iPad Anyone?

Finally after the long guessing game, the word is finally out. At 5.00 (AEMT), people at Cupertino finally unveiled the much awaited table named iPad. The ceremony is headed by it's head huncho, Steve Jobs at the Yerba Buena Centre at California. So what does the new gadget had in store for us. Well according to the man himself, the tablet could do the following task: browsing the web, mailing, sharing files, videos, pictures with the leisure of listening to your favorite musics to playing games and reading eBooks. During the launch, Jobs shows how the tablet be able to do all the stuff mentioned but one thing obviously lacked from the tablet which is the support of Flash. From the features mentioned, you could have guess that it's very similar to what you can do on your iPhone. Someone even said that the tablet is actually iPhone magnified and put on steroids. Well I can't say that they are far away from that. I mean the machine weighs 1.5 pound (roughly) with a 1/2" thin 9.7" IPS Display. IPS? I just know it's super high quality shit. Super responsive capacitive multi-touch screen similar to the iPhone. It had a 10 hours of battery life (moderate).

The baby runs on a custom Apple chip called A4. 4th Gen? Don't know bout that. With 1GHz of processor power, the iPad comes in 3 options of storage , 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. Standard 802.11n, WiFi and Bluethooth connectivity as usual. As for the apps, all iPhone apps would be able to run on it without any modification. Good news on that for the SDK. I heard that the apps for the iPad will start running today concurrent with the launch. During the launch, developers like Gameloft, New York Times, Brushes and EA tested their apps using the new iPad and everyone was quite amazed by it. There is this new apps or features called iBook which is available on the iPad. You can download the books from the new iBook Store application. It's similar to iTunes store actually. Doing spreadsheets, the tablet shows it's power with the new multi-touch gestures, multi-finger taps, pinch, double tap and etc. There is a new data entry keyboard just for entering those info to your spreadsheet which looks really cool. As always, iWork products are available for a price of $9.99 (Yes, USD not RM).

You can buy two data plans for the iPad from AT&T @ $14.99 for 250MB or unlimited data for double the price. Good news, you don't need to buy any contract with the tablet. iPad 3G are unlocked and use GSM micro SIMs. They will go international with this around mid of the year. The Apple iPad pricing starts from $499 for a 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $799 for 64GB. For 3G models, just add another $130 to each of the ranges. Other than the lack of Flash feature, there are also the lack of the front facing camera for video conferencing and also no Notification features mentioned. And Yes, there were also no news or announcement on the next generation iPhone OS or iPhone 4.0 or anything about Verizon partnership or sort. So is it just a marketing gimmick to boost the hype of the whole launch? Well you be the judge of that.