Apple iPad 2 Fails to Impress, Inspires Speculations About iPad 3.
The Apple iPad 2 does impress with its much better performance, thinner form-factor and similar price compared to the first-gen tablet from Apple. But the second-generation slate from the company lacks radical improvements. It does not offer a package of features that will inevitably be available on competing devices and eventually on the iPad 3.
The second-generation Apple iPad is definitely a device that is full of compromises. This is hardly something surprising. Firstly, Apple iPad is a product that Apple has been selling at below the company's usual profit margins in order to gain ground on the market it believes in. Secondly, Apple iPad is the first media tablet that became astonishingly successful and its maker needs to maintain the lead to make the successor not only bigger, but overwhelmingly bigger; thus, Apple needs to maintain the price-points, improve user experience, boost performance, enable new applications, but avoid costly innovative features. This is what was exactly done with the iPad 2. Unfortunately, not only the innovations disappeared from the final device, but Apple decided to cut even low-cost features that would have made the life of a typical user more comfortable.
