tuesdayDeveloper;

There’s no shortage of speculation about the iPad 2. Wishlists and predictions abound—but I’m going to add my own as well. In addition to telling you what I’d like and what I think is likely, I’ll give you my take on what other people think is likely.

Release Date
Februaryish
Apple has had the iPad 1 out long enough to justify an upgrade, but they aren’t going to release it right after Christmas, they’ll wait a couple months.

New Specs
Probably higher resolution:
I’m not sure if the resolution of iPad 2 will match the iPhone 4, that would be ideal, but that would also be quite a feat (though Apple is prone to exceed expectations).

Front and rear-facing cameras
I’m not the only one who is sure that iPad 2 will have a couple cameras, it’s practically a given.

Thinner
While I couldn’t care less if  version 2 is thinner than version 1 (I think it’s already pretty good) I’m pretty sure it will be at least a third slimmer than its predecessor.

Processing Speed
There’s some speculation that iPad 2 will have better processing power; if so, I doubt it will be significant. One of the key characteristics of the iPad is that its battery lasts a long time. Faster processing power will retard the battery life and so I don’t think that significant increase in processor or ram specs is likely. While adding processing power will increase the functionality of the device, that defeats the purpose of the iPad. The iPad is for basic operations: surfing the web, checking your email, reading and editing a short document. The iPad isn’t for major things (they’re not trucks) image editing, lots of writing, and programming weren’t the intended purpose of the tablet device although I think that could be a use of future tablets, just not the iPad, at least not any time soon.

Screen Size
I don’t think that Jobs will allow a smaller iPad to be made, even though there may be some market for it. I hope I’m wrong when I think that Apple isn’t going to increase the size of their iPad screen, though it would be really nice.

Battery Life
I wouldn’t put it past Apple to improve the life of the battery even if it is thinner, they just do stuff like that.

Online Storage Backup
Also not likely, though someone should do it.

Apple iDonate to Mahon Program
Also not likely.

What do you think will make it to the next iPad? What do you hope is in the next iPad?

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I’ve recently been using a new video game service called Onlive. The service currently lets you login and and play high end 3D games that are streamed to you over the internet. The game itself is running remotely, on the company’s high-end servers. It is only the video of the game that is streaming down to your local computer or television. As you use your keyboard and mouse to control the game, those signals are sent back through the internet and to the server running the game. This all happens fast enough that it feels as if the game is running locally on your computer. There are many benefits to this system. You don’t have to have very powerful hardware to play high-end games. You can login and play games anywhere you are, even on low powered devices like the iPad. All you need is a decently fast internet connection…

The thing that interests me most about this service is not the games. Games was the hardest problem to solve because they require low latency to make them fun to play. But what if you could run any software, not just games? I often deal with 3D animation software. Most of the time I’m limited to using my one (expensive) desktop machine when I want to do 3D rendering.  But with a service like Onlive, you could access high-end servers for this type of work, and access them from any device – anywhere. It’s just the video interface of what you’re doing being streamed to you, so again, all the high-powered computing is being done remotely.

With this type of technology, personal computer ownership becomes less important. We still need devices to access the cloud service, but these devices need not be so powerful. In fact, all the hardware can be put to use in rendering more interesting and useful interfaces, instead of being used up processing software.

And then there is the obvious benefits of the cloud. However, with a system like this, you could have your entire “computer” in the cloud. Presently we tend to trust only certain things to the cloud… Our email, our backups, picture transfers…

With a system like Onlive, you could “rent” a “computer” that has near infinite processing and storage capabilities, that is always on, and is always accessible from everywhere. Currently we tend to think of the cloud in terms of a place to “transfer” our content from device to device. Well if you’re streaming the whole computer interface and experience, there is no longer the need to transfer files to and from  your local devices. You are always just accessing your one personal super computer cloud from whichever device you happen to be on. There is no need to sync because all your files are always in just the one location.

So then you hear the usual complaints… “But then I don’t have ownership of my data!” or “what if the internet is down” or “I don’t want a company to have control of my data, what if they go out of business.”

Just as we currently use online services to backup files of site, you could back up your files locally with a local backup in your home. Problem solved.

I for one welcome the day when I can have limitless computing power and be rid the headache that is file management  today.

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If you had to choose to only use products and services from of the major technology giants, who would it be? Google? Apple? Microsoft?

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