Angular 2.0 shipped this week, two years after announcement. The wait was long, the changes are total, and the reception is mixed. Google rebuilt Angular from scratch—TypeScript, component-based, completely different API. Whether this was right decision depends on who you ask.
What's certain: the two-year rewrite gave React enormous opportunity.
Angular 2 has been in development for over a year, and beta just landed. The reaction is mixed: excitement about modern architecture, frustration about breaking compatibility with Angular 1. Google chose to rebuild rather than evolve, and that decision will define Angular's future.
The question is whether the improvements justify abandoning millions of lines of Angular 1 code.