Some things in life are pretty predictable. You can usually count on millions of turkeys being sold in mid-November. There’s almost always a terrible summer movie sequel (or prequel) that should have gone straight to DVD. And Apple will unleash annually a new, upgraded version of their products. From what I’ve heard, the new iPad 2 will not disappoint.
As Apple tends to be secretive, all of the rumored improvements are mostly guesses. However, many of the improvements make sense, and use technology that Apple has already implemented in its other products in the past year, so we’ll assume that the general consensus of tech prognosticators is right.
New Features (reportedly) Include:
- USB Port
- 3 Versions of iPads: Wi-Fi only, Wi-Fi/UMTS (AT&T 3G network) and Wi-Fi/CDMA (Verizon 4G Network)
- Improved Speakers/Microphone
- Front and Back-Facing Cameras
The camera additions are probably the most exciting feature to the iPad upgrade. Introduced with the iPhone 4, many thought this would have been a feature on the original iPad, but with the growing number of businesses utilizing tablet computers, there is no doubt the iPad 2 will be conference ready.
I’ve had an impressive experience so far connecting to
standards-based (H.323 or SIP) room systems from my iPhone 4. The mobility and instant access is the obvious advantage, but I’ve also been more than pleased with solid picture quality, a user-friendly interface, the ability to receive computer content via H.239, and the quality of multi-point conferences using
Mirial’s ClearSea app. ClearSea even gives you far-end camera control with just the swipe of your finger. Beefing up the iPhone experience to the nearly 10-inch iPad turns the tablet into an instant video conferencing market favorite.
Emarketer predicts tablet sales will “Quadruple by 2012” to 81.3 million units sold – a development that will continue to shape the future of business communication, especially in video conferencing. This translates to millions of new standards-based endpoints ready and available to connect to each other and to room systems by using Mirial ClearSea. As an added bonus, once the important work is done, high-definition Angry Birds for the iPad is just a click away…
Would you use an iPad 2 for videoconferencing? Share your thoughts in the comments below.`
