Apple’s tablet day has finally arrived: Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the podium at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco to announce what the world has been anticipating.
The new iPad is a tablet PC that wants to be an all-in-one device: it lets you browse the Web through Wi-Fi or 3G, it can play movies and music, it displays magazines, books and newspapers on a colour screen, and it lets you download any iPhone app to its interface.
Jobs said the iPad will be available in the US in 60 days. The 3G models will be available in 90 days.
What about pricing? Jobs announced iPads will start at $499 (all numbers US) for the 16GB model. The 32GB model will cost $599 and the 64GB version will set you back $699. Models that come with 3G capabilities will cost an extra $130.
Size-wise, the iPad is 0.5 inches thin, weighs 1.5 pounds and boasts a 9.7 inch IPS display, Jobs said.
He said, “The iPad is the most advanced piece of tech that I’ve ever worked on at Apple.”
The iPad features a full touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, thanks to what Apple calls “full capacitive multitouch.” The unit only has one mechanical button – the “on” button.
Jobs said to unlock the iPad, you simply swipe your finger over the screen, similar to unlocking the iPhone.
It offers Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, Apple’s own 1GHz A4 chip, 16GB to 64GB Flash storage, a speaker, a microphone and a compass. Some iPads will also come with 3G access.
It also comes with a pre-loaded iTunes store and YouTube HD. iPad syncs with iTunes similar to how the iPhone and iPod touch does, using the standard Apple 30-pin to USB cable
In case critics were worried about a thin unit having poor battery life, Jobs said the iPad will be boosted with 10-hour battery life, and a month in standby mode.
The iPad will let users access all the iPhone apps available, even doubling an appe’s pixel size to fit on the 9.7-inch screen. You can imagine how useful that would be from both the customer perspective and the vantage point of app creators, who now have another device to bring them more revenue.
Jobs demonstrated the browsing feature by going to Fandago.com, National Geographic’s website and NYTimes.com.
At the event, Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice-president of digital operations at the New York Times Company, said about the Times on the iPad: “We think we’ve captured the essence of reading the newspaper. A superior experience in a native application.” Nisenholtz showed off the the Times on the iPad, giving a sneak peek of embedded video and a layout almost identical to the print paper. Dropdown menus can let you select articles or sections of the e-paper.
When Jobs demonstrated the email function, the iPad listed the inbox in a left-hand column and displayed the full message in a large right-hand column.
The iPad also works well displaying photos, and Jobs showed off a few slideshows that reminded some media of iPhoto.
“It’s way better than a laptop, way better then a phone,” Jobs said. “You can turn it any way you want. To see the whole page is phenomenal.”
Jobs also played several video clips to demo its media player capabilities.
Gaming company Electronic Arts made an appearance, playing a few games that looked stunning on the iPad. The racing game Need for Speed was given a few minutes of screen time, and Travis Boatman,Vice President of Worldwide Studios for EA, said, “Building for the iPad is a little different — it’s kind of like holding an HD display up to your face. It’s really cool.”
Poised to shake up the publishing industry is the iBooks app, which includes partners such as Penguin, Macmillion, Simon & Shuster and several more. Jobs said they created an iBooks store which users can access with just one button. You can turn pages with a finger swipe and you can switch to any font.
This positions the iPad to go up against ebook mainstays such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader.
Later, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing, presented a retooled version of office suite iWork for the iPad. He outlined the spreadsheet tool, photo albums, Keynote and Pages. Each of these apps will cost $10 US.
Jobs believes the iPad can fill a space in consumer tech.
“So all of us use laptops and smartphones… the question has arisen, is there room for something in the middle. We’ve wondered that for years as well,” Jobs said. He mentioned there needs to be a third-category device. After all, he said, “netbooks aren’t better at anything. They’re slow and have low-quality devices…they’re just cheap laptops.”
At the beginning of the keynote, Jobs couldn’t help but update media on several good-news items about Apple: several weeks ago, Apple sold its 250 millionth iPhone. Turning to apps, the company offers 140,000 different iPhone apps and users downloaded 3 billion apps.
He also said, “We’re a mobile company. That’s what we do. How do we stack up against all the other companies that sell mobile devices? We’re the largest mobile device company in the world.”
