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iPad 2 'spotted' in the wild as Apple job ad fuels camera speculation

Reuters claims to have spotted an iPad 2 at last night's launch of The Daily, although it has no pictures to prove it. Meanwhile, iPad 2's display continues to be the subject of speculation.

Stuart Dredge
2 min read

If you saw someone clutching an iPad 2 at an Apple press event, what would you do? Well, obviously you'd take the owner to the nearest Bavarian bar and get the beers in. But you'd take a photo first, wouldn't you? Sadly, if you're "a Reuters eyewitness", you wouldn't.

The news service claims its source spotted an iPad 2 at last night's launch of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's new iPad news app. The device appeared to be working, with a front-facing camera at the top edge of its glass screen, Reuters reports, before hedging its bets and claiming that "the final release model could have other features". Well, you'd hope so.

The existence of a working iPad 2 with a camera is hardly a surprise, although the fact that an Apple staffer was blithely strolling around a roomful of journalists with one is rather more shocking.

Elsewhere online, 9 to 5 Mac claims to have procured a Chinese screen that's part of the batch destined for the iPad 2. It reports that the display is lighter and more than 1mm thinner than the screen from the first-generation iPad, although it hasn't managed to establish what pixel resolution the new screen has. Which, if we're honest, is the really important question.

The fact that the iPad 2 will have at least one camera barely qualifies as a secret any more, but if you need more confirmation, check out this job listing from Apple, which is recruiting an iOS photography software engineer to work at its Cupertino headquarters.

"Apple's Digital Photography team is looking for a dynamic software engineer with the drive and desire to deliver great photography applications for the Mac and iPad platforms," explains the ad. "As a member of the team, you will help us with text rendering and editing and HTML generation for publishing and viewing photo-based content."

AppleInsider spotted the job listing, and suggests that whoever gets the job may end up working on Apple's new Photo Stream service, which has been tipped for inclusion in a future update of the iOS software to help people share their photos.