Steve Jobs took the stage at the Special Apple Event in San Francisco this morning and unveiled Apple’s newest technical “must-have” (for some) gadget – a 0.68 kg (1.5 pound) tablet computer. The new Apple tablet is named the iPad! (Eventually we’ll all grow accustomed to the name, for now it’s not our favourite.)
What’s Included:
The new iPad features a 9.7 inch (diagonal) LED backlit screen with multi-touch capability and a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. See the full iPad specifications on the Apple site.
The iPad comes in three capacity variants – a 16GB entry version as well as 32 GB and 64 GB versions. The base unit will include Wi-FI and Bluetooth, while the upgraded iPad’s will add 3G connectivity.
The iPad includes Safari Internet browsing, mail capabilities, a photo application that allows the iPad to be used as a digital photo frame, HD movie viewing capability, full iPod capability, iTunes connectivity, a new app called iBook – to buy and read eBooks, as well as calendaring – notes and contacts applications.
iPad will run existing iPhone apps unmodified (in a small screen area). We expect to see new applications developed specifically for the iPad and its larger screen – as well as, select applications being ported to take advantage of the iPad screen. (Cityhues will certainly be looking at that in-house.)
Apple will also launched a new iTunes store division called the iBookstore, which will allow iPad users to buy, download and read e-books. We suspect the iBookstore is where users will need to go to buy magazine and newspaper subscriptions for the iPad.
Apple has reworked it’s iWork applications to take advantage of the iPad. Keynote, Pages and Numbers will all run on the iPad. We can certainly see this being advantageous for road-warriors that do Keynote presentations on a regular basis. (The iPad is half the weight of the MacBook Air, which weighs in at 3.0 pounds, so the iPad offers a distinct advantage from the portability perspective.) We can also see the iPad being exceptionally useful for salespeople running CRM applications such as SalesForce.com.
According to John Gruber at Daring Fireball – who was lucky enough to spend 20 minutes with one of these, the iPad is fast – very fast.
What’s Not Included:
We’re disappointed to see that the iPad lacks a front facing camera and thus there is no capability for video conferencing. Perhaps we’ll see this introduced in future versions – the iPad would appear to be a natural fit for video conferencing. (Exceptionally valuable for travelling professionals.)
Unlike a laptop, the iPad is very locked-down, there is no “finder”, “desktop” or user accessible file management system – it is much like the iPod Touch. (The iPad runs on the same OS as the iPhone, rather than OS X.) While this may not appeal to some technophiles, it will appeal to many users who simply want to surf the Web, send email, read e-books, etc and not get involved with the inner workings of the computer.
What’s Optional:
An optional Keyboard Dock will be available for the iPad. The dock will allow an iPad to sync with a desktop computer, charge the iPad and includes an audio jack for connecting the iPad to a stereo or powered speakers.
Apple will also offer an optional iPad case, which serves to protect the iPad and can double as a quick stand.
We would expect to see a whole series of additional third party add-ons and peripherals to be introduced over the next few months. Companies like Belkin, Kensington and Logitech are no doubt already working on these add-ons.
Conclusions:
The first iPads are expected to arrive in March and April. Priced at as low as US$499 (No word on Canadian pricing, yet), the iPad certainly appears to be a very interesting device.
The iPad is far more than just an e-book reader and will no doubt be giving the Amazon Kindle some serious competition. (Effectively we see the Kindle as dead, certainly at it’s current price-point). The larger size (9.7 inch screen) Kindle is presently selling for US$489, so with the iPad priced at a mere $10 premium, there is no reason to buy a Kindle over an iPad.
So – is this the killer device that everyone is going to rush out to buy? Time will tell, but we suspect the answer is no. – but (and it’s a big but), there is a market out there for a device that truly “just works” (not everyone is a technophile). The iPad looks to be such a device and will likely play a big role in the sales community, in the seniors market and probably in the education community. (Oh yeah – and will we be getting one? – You bet, probably a couple!)
The iPad has set the bar for other tablet devices and integrates some very exciting features in a small, easy to use package. iPad users will be able to unbox an iPad and use it immediately, no learning curve – it just looks that intuitive.
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Apple has now posted a video of the iPad launch event.
Here’s a summary video from IDG:
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