Apple's iPad 2 Announcement What To Expect From Apple's Press Conference

"Come see what 2011 will be the year of," Apple teased in its invitation to an event being held March 2 at which the Cupertino company is expected to unveil the iPad 2.

CrunchGear writes that the announcement of the iPad 2 is " a fact, jack."

So what might the iPad 2 look like? What features can we expect to see?

According to TUAW, oddsmakers at Bookmaker.com have even compiled the odds of seeing several different new features from the iPad 2.

The consensus among the numerous reports and rumors is that the next generation Apple tablet will be faster, lighter, slimmer, with at least one camera. There have also been rumors that the new iPad will have small speakers, that several versions of the tablet will be announced, and that it will not include retina display. There has even be buzz that the iPad will be available in white.

The Wall Street Journal, which has been correct in predicting the makeup of Apple products in the past, said "people familiar with the matter" told them the new iPad "will be thinner and lighter than the first model." In addition, the Journal wrote, "[i]t will have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the display will be similar to the first iPad, these people said. It will also have more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, they said."

Engadget added in a report, "The device will remain at 10 inches but will now feature both front and rear cameras (not a huge surprise), and... there's an SD slot."

Apple’s iPad 2 announcement – New iPad gets A5, cameras, and an improved design

Happy iPad 2 day! The Apple event is going to kick off in a few minutes (1PM Eastern time, 10am local) and we’ll be updating this page as soon as we hear what’s announced. We’ll be following live blogs to get the news (the event isn’t being streamed live), so be sure to check out PCMag, Engadget, MobileCrunch, Ars Technica, and MacWorld if you want the full firehose. We’ll try to compress the full 60+ minute event into something a bit more digestible.

We’ve already guessed about what the new iPad will be like, plus some very interesting photos leaked out this morning if you want to possibly get a sneak peek at the device. In case you are curious, the most prominent rumors are pointing towards the second iPad getting front/rear cameras, a thinner body, and possibly a larger speaker. It’ll also probably get better performance, with a new (possibly dual-core) processor and more RAM. There are a lot of other rumors though, so we’ll have to see what, if any, pan out. And let’s not forget that a new ipad isn’t the only possibility today. Hopefully we’ll learn about updates to iOS, possibly iOS 5.

And the event has started! Steve Jobs is on stage.

The first topic today will be iBooks- over 100M books were sold since the app was released and now Random House is on board so expect to see that number grow in the future.

And now for the numbers: Apple has shipped 100M iPhones, paid $2B out to developers, and has 200M iTunes accounts. Things are good in the land of Apple.

Live Blogging the iPad 2 Announcement

Plenty of tech pundits are calling 2011 the year of the tablet. Apple is hoping to make it the year of the iPad. The company summoned reporters to an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, where it unveiled a new version of its popular tablet computer.  Follow the live blog here.