iPad

The Apple iPad has been announced at the Apple Event which finished a few minutes ago.



It's a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display, and it's running a custom 1GHz Apple "A4" chip, with a 10-hour battery life and a month of standby. It'll come in 16, 32, and 64GB sizes. There's a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G, as well as an accelerometer and a compass.

The device is managed by iTunes, just like the iPhone -- you sync everything over to your Mac. As expected, it can run iPhone apps -- either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen -- but developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.



The 3G version runs on AT&T and comes with new data plans: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free. Activations are handled on the iPad, so you can activate and cancel whenever you want. Every iPad is unlocked and comes with a GSM "micro-SIM," so you can use it abroad, but there aren't any international deals in place right now -- Steve says they'll be back "this summer" with news on that front.

There's also a keyboard dock, which connects underneath in the portrait orientation, support for up to 1024x768 VGA out and 480p composite out through new dock adapter cables, and a camera attachment kit that lets you import photos from your camera over USB or directly through an SD reader.

During the Keynote, many games were demoed. Brush, Photoshop ripoff for iPad that supports layers and stuff, and iWork which demonstrated fantastic workflow. You have to see the Keynote yourself to realize, really.

Some more pictures:



http://www.apple.com/ipad

Flame away?
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Oh, I heard rumours that it would be named the iSlate. But iPad... how very unfortunate that this came out some time back, then. ;)

Joking aside, this looks pretty sweet, but I don't think I can afford it. Plus, Apple's early adopters have historically been screwed over.

Looks cool, but I swore never to buy any apple stuff since they make you pay for up dates.

I have an ipod and an ipod touch and it won't let me put any thing on it cause it says I need the up date and that I need to pay extra money for it what a fucking scam, well I think that what it is cause last time I tried to put stuff on it wouldn't put any thing on and deleted all my stuff then asked for money.. BASTARDS!

The iPad is an iTouch that's bigger and somewhat more powerful. It STILL only runs one thing at a time, and it starts at $500 for 16 GB without 3G (which is an extra 130 on all the versions).

Unfortunately, people are stupid, and this thing's probably going to sell like crazy once it's released. Now, if anyone wants me, I'll be getting a $500 netbook that can utterly destroy the iPad.

THIS!

I was legitimately excited about this until I saw it today. I don't like the over-sized margins on the edges and it's too boxlike. Overall I am not impressed, it really is just a jump iPhone. Hopefully a year from now when the announce the next version it will be better.

I have a feeling that the hype over it isnt really worth it.

The things that truly matters are..

Longevity
Durability
Interface
First time user friendly
Battery life

You can expect apple to give you a nice screen and whatnot.


Edit~

Now that I look at it... It does resemble a Iphone.


Edit~

Wouldnt be easier to buy a laptop or netbook for a cheaper price and just deal with Microsoft's horrible yet decent OS. Instead of completely learning how to use another device thats most likely going to crash and burn because of apple's next Phone,Computer, or even Ipod?

But.... it doesn't support Flash!!! There are no USB ports (it needs to be synced with iTunes), and the battery life is only 10 hours, compared to the Kindle's +20 hours. No multitasking, no camera, no OS X (its an ARM based operating system...)

The biggest disappointment is that there's no flash support in the browser, there's no Youtube, or any flash based video or games.

Compared to all the rumors, the actual product is kinda disappointing.

Understand that the ARM based, non 86x_64 processors receive a great deal more battery life than those that are capable for running OS X Snow Leopard. Just being able to run Snow Leopard, the battery life for the current battery life would be reduced to about 6 hours (or less) on the Intel Atom, and then having an Nvidia Ion, it would probably be 5 hours. The choice they made was economical, though it doesn't offer very many options for computing, but it can do what it does for 10 hours.

Wow, I'm thouroughly surprised. I thought Apple was going to overprice it like a motherfucker, but they didn't. I might get this later in the year, since Apple is known to do shit just after release.

Found a comic.



Pretty true.

Alright guys, I'm back from school. Thanks for all your feedback, regardless of what side you're on, I enjoyed reading through them all. :D Massive wall of text from me.

For those of you who can't be stuffed watching the 90 minute Keynote address, I have the iPad intro video up as well. You need to watch that at the very least before reading my comments.

So, the iPad. It is, as many of you said, an oversized iPod touch. But I'd rethink the "completely useless" part. Are you sure about that?

Before we get into it, let me ask one thing of you. When you switch on your computer, what exactly are you doing most of the time? For me, it's the Internet. Chrome OS was designed to get you on the Internet as soon as possible, but they went a bit overboard (since your computer dies when there's no Internet connection).

Now consider the iPad. You hit the lock button, and it's on. You push Safari, and you're on the Internet. That's even faster than booting a Chrome OS Netbook which takes 7 seconds. If you look at the video, although the navigation and everything is exactly like the iPhone, putting it on a 9.7" display really makes the experience completely different and totally natural. As they put it: "Like reading a newspaper, or a magazine."

There are no new technology involved with the iPad, but again, Multi-touch on a display of this size is the innovation itself. Have a look at the new Mail app. The new Photo app. The iBooks app. If you've seen the Keynote, the absolutely amazing iWork suite, iTunes and Brushes.

I'm not exaggerating it when I say this. Multi-touch is a revolutionary UI. And now Apple has brought it to a full-sized display. When the iPhone first came out, who can imagine all these amazing things it can do today? This is only the beginning. Within half a year, we will see iPad do things that we can't even imagine today. Even as of now, the iPad can already do most of what I ask from my computer. Surfing the web, listening to music, checking my E-Mail, using the Calendar. Just because I own a phone and a computer doesn't mean that there's no room for this. There is a niche.

Now, what's to prevent me from buying this upon release? Only one thing - lack of multitask. Now, this thing sports a 1Ghz processor and it's running quite a basic OS. There is almost no reason hardware-wise why this thing can't do it. It's all to do with the software, which I have confidence that Apple will add in the days to come. After all, iPhone OS 4.0 has yet to land.

So, in conclusion: Multitask will land in the upcoming months, and by then the iPad will be doing amazing things that none of us can imagine with awesome new apps taking advantage of the 9.7" Multi-touch surface. Then I'll buy one instantly.

Oh yeah, and like everywhere else, most comments are negative, which is to be expected. It happens every single time. It goes something like this:

1) the invitation. People start frothing, we know some things are going to be presented, and... that's it.

2) the wait. That's where it goes straight to hell: EVERYTHING is game, everybody has its own theory about features ("it should have BluRay, 100+ hours of autonomy, 4 cameras, 2 terabytes of hard drive"), you know the gist. Add just the good amount of "leaks" (both real and fake), serve the hype.

3) the announcement. Apple makes a good product which is often good enough. BUT, the people from 2) will whine to no end: "HOW COULD THEY FORGET THE ESPRESSO MACHINE, Apple will tank now, it's horrible, nobody will buy it". Seriously, when the first iPod was announced, MacRumors forums were shouting "it will fail in 3 months' time, no way in hell will this work." Apple Shares tank.

4) the release. The product is actually pretty good. It indeed sells massively, and the fans realize how great it is. They go out and by one. Apple Shares soar during Quarterly Financial Results.

We're right now on Stage 3, and I just bought some more Apple shares. Thanks for the flaming, guys! It's how I have been making money for quite some time now. :D

Also, the -Rep below perfectly demonstrates the true nature of you Mac haters. You hate for no reason, and has nothing to say when the truth is shoved in your face.
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They might sell more if they use this packaging!

It has no USB ports, how fail.

I begin to question, what market is Apple trying to target? I love when companies take risks to push the envelope of innovation, but the thing is here, Apple are doing anything but innovating. This hardware and multi-touch UI is nothing special and is not "revolutionary" at all.

Look past Apple's propaganda and all you see is an up sized Itouch. Not a revolution of any kind nor innovative in its field. That means Apple are just pushing consumerism and not innovation to make revenue, in which i absolutely hate companies that do that.

This tablet is nothing more than a bastardization cross breed of a touch and a tablet. Apple stopped innovating a long time ago and is just milking their fan base for money now.

ImperialX, i congratulate you in getting shares in Apple, you'll make fine money, but not for the reasons you think you are buying into.

It's profitable.

Ive re-edited my post with relevance.

Btw,

Haha, I don't think you properly understood my comment from the last page, but oh well.

Anyway, just know that there isn't a product in the World that can satisfy every market imaginable. The iPad doesn't appeal to you, and I can accept that. However, for me and a very large market, it's something that I can see fitting into our lives. I can't wait to shift my web browsing and all my casual work straight from my MacBook onto the iPad. It seems so much more comfortable to use. As I previously stated, the only reason why I'm not going to buy one upon release is the fact it will not have multitask, which I'm sure will be fixed eventually (the hardware is powerful enough).

And Apple not innovating? Let's not forget who invented Multi-touch in the first place.

Ok, I decided I want to do a short little review of the iPad from a Windows-fags perspective, as a person who pretty much rages when Apple does something.

Firstly, when the info was leaked about Apple doing a tablet PC, everyone was pretty damned happy, including me. It was about time that they got one, considering how well the Adobe Creative Suite works on Mac's.

Now to the actual announcement, I'm dissapointed. I knew they were gonna go for battery life, but this is a joke. All this is is an oversized Ipod touch with iWork on it. Apple can do much better than this and they know it. Had they used a modified version of Snow Leopard, even I would have gotten one, and it would have sold better than it will now.

The one thing I'm glad they did was the support for a physical keyboard. Anything that has a touchscreen should ALWAYS have/support a physical keyboard.

I would mention the no multitasking, but Imperial already covered that pretty well.

As for how well it will sell, no doubt it will do well, but it could have done better.

5/10, would have been 8/10 if it had been more Mac-like.

EDIT: Imperial, you might want to check your info. Bell Labs invented multi-touch, but didn't do anything with it, while Apple innovated it, along with trademarking the term, and making it successful.