My Online Thoughts & Pontifications

Samsung will demonstrate an all-new 10.1-inch display at the SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium next week. Samsung's new display will have a 2560 x 1600 resolution, far in excess of anything on the tablet market today. At 300 dpi, the display also compares favorably with the Retina Display resolution of Apple's iPhone 4; meanwhile, Samsung claims the PenTile technology used in the display allows it to operate while drawing 40 percent less power.

Looks like an interesting new display from Samsung both in terms of resolution and power consumption. Could this be the first good reason to hold off on buying an iPad 2 and wait for the iPad 3?

One of the issues many film buffs have with the latest version of Apple TV, is its inability to stream video content at full 1080p. While we fully expect this to be resolved with the release of Apple TV 3 later in the year, the announcement of iPad 2 earlier this week may have brought us a solution sooner than we thought.

The combination of the new HDMI adapter for the iPad, the iPad 2's ability to output content through this at a 1080p and the iTunes Home Sharing features of iOS4.3 means you can easily stream full HD content to your TV.

While this isn't as neat as the Apple TV and doesn't give you the ability to rent films, for those like me that just use their Apple TV to stream iTunes content, you may now question why you would want an Apple TV at all?

Apple's 'Year of iPad 2' doesn't necessarily mean no more iPad updates in 2011

Apple could likely keep most of the iPad 2's internal hardware the same, shove a Retina Display into it in September, and still call it the iPad 2 (or iPad 2 HD, if you like). With the iPad 2's graphics hardware providing up to nine times the performance of the original iPad, quadrupling the number of pixels on the screen isn't going to be too much for the A5 processor to handle. Other hardware, such as system RAM, would likely need to be boosted to drive such a display, which could constrain production of a Retina Display-equipped iPad and drive up costs; however, to address those concerns, Apple could easily continue to offer the current iPad 2 alongside the iPad 2 HD model, positioning the Retina Display model as a "pro" iPad at a higher price in order to maintain margins.

So as became apparent this week, I was wrong in my suggestions that Apple may hold off the launch of iPad 2 until June, bring it in line with the iPhone release and its launch closer to the more profitable Autumn season for Apple.

A lot of people, me included, assumed that Apple's statement at the keynote on Wednesday that "2011 was the year of iPad 2" meant we wouldn't be seeing any other releases this year. However TUAW made some interesting observations yesterday that John Gruber's earlier suggestion that we may see a iPad 2.5 later in the year may not be quite so wide of the mark.

With the increased graphics performance of the iPad 2, Apple could easily stick a higher resolution screen on this and offer it alongside the existing iPad as a Pro or HD option, something they already do on their Macbook line. This would allow Apple to keep the $499 entry point while heading off some of the higher resolution options that will surely be out from competitors during the year.

How likely is this? Well I don't have a great track record on predictions but lets hedge our bets and go with 60/40 that we do see something in the Autumn

So, here’s my guess at Apple’s iPad plans for 2011:

• An iPad 2, fairly soon. Say, a March announcement, shipping in the first week of April. Faster, more RAM, maybe more storage, thinner and lighter, a front-facing camera.¹ Running iOS 4.3.

• iOS 5, announced at a developer event in March, shipping in June.

• iPad 3, shipping in September, announced at the annual iPod event. Running iOS 5.1, same as the next-generation iPod Touch.

How could Apple release a third-generation iPad just six months or so after the second one? Maybe it won’t be an actual next generation model. Maybe it’s more like an iPad 2.5, or iPad 2 Pro — a new higher-end model that sits atop the iPad product family, not a replacement for the iPad 2 models (which, of course, haven’t even been released yet).

Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber has made some interesting suggestions about the potential release strategy that Apple may try and follow with the iPad this year.

Now Gruber is widely regarded as having some of the best sources within Apple but in this article he goes to lengths to emphasise that these is pure guess work on his part. However its a strong arguement all the same.

Having a release of a new iPad so soon after the holiday buying period would be a little strange for Apple, with most of their other releases scheduled around this. And with tablets destined to be even bigger in 2011 than they were in 2010, they will want to ensure they get the largest slice of the available Christmas spending this year.

While I don't necessarily agree with Gruber that bringing the iPad in line with the iPod range makes sense, I could see the iPad being brought inline with the iPhone. After all they both run iOS and this would make their software release cycle much easier and avoid the iOS 4 issue they ran into last year, with the iPhone running it for months ahead of the iPad.

So I'm going to stick my neck out here (I know I will regret this) and suggest that rather than an iPad 2 in March followed by a iPad 2.5 in September as Gruber suggests, maybe they will just hold off on iPad 2 until June and announce it at WWDC with the iPhone 5.

Unlikley I know but its always fun to guess

Trickle (US$0.99) is refreshingly different. It does just one thing, and it does it very well: it displays the latest tweets of people you're following in bold white Helvetica letters on a black background. That's it. You can't use the app to respond or come up with your own clever tweets; you just read 'em as they come in. Developer Caleb Thorson refers to the app as a "passive Twitter client."

I have been using this myself for a number of weeks now and I have to say its a great way of consuming Twitter, especially if your iphone or ipad just sits on your desk all day.