The iPad Is Starting To Show Its Age

     What a magical and revolutionary device it has been. It has carved a new market for others to follow, and ultimately paved the way for the future of the tablet. The one thing we must remember about it and Apple in general is that it is approaching its first birthday. That means that it's about time for the iPad 2. We can expect it sometime around April, but what does it need to feature?

    With the slew of awesome tablets at CES 2011 the iPad needs to tremendously up its game in order to compete with the big names. First of all, I would like to see a nice boost in the processor to something similar in the dual-core family. Along with the processor the RAM needs to get a kick up to around 1GB. This would make flash purr like a kitten, but Apple and Adobe don't mix.

    A feature the iPad has been soarly lacking from day one is that camera. Nearly all of today's tablets have a front and rear camera. I can't even think of tablet that is lacking in this area. It's time to bring the iPad into some of that facetime action. The camera would probably be on par with that of the iPod Touch meaning HD video, but terrible still photos. Who would replace a point-and-shoot with a clumsy iPad anyway?

    With the recent debut of multitasking gestures in iOS 4.3 beta it seems to me that the next-gen iPad could be ditching the home button for less orientation confusion. The software still needs a bit of tweaking to optiize it for the giant screen, but Apple is likely to drag its giant feet with this one. While we're dreaming, it would also be nice to see some type of removable storage. Apple, it's time to stand up to Honeycomb.