Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs broke his ill-health-imposed exile from the company to lead the launch of the iPad 2 in San Francisco Wednesday.

In what might be the most hotly anticipated mobile product launch of the year so far, the Apple crew unveiled a smaller, lighter and faster version of the world-record-beating tablet.

The basic specifications of this new device include:

• A new "A5" dual-core processor that runs at twice the speed of the A4, according to Engadget
• Up-to-nine-times-better graphics processing performance than its predecessor
• Front and rear-facing cameras, enabling video chat apps
• A new iOS 4.3 operating system with tweaks to multimedia apps to take advantage of the iPad processing power
• The iPad 2 is 33 percent thinner than its older sibling and weighs in at 1.3 pounds, Wired reports
  
  

Apple is pushing ahead fast with the launch of the iPad 2. Apple says it will be generally available on March 11 in Wi-Fi and 3G versions.

The tablet will be available on both AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless in the U.S. Pricing remains the same at $500 for the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad and $630 for the 16GB iPad with 3G. — Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile