iPad 2 in Time for Holiday Season? What Can We Expect?

As the Fall Keynote event ended there was no One more thing nor was there a No more new products will be launched this year line.

Not being in the market for a pwetty netbook, I personally found the Back to The Mac Keynote rather underwhelming and all it did was make me long for more. For once my credit card thanked Steve, because while I do fancy the new 13″ MacBook Air, benchmarks confirmed that my Fall 2008 2.4Ghz 1st Gen unibody still a rather nifty machine is and the new lightweight comes nowhere near. At the same price for a totally souped up 13″3 MacBook Air, the MPB 15″4 i5 is a no-brainer for those who want a main machine rather than a droolbook.

While I might be a lover of all things Apple, I just don’t buy everything Steve launches. And Karma’s a bitch.

It is highly likely that there might be more updates over the next 10-15 days, just in time for the Holiday Season. So what can we expect to still be announced in 2010?

iPad Gen. 2

While one would expect this to be announced at the next early Summer event, just in time for the new fiscal year, progress made over the last months has been too huge to not expect an update. Additionally 9to5mac reported today that the second version of the iPad ads have been shot last month already.
The pointers are give-aways: Retina display, Facetime with dual camera, 720p screen to allow easy sync with AppleTV/iTunes HD rentals.
Plus iMovie HD app for iPad.

MacBookPro Hardware Bumps

• Screens on all MacBookPros will be updated and come with the new higher resolution, and thinner, screens setting the lower bar for a 13″ laptop at 1366*768px, the same as the resolution of the 11″ MBA. 15″4 MBP will receive 1680*1050px standard resolution with optional 1080p resolution.
  I doubt that the 17″ MBP will receive the optional screen display resolution known from the 27″ iMac, 2560*1440px.
• CPU processor speed bumps
• Facetime GM and HD iSight camera

While no iPad 2 leaks have been reported yet, this upgrade is a logic one right in time for the Holiday Season and also fit in with the new ‘content delivery’ approach massively boosted since the new AppleTV was launched. Does Apple think the iPad needs a new event is the question though or will the iPad replace the classic iPod event in the future?

The MBP hardware bumps might seem more doubtful with the latest models launched only in April 2010 but with the focus early next year being on iPhone 5 and Mac OS 10.7, AKA Lion, it is doubtful that we will see another update to laptops before a possible MBP overhaul at the Fall 2011 event when we might get MacBookPros without optical drives. No, we will not see Blu-Ray drives as they do compete with iTunes HD rentals.