If you haven’t heard, today is iPad 2 day. If you are not up on the complete specs you can hit Engadget and John Gruber‘s great reviews.
Here are the big changes:
- Slimmer design (1/3 thinner than the original iPad and thinner than the iPhone 4)
- Lighter (slightly)
- Dual core A5 CPU @ 1Ghz (assumed to be a Cortex A9 variant)
- 512MB RAM (versus 256MB of the original)
- 9X faster graphics (all but confirmed by John Gruber)
- Front and rear cameras (Front: VGA – 640×480 | Rear: 720P)
- Gyroscope
There is nothing mind blowing here, but package that all up and it is an impressive device, even as a follow-up to the original iPad.
Now to the heart of the matter. Alongside the release of the hardware, game developers are ready to capitalize on the improved specs of the Apple’s latest. The big 3 games that feature iPad 2-enhanced graphics/functionality are Infinity Blade, Dead Space and Real Racing 2 HD. The first 2 have been out for a little while and were updated earlier today to implement improved graphics, Real Racing 2 HD launched today and has iPad 2 specific rendering in place from the get go.
It is important to note that the developers probably didn’t have access to the actual iPad 2 hardware pre-release, so they developed special versions while targeting an assumed performance level. Games that take full advantage of the new hardware capabilities will not be seen until developers have some extended time to write new code that utilizes the extra RAM, upgraded graphics chip and the extra CPU core.
If you are a frequent GTD visitor you probably know that we are big fans of Apple devices, and we just happen to have an iPad 2 on hand to compare the performance of the optimized titles against the original iPad. We couldn’t quite make the 8pm posting time, but check back later tonight and there should be some first-hand video here. We will also send out word via the GTD twitter account.
Update: Video is ready! Also, it’s worth noting that both iPads are running iOS 4.3.
