What was MIA from the big iPad announcements today?

Blaming the device because it notifies you that you have a new e-mail? Really? That's like blaming the telephone because you get a telemarketing call.

If you don't want to get interrupted for an hour, then turn off push notifications for an hour, or set the mail to fetch.

It's suppose to be better productivity anyway to take breaks every 20 minutes.

The iPad 2 probably will have 512 Mb RAM, since the iPhone 4 has it for iMovie.

Hope flash/SSD gets cheaper, then you'll get your higher capacity storage, while the device price stays the same.

The "no pre-orders" thing would seem to be a likely problem, (for customers, not Apple).

I'm with you on all those points & then some. I'm not buying another IPad until Lion & iOS are merged together & it has the additional capabilities of a MacBook. Which cannot come soon enough as I detest laptops in every way! And hopefully on the top end we will be up to a quarter ter & have plenty of cloud access & syncing to supplement. Finally, I hope to buy my phone & service directly from Apple & pick my own LTE towers & plan with no contract & no subsidies. For a $50 monthly bill I would pay a grand upfront for my iPhone 6 or beyond!

I want apple to provide iphoto and iweb on the ipad. I have been waiting a year for it.

I'm not too excited about the new iPad though one of my customers will buy several new ones due to the front camera for video conferencing. Speed & storage are no issues, nor is weight (they're now carrying very nice but heavy Lenovo laptops). What I didn't read yet is the runtime memory in the new iPad: is it still 256 MB or was it increased to 512 or 1024 MB as on the iPhone 4? I'd expect an iPad to run smoother and snappier than an iPhone but that's still wishful thinking.

Personally I'm far more eager for OSX Lion, the next version of iWork and MobileMe becoming free (I now use Dropbox a lot).

I'll wait for iPad 2.1 or 3.0 I think and meanwhile stick to the original one (64 GB, no 3G).

Anyone remember that a couple of weeks ago the next big thing was going to be Near Field Communications with Apple owning a big chunk of how we pay for things in shops? Maybe that's more of a mobile phone thing for later in the year?

Agreed. What was all this " The Year Of 2011" all about! Pathetic,even by Apple's standards! Like I said, it's all filler!

I'm actually ok with the new hardware. I think it's great. That's not where the competitors were catching up, though; it's the software. I know Apple can update that, but I need to see it. Better notifications, a way to at least fake the multi-page multitasking from the Playbook and WebOS, and my dream over all dreams is the one they'd never do... Flash. I just want a toggle in safari preferences that has a disclaimer that Flash is the devil. It can crash or drain my battery and be defaulted to off. I just want access to every site. I want to reiterate that I love the hardware.

Earlier today Apple unveiled the iPad 2, there were lots of impressive technical specs to drool over, however two pretty important things remain a mystery, will there be Thunderbolt connectivity and how much RAM does it feature?

The lead-in to this article asked, 'What was MIA from today's iPad announcement?' What was missing was Steve 's customary, 'Oh, and one more thing.'

I agree with #53. This article is just a quick throw-off and just so much babble about what is actually a solid and significant upgrade.

The author and most of the commenters sound like a bunch of bored dilettantes, disappointed that Apple didn't satisfy each and every one of their little whims.

If anyone were to study the marketing video shown during the presentation, they might realize the real and important impact the iPad is having on people's lives, and not just stupid games. Business, health, education, etc. are experiencing profound effects from the iPad and its software.

The iPad 2 will push this revolution along significantly faster with its improved features and power.