So What The Heck Did Apple Announce?

So Apple had an event the other day. Pretty cool stuff. The video’s available on the internet, but here’s a recap:

Steve Jobs is, in fact, still alive. He presented at the event and didn’t mention anything about his health or anything.

Throughout the presentation there was the obligatory numerical bragging: 100 million iPhones have been sold. 15 million iPads have been sold (more than every tablet PC ever) for a total of $9.5 billion in revenues. The iPad has a 90% market share. 100 million books, from over 2500 publishers, have been downloaded from iBooks. Apple has paid more than $2 billion to developers in App Store revenues. Not counting iPhone apps running in windowed or 2X mode, the iPad has 65,000 dedicated and universal apps, compared to 100 at most for competing tablets. There are 200 million iTunes accounts. Apple is the world’s largest supplier of video editing software.

First small announcement: Random House is now on iBooks. That’s 17,000 new books.

The big announcement, however was the iPad 2. No specific specs were given, but we do know that it uses a new dual-core Apple A5 chip. According to Apple, the A5 is up to twice as fast as the A4 but with the same low power consumption. Also, according to Apple, the iPad 2 will have 9X faster graphics performance than the iPad, and will be the first dual-core tablet to ship in volume. It’s lighter (1.3 vs 1.5 lbs) and 33% thinner (8.8 mm vs 13.4 mm) than the original iPad (he iPhone 4 is 9.3mm thick, for comparison). It’s got front and rear cameras, FaceTime, and a new Photo Booth app, complete with effects; in addition, it’s got a gyroscope just like the iPhone 4.

The iPad 2 has the same screen resolution (XGA), battery life (10 hours), capacities (16/32/64GB) and prices ($499/$599/$699 for Wi-Fi model, $130 extra for 3G), as the original. One major difference, though is that the 3G model is now available in either a GSM version through AT&T or a CDMA version through Verizon. There’s no dual-band version though, and presumably both are carrier locked. In addition, all iPad 2 models are available in black or white. (Still no white iPhone 4 yet.) This means that there are a total of eighteen different SKUs: three different storage capacities (16GB, 32GB, 64GB) times three different wireless chipsets (Wi-Fi only, Wi-Fi+GSM, Wi-Fi+CDMA) times two different colors (black, white). It ships March 11 in the US, March 25 internationally.

In addition, they announced a few accessories. Apart from the obligatory $29 dock, the first major accessory is an iPad 2 “smart cover” case: it attaches to the iPad 2 magnetically, covering the front side of the device. When the cover is attached, the iPad 2 automatically goes to sleep, and when it is removed, it wakes up. The foldable case also doubles as a two-position stand, propping the iPad 2 up either at a low angle (for typing) or a higher angle (for watching movies). It’s available March 11 in either polyurethane ($39) or leather ($69), in five colors each.

The other accessory announced is the $39 Digital AV Adapter. This allows you to mirror your iOS device’s display to your TV or monitor through HDMI (though you’ll have to supply the HDMI cable yourself. It’s compatible with the iPod touch 4G, iPhone 4 and original iPad at resolutions of up to 720p, but hook it up to an iPad 2 and you’ll get 1080p (though movie playback is limited to 720p). It’s also got a Dock Connector pass-thru so you can sync or charge your device while it’s plugged into your TV.

Apple also spent a lot of time talking about iOS 4.3, whose golden master recently got sent to developers and whose compatibility iTunes update just got pushed out. It’s got the Nitro JavaScript engine from OSX, meaning that it’ll run JavaScript twice as fast as before. 4.3 also adds support for iTunes Home Sharing, allowing you to stream music from your PC or Mac to your iOS device. AirPlay has also been improved: it now supports Web videos and most apps, photo slideshows (complete with transitions). One button searches for an Apple TV and pipes the video or audio to it automatically. You can now delete partially installed apps (FINALLY!), and there’s a new font (Noteworthy) in Notes. iPad owners can now set their switches to either orientation lock or mute, and the GSM iPhone 4 now supports tethering over Wi-Fi to up to five simultaneous devices like its CDMA cousin (if you have tethering in your plan). It drops March 11 for the iPhone 3GS, GSM iPhone 4, iPod touch 3G and later, and iPad (though the CDMA iPhone 4 version has been delayed indefinitely).

Finally, two iPad apps were shown off. First is the iPad version of the soon-to-be-universal iMovie for iOS ($4.99, requires iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4G, iPad update coming March 11). It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: iMovie on the iPad. There’s a precision editor with a multitouch interface (set start and stop points at the same time with two fingers). There’s multitrack audio with waveforms, volume control, voiceover recording and easy importing of music from your iTunes library. You get full control over transitions, face detection over stills, and the requisite plethora of themes, titles, transitions, and (over 50) stock audio clips. And finally, you can play your videos over AirPlay, send them to your camera roll or iTunes library, or upload them in HD to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or CNN iReport.

The other was GarageBand for iPad ($4.99, coming March 11). Again, it’s what you’d expect: GarageBand for iPad. In addition to the 8-track recording and mixing, guitar amps and effects, and over 250 loops, there’s also the virtual on-screen guitars, keyboards and drums. The virtual keyboards have all the controls (pedals, knobs, etc.) of their real-world counterparts. Some of the synths even have theremin-like sliding and vibrato control (the higher up on the key you press, the more vibrato there is). The keyboards and drums are velocity sensitive (thank you, accelerometer). For guitar, there’s a “smart guitar” function: just pick a chord and strum, or tap individual notes. Or, just punch in a chord progression and it plays automatically – Apple says it’s easy enough to be used by people who have never played guitar before. GarageBand for iPad is compatible with its Mac cousin’s project files (so you can start a project on your Mac and finish it on your iPad, or vice versa). You can export your song to AAC format and either add them to your iTunes library directly, or email them.

So what did you guys think of the new hotness? Post in the comments.