it saves you $130 for your ipad. The big disadvantage is that you won't have assisted GPS with the Wifi only device. GPS apps will partly work on the the Wifi only version, but will use cell phone towers for positioning. This is much more inaccurate than satellites and not allows available depending where you are. As long you are in big cities Cell Tower GPS works fine. You just need to make sure your wifi is on (more battery usage). It does not matter if you are connected to a wifi channel as long it is running.
The 3G option is most desired if you want to use your iPAd as a supersized navigation device. I can see a lot of usage for it, especially with Route 66 navigation software which uses AR to show you exaclty where you are with real street image.

It is a smart marketing move from Apple to have the GPS on the communication board for 3G.

If you are an owner of iPad 1 and you want to sell it, then the best bet is to sell it over eBay in countries where even the original iPad is hard to get like Poland, Japan or India etc.

Otherwise i would recommend to wait till end of year the 4G version is coming out.

iPad needs to be updated

We all know there is a new iPad coming and we are all speculating what features it will have.
I am almost positive two features will be not included. Neither are changeable battery nor a SD card slot.
Why? Because Apple has no mobile device which allows you to change the battery or has a SD card slot (i don't count notebook anymore as mobile).

But a few things we need are obvious.

1. Retina display
I am using as a smart phone the iPhone 4 (I guess in June the iPhone 5) and the screen of the iPad looks so bad now. When I got it new, i did not know better and thought how cool, but since i have the iPhone4, I wished the iPad had a better screen.

2. Cameras
I never thought I need a camera on the iPad, but since Skype works with camera on iOS it would make so much fun to talk to my family overseas from the backyard, the couch or kitchen without holding the heavy macbook pro. And to be honest I feel the iPhone screen is too small for video calling. It is fun but iPad would be so much more useful. Or webex with split screen this would be much better, i could do my conference calls at Starbucks.
Rear facing camera would be nice as well, not that I think I need it, but it would not hurt to have it.

3. Faster processor
Some movies or games are still not 100% smooth, and if they are, faster is always better. The real issue i have with office documents converted to pages or numbers. To edit them takes forever, sped would help.

These are the hardware wishes. For the iOS I have some more.

1. Multiple user login
Ok, i admit we have already two iPads, but still everybody is using my iPad, it would be nice to give my wife and son their own login with their own Apple account to download apps. The device is expensive enough to allow multiple user accounts.

2. Better data sharing.
Everything should be in the cloud or at least easy to share between the devices without the need to upload to mobile.me, to sync with iTunes or to email.
All apple devices in one household should have at least read access to all photo albums (maybe the function is already there and i don't know it) but I am so annoyed that i take pictures with the iPhone and then i have to send them via email to the iPad to post them in my blog. Why not automatically have access like calendar or address book?
I am fine if it does only work in same wifi network.

3. Real airplay
Same as above, but for all movies or songs. Why can't I watch a movie on my iPad from my iTunes library in the server room without work arounds through the browser or other devices?
Right now i can play from my iPad to my apple TV but not from computer to iPad. The iPad should be like the apple tv.



4. Support of any wifi printer
I hate work arounds, just help us to print to any wifi printer or at least to most of the big brands.

5. Microsoft Office
This is a call to Microsoft. I would be willing to pay the full office price if I could get it on the iPad. I work in America, I work in a country where you need office. Period.


- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

Total connect

Internet, wifi, augmented reality and social network is changing our life.
Computers, processors and memory get faster and cheaper. Combining all these things together with everyday electronic items like toaster, fitness tools or microwave gives us a new way of life.
Soon we will be able to decide which item should be connect to the world and which not.
Today we have already scales with wifi to collect and save our weight to our phones or computers and can send updates to Facebook or Twitter. This helps to get controlled through friends or trainers, In countries like US where friends can live hundreds of miles away.

Microwaves will soon have wifi with a scale and camera build in.
We put our food into the microwave. It will measure the weight send an image of the product to a DB and second later the microwave will set temperature and time to the perfect amount.

Toasters will burn funny images on our toasts, which we chose from an online image library.

Our cars will be connected to our smart phone not that we only can find the car on a big parking lot but as well to start and open the car and to see the car health. The car will post to our Facebook page when an oil change is needed and set an appointment with the car dealer knowing when we have time by looking in our calendar and social behavior.

Our fridge will have a touchscreen in the door which shows us an image from inside with information which item will soon be bad and what we should order because we run out of it. We can order everything through the internet using the touchscreen.

The ability is unlimited and in a few years, it will be not anymore the question what a smart phone can do but which utility we should replace because it can't connect with the world or our life.

The only negative part could be that companies would start to think how to monetize every day items.

I believe it will self regulate and not too much advertising but new ways to monetize which we don't know yet how.

The total connect future is big and interesting. It is right now a good time to follow these new waves and to be a part of it.

Companies which will help to make this total connect future secure and build on top of all a perfect privacy setting toll will be the biggest winners.

The technology is changing too fast that many companies can't keep up with proper rules and settings for privacy. It is normal that we first develop a product and then work on the privacy after first complains are coming in.


- Posted using My iPad

Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Spring Hill,United States