Anthony's first impressions of the iPad 2 for Mobile Musicians.

Huge thanks to Anthony who emailed me his thoughts on the new iPad 2, especially for mobile music makers. Here's what he has to say:

I stood out in line yesterday and got an iPad 2. I thought I'd share my impressions (specific to mobile music) of the iPad 2.

+Flat back.
I'm sure many mobile musicians share my frustration with the way the first iPad would rock when played on a flat surface.

+Much wider dynamic range speaker.
Sound quality is still low, but now you can actually hear bass notes.

+Smart cover stand positions.
Might interest mobile music folks.

+Most importantly, speed.
Everything is much faster. To me, the most noticeable improvement is in switching between apps (although the difference is noticeable pretty much everywhere). Now it feels like
the iPad actually multitasks. This makes negotiating the pasteboard a lot less tedious.

My only reservation is that the new jacks (headphone and dock) are probably less robust. Less of the connector is inside each jack (because the jacks follow the iPad's new contoured edge), resulting in
what is probably a mechanically inferior connection. Considering there were already numerous complaints from the mobile music crowd even when the dock cable fit firmly and completely into the jack of the iPad 1, I suspect this could present a problem for those who use CCK+USB (or maybe even those who use iRig style devices with the headphone jack).

Great upgrade. I strongly recommend it.

iPads at the Apple Store