After months and months of rumors, here it is – the iPad. Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, has officially announced a brand-new multimedia device named “iPad” during the “Come see our latest creation” event, with an amazing price starting at US$499 only.
As you’re an iPhone user, you can think of an iPad as a BIG iPhone with bigger screen, more processing power and provides better experience for surfing the web, reading books, viewing photos/videos, listening to music, writing emails, etc.
Advertised as the “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”, Apple’s iPad comes with a 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display that supports 1024×768 resolution. With multi-touch, of course. It offers much bigger screen estate for browsing web pages, view photos and many more. As you’ll see in the below videos, the screen looks amazingly awesome and the multi-touch works so responsive and smooth. With a bigger screen size, that means a bigger virtual keyboard. The typing experience should be much better than that on iPhone and you can now actually work on the word document using the iPad. For me, I probably will write my blog post using the iPad, which I can never do on iPhone.
So, what about the processor and battery life? As claimed, the iPad allows you to use it non-stop (browsing web pages over WiFi) for up to 10 hours and with a month standby. Regarding the CPU, it’s not from any well-known vendors like Intel. This time, Apple develops the CPU in-house. The iPad’s CPU is named as A4 running at 1GHz.
The iPad runs on a new version of iPhone’s OS. So, you’re using iPhone or iPod touch, you should very familiar with the interface. It features 12 next-generation Multi-Touch applications with are specially designed for the iPad. Though the app may also be featured on iPhone such as photos or notes, the interface and feature are not the same and is designed to make use of the enlarged screen size. As it’s running the iPhone OS, the iPad can run any iPhone applications (over 140,000 available) from App Store. Same as iPhone, you can sync photos, contacts, notes, applications, etc via iTunes.
The iPad will be available in two versions – one with WiFi only and the other with both WiFI & 3G. For U.S. customers, the 3G version runs on AT&T and comes with new data plans: 250MB for US$14.99 and an unlimited plan for US$29.99 a month contract-free. However, unlike the iPhone, the iPad is unlocked by default. If you do not like the data plan offered by AT&T, you’re free to choose any GSM carriers.
Plan to the iPad, right? Yes, I’m going to get one. So, here is the price. The WiFi only models of iPad will be available in late March for price US$499 for the 16GB model, US$599 for the 32GB model, US$699 for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in April in the US and selected countries for price of US$629 for the 16GB model, US$729 for the 32GB model and US$829 for the 64GB model.
To learn more about iPad, check out this great hands-on video from Engadget:
Also, you can check out Apple’s official video of iPad.
What do you think of this brand-new production from Apple? Are you planning to buy one? Remember to write back and let us know your thought.
Cannot wait to lay hands on this wonderful creation of APPLE Inc…
dunno but when wud it be launched in India?…:(
Not as the rumors said it that it will be a big bang for the iPhone users, its too big for a mobile device i think it should be categorized under tablet pc….
I’ll pass this one and stick to my 3GS
@imad,
Actually iPad is not an upgrade version of iPhone. Instead, iPad is the kind of device that sits between iPhone and laptop. Or what you said it’s a tablet device. It targets to bring you a better experience in consuming web information, reading ebook, watching movie and other digital media. The iPad can’t replace iPhone. At the same time, iPhone can’t do all things that are now available on iPad.
underwhelming.
no, not until at least v2.