The iPad 2 might cost the same as the first-gen tablet… but several components used to make it have actually increased in price: most notably, the price of the iPad 2’s touch display and the cost of manufacturing its new, dual-core A5 SoC.
The biggest component cost increase is for the touch display, which shot up almost $32 in price to $127, compared to the first-gen iPad’s $95 touch display.
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball said something recently that made a lot of Apple’s more seemingly incredible business decisions make sense to me: Apple wants to cut out the middle men by becoming the only middle man anyone using an iOS device needs to go through.
If you keep that in mind, it makes today’s latest news about Apple’s NFC ambitions make more sense. Reportedly, Apple has told carriers that the iPhone 5 won’t have NFC, as Apple is reportedly “concerned about a lack of a clear [NFC] standard.”
Vito Technology, developers of the wildly successful iOS astronomy app Star Walk celebrates the company’s 10th birthday this week with an update to its more recently released geography app, Geo Walk 3D World Factboook — and especially for Cult of Mac readers — an iPad2 giveaway.
Geo Walk is one of those apps that, while engaging and interesting enough on the smaller iPhone screen, finds new life and greater dimensions of engagement when used on an iPad.
Just marvel at the engineering behind the iPad 2’s Smart Covers. Between them, the iPad 2 and its Smart Cover contain an incredible 31 magnets.
Apple has made extensive use of magnets in the past – to hold a remote control to the iMac, for example, or keep the lid of a MacBook closed. But it has never used so many magnets in a product, or so elegantly.
The 31 magnets in the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover:
It’s really quite mind-boggling. iFixit has the details.
Did you get an iPad 2 after waiting in line Friday and Saturday? A prominent Apple analyst reported Sunday night New York City and Minneapolis Apple fans found only empty shelves. For those Apple tablets sold, the majority – 70 percent – went to new iPad owners.
“We believe this shows Apple is expanding its base of iPad users, which is critical to maintaining its early lead in the growing tablet market,” Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster said. Munster, who directed surveys of 236 line-waiters, estimates Apple sold 400,000 to 500,000 iPad 2 units – almost all in one day. That compares with the 300,000 first-generation iPads sold over its first weekend in 2010.
A common complaint by Android users is that iOS isn’t customizable. Well, jailbreaking removes that “issue,” and opens up a whole new world. Once jailbroken, users get access to thousands upon thousands of beautifully designed themes, a lot of which are being converted to an “HD” version for retina display support. A lot of recent themes feature HTML5 lockscreen animations, which are really quite spectacular. Hit the jump to check out 15 really cool themes.
One of the first things I wanted to try out on the iPad 2 was the cameras. I found them to be nice to have for convenience and Facetime calls, but less than adequate for photography. Let’s face it they suck at photography when compared to my iPhone 4 and Canon G12. The iPad 2 won’t be replacing either of these anytime soon. I think that is okay, because I don’t see myself wandering around trying to catch that special moment in time wielding an iPad 2. After all it is kind of big, right?
However, the cameras are there and I might as well make the best use out of them that I can. So I launched iTunes and I looked at the iPhone and iPod touch camera apps within my app library and installed some of them onto my iPad to test.
Here are the results.
Well that was fast! Just 2 days ago, the iPad 2 was released, and it’s now jailbroken. In the picture above, you can see a white Verizon WiFi+3G iPad 2 running Cydia. The jailbreak itself comes courtesy of @comex, the man behind JailbreakMe.com. Continue reading for more information!
Everyone out there that wants a white iPhone it looks like you can keep all your hopes and dreams alive, because Phil Schiller from Apple, Inc. says that you’ll be able to get one soon.
Eric Anderson, asked Phil, via Twitter about how he could obtain a white iPhone and Phil replied, “The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!). ”
What kind of iPhone? iPhone 4? iPhone 5? Will it work on GSM or CDMA networks?
It seems peculiar that Apple would release a white iPhone 4 model with the iPhone 5 allegedly around the corner. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Are you going to buy one?
[via Twitter]
Couldn’t get an iPad 2 this Friday? Don’t want to wait 3-4 weeks for shipping? Money not an object? A black 16GB WiFi iPad 2 is currently – and honestly – listed on eBay as “the world’s most expensive iPad 2” for a mere $199,999.99 (with Free Shipping). Best offers accepted. Better act fast!
A quick search on eBay revealed that more common upper end end prices for the newest iWonder seem to be between $2,000-4,000. Similar models are available on craigslist in Boston and New York with prices topping out at between $1,500-2,000.
Less exorbitant resale prices are also available, so be sure to shop around. If you do spend several orders of magnitude more on your iPad than it’s worth, be sure to get a Swarovski Crystal iPad Case to match!
It looks as though early iPad 2 adopters are being hit by a previous problem with Apple displays on the iPhone 4 that had yellow tinting appearing on the LCD or backlight bleed through.
These problems are being reported on various news sites and I’ve experienced one of them myself. My own iPad 2 Wi-Fi-3G 64GB AT&T model is displaying some LCD anomalies on the portion of the display closest to the Home button.
It looks like the Apple Japan store has posted a message about the earthquake — if you can help us translate it (they’ve posted it as an image, so there’s no way to copy and paste it for a robot-translation) we’d be much obliged.
Here’s a translation sent in by Cult of Mac readers @nick_gmit, @Sugarless_GiRL_ , @Ignignokt:
“To those who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami, we send sympathies from our heart – In this deep …sadness, we are praying for the victims and their families.”
While we’re on topic, Apple also set up donations through iTunes for the Red Cross to help victims of the earthquake and tsunami, as it did after the earthquake in Haiti.
Apple has waived their usual 30% cut and donations start in increments of $5.
Early benchmark tests of Apple’s new dual-core A5 chip featured in the iPad 2 have revealed that each processing core is actually clocked at a slower speed than the previous A4 chip, which features in the original iPad, iPhone 4, and the latest iPod touch.
Tests performed by iOSnoops show that overall, each of the A5’s cores runs at least 10% slower than the single core featured in Apple’s A4 chip, running at around 890 MHz in comparison to the 1 GHz A4. The speed of the A5 fluctuates depending on the applications it’s running however, with its lowest speed clocked at 861 MHz and its highest at 894 MHz.
If you weren’t fortunate enough to order your iPad 2 through the Apple online store yesterday, you may want to try third-party suppliers and Apple specialists if you want one anytime soon, as shipping time for the second-generation tablet has today increased to 3-4 weeks through Apple.
When the iPad 2 launched yesterday, shipping times started at 3-4 days. They then increased to 5-7 days shortly afterwards, before rising again to 2-3 weeks. Now you could face a month-long wait for that skinny new Apple tablet, while the company seems to be struggling with demand once again.
It hasn’t yet been revealed by Apple how many iPad 2s it sold on launch day, however, industry analysts have predicted that a staggering 600,000 of the devices will be sold during its first weekend. Supply shortages across Apple retails stores, third-party resellers, and now the Apple online store, certainly strengthen these predictions.
[via 9to5 Mac]
Here’s some great news! If you are an iPad Wi-Fi + 3G owner on the AT&T network you are in luck.
You can remove the SIM card from your old iPad and insert it into the new one. Viola! You’ll have instant access to your current AT&T data plan, account, etc.
Apple representatives explained to me that all iPad 2’s are sold — unlocked. You can use any carrier compatible SIM card in the AT&T version of the iPad 2 (or actually any iPad).
So my AT&T 3G connection on my new iPad 2 was up and running instantly with my old iPad’s SIM card. I’ll end up giving the unused SIM card to the person buying my older iPad.
Here it is the iPad 2. After spending long grueling hours in the iPad 2 line at the Apple Store inside of Baybrook Mall in Friendswood, Texas just outside of Houston — I’m worn out!
However, I thought you’d like some photos of the iPad 2 being unboxed before I head off for some grub and well deserved R&R.
So click the read link below and enjoy!
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2WHnDE3i7U
Months of anticipation. Hours of physically waiting. Finally, I got my claws on the iPad 2. First impressions: It’s amazing. It’s a lot like the original iPad only anorexic, sports two cameras, and packs beefier processing power. Apps are fast just like everyone is claiming. Photobooth is a lot more fun to goof around on that I thought it would be. It feels a little bit heavier than I expected, but not in a bad way. It’s solid. My only gripe so far is that the Smart Case doesn’t stay totally flush with the iPad’s casing when you flip it around the back of the iPad when using it. Stay tuned for our in-depth review coming soon.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3wKYDkCrMs
Remember when logicboards were one of the biggest components of a computer? Not any more.
An iFixit teardown of the iPad 2 reveals a logicboard the size of a couple of matchbooks. By contrast, the three batteries consume almost all the interior space.
The teardown is being published live on the iFixit site.
The iPad 2 isn’t easy to open, iFixit says: it’s sealed with a ton of glue.
Here’s a couple more shots of the internals:
Almost shamefully, I’ve waited in line on launch day for every iPhone and iPad. Each waiting experience has had it’s highs and lows. All have definitely been memorable, but today’s takes the cake. Waiting in line at Apple’s Store at Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix, I was surprised to run into Phoenix Suns basketball player Mickael Pietrus waiting at the front of the line to get his hands on the iPad 2.
Today is iPad 2 day and like the rest of you I got up early today. I’d say way to early since it was 2:45 am CST and I was surprised to find out that my alarm clock on my iPhone 4 could be set to such an early hour. The engineers at Apple HQ in Cupertino could not have done a better job on that alarm, but for once I was wishing they’d screwed it up since I think it should be a crime for an alarm clock to ring before 5:00 am.
Feast your eyes on this gorgeous combination of old and new, as photographed and (at least in part) brought bang up-to-date by Pedro Moura Pinheiro.
It’s an original Power Mac G4 Cube, circa 2000, but with a few modifications to its insides. The original 450MHz G4 processor and 256MB of RAM have been replaced with dual G4 chips and 1.5GB of RAM. Those changes were made by its original owner, but Pedro wanted to take things a step further when he bought the machine. It’s now zippy enough to run Photoshop CS4 without any trouble.
Pedro says: “The only thing I did was get an Intel 40GB SSD, place it in an external Firewire 400 enclosure, and install Leopard on it – basically, Firewire 400 is much faster than the internal IDE interface, so the speed benefit is greater than trying to install an IDE SSD inside the Cube.”
He knows what he’s talking about. Check out this stop-motion video of him dismantling, then re-assembling, a G4 iMac. Great stuff.
College student Amanda Foote sold her place at the head of the iPad line at Apple’s 5th Ave. store for $900.
Who did she sell it to? The guy right next to her apparently. Why? No one knows.
She camped out for two nights for the $900. She plans to buy tickets to Lady Gaga.
“line is around the block” — Paul Arrington in Charlestown, SC.
“Hmmm, I wonder what these could be?!?” — Joey Egan at Apple Flagship Store in San Francisco.
“Its crazy how many ppl r standing in line 4 the new iPad,” tweets Tracie Cooke-Wilkes from the Oxmoor Mall in Louisville, Kentucky.
Here are some more pictures from around the U.S.:
Send your own to news@cultofmac.com and we’ll post them up.
If you’re thinking of visiting Target for an iPad 2 later today, better think again.
We just got a report from the stockroom of one Target store, which has only five iPad 2s in stock for sale at 5PM today. They are all 64GB, WiFi-only models in black.
An employee at the store just sent us the following message with the picture above:
“stockroom we only got 5 of the 64gb wifi only black models insulting right.
Stock levels at big box retailers like Target and Best Buy were expected to be much lower than Apple’s retail stores, but this is shockingly low.
It’s not clear if this is the inventory level at all Target stores, but I’d say it’s typical. Apple is offering the iPad 2 for sale at about 10 different retailers, so stocks are likely to be stretched thin. Obviously, retailers are keeping their inventory levels secret: they don’t want to scare potential shoppers away.
The Target employee summed it up nicely: “Better off waitin outside apple or best buy.”
The president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank came under fire after a comment that sounds oddly like the 2.0 version of “Let them eat cake.”
President William Dudley was peppered with questions about food prices from the public during a meet-and-greet session with business leaders in Flushing, Queens. As they asked him about issues of the day, ranging from oil prices to employment forecasts, they began to accuse him of being out of touch.
As he tried to explain how rising commodity prices translate into supermarket sticker shock, the audience asked him when he actually did his own food shopping last.
