Apple has announced their tablet device and it is called the iPad. Yes, it looks like a large iPhone and yes, it supports apps. And the best part about that is that it actually supports unmodified apps from the App store. It has so much to talk about that I am going to break this report up into parts. First, lets look at the device itself.
There was a lot of rumor mongering about what the Apple Tablet will look like and a lot of people said it will look like an overgrown iPhone. And they were right. It even has the iconic home button. The UI is basically the iPhone OS. So whoever said that the iPhone was only a testing project, was pretty right. Had this come before the iPhone, it would not have been all that successful. Steve in fact said that there are about 75 million iPhone users who are trained to use something like this. What he was also saying is that there is already a huge market for it (3 billion app downloads remember?), so come and develop for it. SDK is live today.
So first things first – it looks gorgeous! It uses a display called the IPS display and according to Steve Jobs it has really good viewing angles. The screen is 9.7″ diagonal and is perfect for holding in your hand and using. All thewere done on a couch on stage and it really drives the point home — you are going to use it very, very personally.
In fact, that is what the iPad is all about — something so very personal that you are going to fall in love with this. At least Apple hopes you will. I have not touched one yet but anyone and everyone who has touched it says that it is something you are going to fall in love with.
Coming down to the basic hardware features. The processor is made by Apple. It is called the Apple A4 chip, it is definitely an ARM Cortex redesign. Storage is flash and goes from 16GB-64GB. The first models that will come out will be WiFi only. We will then have WiFi+3G. The first models will ship within 60 days from now. And then Steve Jobs broke the price barrier.
It is akin to breaking the speed barrier but in this case it speeds up sales to dizzying levels. Apple was very intelligent with the $999 price estimate leak. Because the starting point is low. It is low enough to threaten nebtooks! Yes! They are selling it for the mad price of $499!
That model is a 16GB WiFi only model and the highest model right now — WiFi+3G with 64GB storage — is $829. Now that is competitive.
Here’s a full list of features:
- 0.5 inch thin
- 1.5 pounds in weight
- WiFi 802.11n
- Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
- Accelerometer and compass
- 1GHz A4 Apple Chip
- 9.7″ IPS Display
- 16GB-64GB
- 10 hours of battery life
- “A month’s” worth of stand by
- Built in Speaker
- Microphone
- 30 pin dock connector
- Supports unmodified iPhone Apps
- Sync to Mac and PC over USB via iTunes
There are also accessories and the two most important ones – a keyboard doc and cover that also acts as a kickstand. The keyboard dock is really going to completely clinch the deal for a lot content producers. I am mainly thinking about bloggers like me. We spend a lot of time consuming content and a lot of time creating it.
Steve Jobs said that this is the intersection of Liberal Arts and technology. Consumers are already lusting after it. They didn’t know this existed and now the can’t live without it!
