The all new iPad 2

After all the rumors about iPad 2 release, date, it was launched yesterday by Apple founder Steve Jobs in California.

Wearing his traditional black crew neck sweater, Steve Jobs went over the features of the new iPad and how it’s miles aheard of it’s competitors like the Motorola Xoom and the Blackberry Playbook.

The first feature he highlighted was the iPad 2′s new faster chip known as the A5.

This processor makes the new iPad 2 much faster than the first one. It is 2x faster than the first edition iPad and the new graphics is also 9x faster in the iPad 2 than the first iPad.

The dual cor processor does not use any additional power than the previous one. Accoring to Jobs, the iPad 2 will be the first dual core tablet to mass ship.

Next Steve talked about the cameras. The iPad 2 spots dual cameras. One on the back and another in the front.

The ipad 2 also comes fitted with a gyroscope. It is also 33% thinner than the original ipad.  It is actually thinner than the iPhone 4.  It is also lighter than the old iPad.

Slimmer and lighter iPad 2 with Facetime

The new iPad also comes in 2 colors, which and black and Steve jobs revealed they will start shipping white colored iPads from day 1. It will also be availlable on AT&T and Verizon.

With all the new extra feutures and reduced size, you might think the battery life will also decrease. But Steve assures everyone the battery life will be 10 hours just like the old one.

Also the iPad 2 will maintain the same price as the iPad 1.  It’ll start selling at $499.

The iPad 3 will start shipping on March 11 in the U.S.A.

Other countries like the UK will start receiving their shippments from March 26.

The new iPad now has HDMI video output when you use the HDMI mirrored video ouptu accessory. You can view videos up to 1080p.

Accroding to Steve Jobs, the accessory that will be most popular will be the Smart Cover. It automatically wakes up the ipad when you lift it up and puts the iPad to sleep when you close it. It is hold in place magnetically. It’s very thin that it adds very litle weight to the ipad. It also cleans the screen. It comes in Polyethleen or leather.

Having seen the video, I’m positive it’ll be many people’s favorite accessory to add to the iPad. I just thoght to myself, this is real cool. It also comes in 5 different covers. The polyethleen covers will cost $39 and the leather smar covers will cost $69.

Apple also took the opportunity to introduce it’s new IOs 4.3. This will the the operating system on the iPad 2.

It enables you to use iTunes as a home theather by enabeling you to share your iPad with all your devices.

During the launch, apple also played with the Facetime application of the iPad 2.

Apple introduced two new apps. They are the iMovie for iPad. It comes with Precision editor, multitrack audio recording, New themes,  a universal app etc.

The iMovie app is a really cool full feature movie editing app for the iPad 2 and will cost $4.99 in the Appstore

The second app is Garageband. It has touch instruments, guitar amps and effects, 8 track recording and mixing,250+ loops and compatible with Mac version of the App.

It is quite an incredible litte app that can do so much. It’s mindblowing. And it will retail in the Appstore for $4.99 from March 11th.

Steve Jobbs declared 2011 as the year of the iPad 2.

However, we did not see the Thunderbolt connection that was rumored about.

Having seen the launch of the new iPad 2, I’m going to say this will be a tablet that is going to be hard to beat by competitors.