A day before the scheduled Apple event, and I think it's time to mention my wishlist for the rumored iPad 2. For me, the original iPad was a great tool. It's plenty fast for what I want to do with it, it gets the job done, and it's built very well (it's taken a couple of falls, and a couple of head-butts from my son). So, in order for me to think about replacing it with the latest and greatest, I would need to see some pretty crazy changes. What would those be?
First off, you need to realize that there are two things that make the iPad: It's screen size for typing and visual display, and the software it can run. That is what distinguishes it from the iPod Touch, and in the end makes it a truly remarkable device. The list below outlines the changes I would like to see.
- Retina Display: Obviously, I would want to see the retina display on the iPad. And, honestly, I'm not sure how you can get any better than that for such a device. Once the display exceeds the number of pixels necessary for the human eye to distinguish between them.. where do you go? Rumors go back and forth on this for the iPad 2, and suggest it may not be there until the iPad 3. We will see.
- Camera? Okay, the front facing camera I can almost see for FaceTime. But a rear-facing camera? Can you honestly see yourself holding up the behemoth that is the iPad to take a picture or record video? I don't see it as a practical thing. Rather, I would prefer to use the camera on my iPhone and then sync it to the iPad. That would be cool.
- Faster Processor: Better technology, better performance, better speed, less power. All that would make the latest iPad a great buy.
- More Memory: Of course more storage would be great, but I'm also talking about RAM. I expect both to be available, and that will extend the capabilities of the iPad and software it runs.
- Expansion Ports: Currently the iPad only has the 30-pin proprietary connector. Additional dongles can be purchased for that connector, but for now that's all it has. What would be nice is to see some other standard ports become available. I don't think it would be USB (though that would be nice), but I would like to see the new Thunderbolt port for the iPad, perhaps even replacing the 30-pin connector port. It may not happen with this release, but I would like to see it happen on future releases. The only problem: the port would be bigger than the edge of the iPad would be. Other ports that would be nice would include an SD card slot.
- Longer Battery Life: The iPad already has a killer battery life, lasting pretty much all day on normal usage. But the longer I can go between charges, the more I can do with my iPad.
So that is pretty much it for the hardware. Most of these are just wishlist type things anyway, and even if they all happened on the iPad 2, I think I would be fine until the next iteration. But the one thing I am really looking forward to is an iOS update, a significant one. That is where I would like to see changes.
- Gestures; Apple has made gestures a core for their software, and I think taking it further would be logical. I've seen rumors for a gesture to replace the home button. That would be awesome.
- Better File Sharing Access: Right now I'm getting along well with Dropbox on my iPad, but it would be so nice to use a WebDAV client built in to get access to files, as well as an AFP or SMB client. NFS would rock as well, though I don't see it being particularly useful in a wireless environment.
- Speech: I would love to see speech to text and speech commands integrated into the iOS. Why? Because sometimes I would just like to speak and have the thing done, while I'm typing elsewhere. It could speed up a lot of processes.
- Great Remote Management: Apple has done a fantastic job with it's remote management tools for iOS, and with 10.7 pushing profiles, it's only going to get better.
So that's my list. Anything you all would like to see? Anything you would not want to see?
