Apple announced the much awaited introduction of a new Apple tablet called Apple iPad today. Apple iPad by all definitions had a maddening buzz around it the world over. All tech blogs and twitter feeds were buzzing with excitement (at the time of writing this post Apple iPad was trending on twitter) on the imminent showcase by Steve Jobs at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.
So what is the iPad?
iPad is a device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and much more. So at one go its a larger iPod touch with ereader like capabilities as well. So it pretty much takes Amazon’s Kindle head on as well.
Physical Features
0.5 inches thick and and a weight of 1.5 pounds make it a size zero device if you know what I mean. It also has a 9.7 inch display which by far would be one of the larger screens for an tablet oriented handheld browsing device out there.
What makes it Appsome?
It comes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for the iPad, and will run almost all of the over 140,000 apps in the App Store.
There are three stores that one can buy from for the iPad. iTunes stores, App Stores and iBookstore which would hold ebooks for the iPad. One can also run the apps on your iPod touch or iPhone and Im assuming it would have easy synching options as well.
Storage Features
iPad comes in 3 torage size i.e. 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. This is probably quite a dissapointment when you consider that all those apps and iwork related documents would need more space. But the size of this device doesn’t allow it to pack in more storage just yet.
When will it be available?
iPad will be available in late March 2010 in US. But there is not word on International launch. So folks here in India will have to wait.
Pricing
iPad will be available for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available at a retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.
To actually watch an iPad in motion. Check the video below:
i’ve had an hp tx2 for a few months, it’s a 12″ laptop, it’s slick, shiny, beautiful, all black and rounded, it’s slim and light, has a dual core cpu, 4gb ram, 500gb hard drive, decent graphics processor that runs half-life 2 and other top tier name brand games fairly well at its native resolution, but here’s the kicker:
the screen pivots 180 degrees and closes facing up, and the screen is a multi-touch screen
i connect it to a 24″ screen at home at 1920×1200 with a wireless keyboard and mouse (i also bring the mouse with me when i’m out), it plays movies and tv in hd perfectly, photo and video editing is smooth and attractive, and my web experience is full featured, responsive and crisp, with a choice of any browser i like (i use opera, firefox, and chrome regularly for different things)
i have no doubt that the ipad will be the usual over-hyped delusionware, that is, a day late and a dollar short but with apple somehow once again convincing its cult that it invented something, when, in fact, it put out a product with no original features and a lot of things disabled
i mean, this thing from apple will undoubtedly be horribly crippled and proprietary, like all apple devices. you won’t be installing your own choice of OS, you won’t be developing for it for free in any language you like, you won’t be choosing which browser and other programs you want to use, you won’t be able to view and edit anything but a specific set of file formats, you won’t be making your own choices about organizing your files and programs, you’ll be living with whatever your master thinks is kosher, which is a very feature limited and conservative set of policies