For months it's been one of the closest-guarded
secrets in technology but no more.
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO
"We'd like to show it to you today for the
first time. And we call it, the iPad."
At a packed news conference in San Francisco
on Wednesday Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled
the iPad, a tablet computer that attempts
to bring the Web, e-mail, entertainment and
games together in a single, portable device.
The computer sports a 9.7 inch HD touchscreen
and runs on a 1 gigahertz processor developed
by Apple. It can run all iPhone applications
and Apple will also offer a word processor,
spreadsheet and other productivity apps. It
also features a compass, accelerometer, speaker,
microphone and Bluetooth 2.1, but no camera.
As with the iPhone at the center of the iPad
is the Internet.
"You can browse the Web with it. It's the
best browsing experience you've ever had.
It's phenomenol to see a whole Web page in
front of you that you can manipulate with
your fingers."
The iPad links with the iTunes Store for content
and there are two ways to get online.
"Every iPad has Wi-Fi in it. The latest and
greatest Wi-Fi but we're also going to have
models with 3G cellular wireless data built-in."
The iPad has been the subject of a huge amount
of speculation over the last few weeks and
perhaps nothing has been debated more than
its likely price, which some had put as high
as a thousand dollars. On Wednesday Jobs announced
a much lower starting price.
"I am thrilled to announce to you that the
iPad pricing starts not at $999 but at $499."
"For 32GB it's $100 more and for another $100
beyond that you get 64GB of storage. The 3G
models cost an extra $130."
WiFi versions of the iPad will beginning shipping
worldwide in 60 days and 3G models should
follow a month later.
With Wednesday's announcement perhaps the
biggest unanswered question is 'will customers
bite?' Something that was on the mind of Jobs
himself.
"Do we have what it takes to establish a third
category of products."
Tablets have been tried before. Bill Gates
has been pushing tablet computing for years
with little success, this is the Origami from
2006, but the prospect of the Apple tablet
has reinvigorated the sector. At this month's
CES Microsoft showed off several new tablet
PCs -- it called them slate PCs -- due out
in 2010.
Technology has come a long way in the last
few years and Apple's iPad is likely to set
the bar by which competitors will be judged
but it will be consumers that ultimately decide
if there's a need for a device somewhere between
a smartphone and PC.
With reporting by Agam Shah and Stephen Lawson
in San Francisco, this is Martyn Williams,
IDG News Service.
