Steve Jobs unveils iPad 2.0

Steve Jobs unveiled the new “Thinner. Lighter. Faster” iPad to the world’s press yesterday.

Apple is claiming to – at least for the time being – have moved to level two in the race for tablet computer dominance before competitors had even completed the first.

Jobs questioned the actual sales of Samsung’s Galaxy device, and pointed at Google’s lack of apps – the main tool of Apple’s iPad.

With a dual core processor, two cameras, and a new operating system, iPad 2 was described as “more evolution than a revolution” by research analyst Daniel Ernst, but as a “drastically different” and “sexy” device by Patrick Goss at Techradar and Jobs himself.

Jobs was happy to put his own spin on the common criticism of Apple products as a triumph of style over substance, pointing to the fact that it is “in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough”.

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing,” he continued. “And nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.”

Apple makes most of its revenue with ‘post PC devices’, the importance of which is underlined by Jobs’s decision to personally launch the new device despite being on long term sick leave.

Apple’s share of the tablet market is expected to be 78% by the end of 2011, according to eMarketer, while In-Stat predicts that sales of all tablet devices will hit 58 million units by 2014.

The sound of the PC’s death knell continues to ring around the industry.  Smartphone sales have already surpassed PCs’s;  Google has seen a quarter-on-quarter increase in mobile searches of 30%; and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp continues to invest in tablet-specific apps, namely The Daily.

Awareness of this shift means that Apple’s speed off the mark in launching its next generation tablet will only hold off the competition for so long.

Google’s Android operating system took only a short time to catch up with the popularity of Apple’s iPhone, and it remains to be seen whether the same trend will be followed by iPad 2’s Google-powered competitor Motorola Xoom.

iPad 2 will be available to ship in the US in a week and to the UK on 25 March.  Prices will range between £429 and £699.