httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGiUoXB6IV4&feature=player_embedded
Jonny Ive is on top form in this iPad introductory video from Apple.
“It’s true,” he starts the video by saying. “When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. And that’s exactly what the iPad is.”
BTW: There’s a higher res version on Apple’s homepage, but it’s taking a while to load.
A lot of people following the Steve Jobs iPad keynote this morning weren’t convinced about the device until he mentioned the price: $499.
All of sudden, people wanted to buy three of them.
The price is the big news here. Everyone was expecting it to cost $700 to $1,000 — Apple makes pricey products, right?
But there’s no “Apple tax” on the iPad. This thing is priced to move, and they’re going to sell boatloads of them. And not just to Apple fans — the iPad will attract scores of Windows switchers.
Go to any Apple store and you’ll see heaving throngs of shoppers checking out Apple’s goods. A lot of them are Windows users shopping for a new home machine to replace an aging Windows box. They’re sick of the headaches and want an alternative.
The iPad is that alternative. It’s not an extra gadget, a luxury for someone who already has an iPhone and a laptop. It’s a replacement for that laptop — a true alternative.
And at $499, it’s also an alternative to the Kindle, cheapo netbooks and even Apple’s own MacBooks.
The iPad+ keyboard dock = cheap MacBook. It’s half the price of Apple’s cheapest MacBook, and a third of the MacBook Air.
Steve Jobs is a ballsy guy. He’s probably the ballsiest CEO in the U.S. right now. Who else would undercut their own laptop line — which are Apple’s most popular and most profitable computers — with a brand new device that costs half the price?
But this is how Jobs rolls. He killed the popular iPod Mini and replaced it with the iPod Nano. He’s undercutting the entire iPod line with the iPod Touch. He’s a forward-looking guy, and the iPad is a forward-looking computer.
OK folks, now for some picture pornography. This post is hardware; later on, we’ll do a gallery of software-related stuff. Keep the comments coming. Don’t be shy now: will you buy? Will you buy two? Does this compete with netbooks?
Although John Gruber over at Daring Fireball predicted it a couple weeks ago, I think most of us were shocked when it turned out that Apple’s newly announced iPad tablet didn’t have a forward mounted camera.
After all, why not? With an entry-level price and a $29.95 unlimited 3G coverage plan, the iPad seems like it would afford a perfect solution for mobile video calling. Hell, even if it didn’t have those things, surely it would be just as good as, say, a MacBook in letting people play around in Photo Booth. Right?
No. I think Apple knew what they were doing here. Unless it’s mounted in the iPad keyboard dock accessory, the iPad is going to be predominantly used in a below eye-level position. What that means is that a forward fronted web cam would need to point upwards at a slant to capture a human face.
So what, our lithe and muscular long-necked readers ask? Two words: double chin. Or three words, if you prefer: double triple chins.
Always fun to see long-term Apple design language tics show up in brand new products. The wedge shape of the iPad in its case set up for horizontal typing is making me remember the Apple IIc. Pretty rad.
Image via Recycled Goods
We’ve told you everything we know about the iPad so far. But when will you be able to buy it?
Well, the official page is here, and according to Apple, here are the release dates:
The WiFi version will be shipping in late March.
The 3G version will be shipping domestically in April.
International carriers will unveil contract plans in June.
You can sign up to be notified when one is on order here.
Phew. It’s all over. And a new era has begun.
Ladies and gentlemen: Say hello to iPad. It will cost you $499. Even the most expensive model is $829. The WiFi version ships in late March, the 3G in April
Here’s an overview of everything we know so far.
With most pay apps in the App Store running at $0.99 could most apps for the iPad be $9.99?
iWork for iPad will be $9.99 per app. That means you can have at Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for under $35.
With developers delivering quality content at such a low price point, can we see the same low prices if this low priced iPad becomes widely adopted?
I say it’s $10 for an app and $30 for a Grand Theft Auto Irish Mafia.
One little details Apple just mentioned at the iPad Media Event is the technology they are using in the display.
Viewing angle on a lap based media device like this is an issue, obviously… for example, if you have a loved one watching a movie next to you on your iPad when on the couch.
Apple just announced that while their display is LED (and not OLED, which makes sense — for $499, that price is just a pipe dream, given the price of OLED panels right now) they use IPS technology to maximize viewing angle.
That stands for in-plane switching. Here’s the Wikipedia article about how it all works. But it’s a good thing.
Although the iPad is clearly aimed at taking down netbooks and e-readers, make no mistake: it’s also taking a secondary aim at your television.
Now let’s just see an iTunes movie store revamp to capitalize on the off-angle viewing excellence of the LED + IPS display.
[image via Gizmodo]
Typing on a capacitive touchscreen like the iPad when it’s completely flush with the table isn’t the most ergonomic of solutions, and the screen is certainly not in a position we’re used to looking at while typing, so Steve Jobs has just announced the iPad Dock.
“When you really need to do a lot of typing, this is the way to go. If you’ve got to write War and Peace, just plug your iPad in,” said Jobs.
He hasn’t announced a price, but providing this is cheap enough, this could do wonders to replace my netbook as my road writing warrior machine.
The question is: will the iPad support a mouse as well?
[image via GDGT]
Despite the rumblings that both Apple and AT&T were ready to see the end of each other’s exclusivity deal, Jobs just announced that the iPad will be an AT&T exclusive.
Two great plans: for up to 250MB transfer every month, it’s only $14.99 a month.
Wasnt unlimited? AT&T will cover you for $29.99.
The big news! No frickin’ contract. Cancel anytime. Does this mean no subsidies?
Also, you get free use of AT&T WiFi hotspots, like the iPhone.
The network card uses new GSM micro sims, according to Jobs.
International contracts will be available in June. Sorry, rest of the world! The USA gets it first.
[image via GDGT]
iWork for iPad will be attractive to corporate users – another sly way for apple to get into the corpspace.
Oh, suck it, Amazon.
In demonstrating the iPad’s new slick iBooks e-book reading application, it was explicitly stated that the iPad uses the free, open e-book standard, ePub format.
This is a surprisingly rare but welcome move for Apple in embracing a non-proprietary media format.
ePub doesn’t mean no DRM, but it does mean you’ll be able, if only through third party Apps, to transfer your own books from other devices.
Jeff Bezos has got to be nursing a migraine right now.
[image via Gizmodo]
After showing all of the cool new App demos, Jobs took the stage and quipped:
“Isn’t it awesome? And these guys only had two, two and a half weeks to work on this thing. Imagine what they’re going to do in the next few months.”
This may be reading into things, but that may well mean the iPad won’t be out for a few months… i.e. not the March 1st release being rumored right now.
[image via Gizmodo]
The arrival of the iPad and the subsequent cheeping, chittering, cooing, peeping, chirupping and tweeting has blown a fuse on microblogging service Twitter.
Apple introduced a whole new category of mobile device today with the iPad and in so doing has opened new vistas for software development that could eclipse the iPhone App Store’s 140 thousand titles in short order.
Not suprisingly, Apple VP Scott Forstall waxed giddily about the fact that iPhone apps will run on the iPad straight away, saying, “We built the iPad to run virtually every one of these apps unmodified right out of the box. We can do that in two ways — do it with pixel for pixel accuracy in a black box, or we can pixel-double and run them in full-screen. This is really cool.”
But the presentation also showed how developers have a new palette with the iPad’s display that broadens the development horizons quite a bit.
“If the developer takes the time, they can also take full advantage of the large touchscreen display in the iPad. We did that with our own internal apps, and we expect developers will want to do that too,” Forstall noted.
The new SDK is available today and includes all the tools developers need to create custom apps for the iPad.
I’m on the hardware beat of CoM’s iPad coverage, so while the App Store devs take the stage, I wanted to just a quick aside on why I think the iPad is a terrible name for the Tablet, as spontaneously ill-considered as my opinion might be.
In an earlier post, I swore that if Apple was creatively bereft enough to call their tablet the iPad, I’d eat an extremity… but not that one. Either way, I’m reneging on my promise, since I like my digits.
But I wanted to point out quickly why I think this is such a terrible product name. I’m from Boston originally. We have an interesting way of pronouncing our a’s.
Call up a friend with a Boston accent and ask them to say “iPad.” They might just pronounce it pretty similarly to “iPod.” We’re weird that way. Or as Jake von Slatt just said to me: “Here in Boston, we’d say ‘Do you haave the big iPohd or the little iPohd?'”
Even if the pronunciation is different for everyone, though, iPad still seems a bad choice. A one letter difference makes for a lot of possible confusion.
iSlate had its problems — I equate a slate with something monochrome, fragile, easy shatterable — but it was a lot better than iPad.
What do you guys think?
It’s been 50 minutes into the event and There’s no sign of multi-tasking. To switch between apps, all they are doing is simply closing the current and opening a new – no ProSwitcher like card management. This is definitely going to be a deal breaker for the most who are planning to trade their netbook for this device.
Also, the screen’s got some good real-estate, seems like 2x the resolution of the iPhone. However,
Of all the people in the world, you’d think Cultofmac.com readers would go bonkers for the iPad. But judging from Twitter reactions, they’re not sold — and Steve hasn’t even mentioned the price yet!
Here’s some of the feedback tweets we’re getting:
@cultofmac Just a big iPhone, nothing special just yet.
@cultofmac i’m not sold. I mean why get this if you have an iphone or mac or both????
@cultofmac: It has huge borders!!! and i hoped to see usb conectors for the #ipad
Jobs just bragged the iPad’s capacitive touchscreen was the best in the business, but they just showed that the multitouch display is also more sophisticated in the iPhone.
While demonstrating a game from Gameloft called Nova, it was demonstrated that drawing three fingers across the screen allowed you to open a door.
That seems to indicate the hardware and software of the multitouch display allows for a lot more flexibility in gesturing than the iPhone, as expected. More registered points of articulation = greated gesturing sophistication.
[image via Gizmodo]
We haven’t seen any integrated camera software yet, but right now, it doesn’t look like the iPad has any camera… just as John Gruber over at Daring Fireball guessed.
There’s no obvious camera in the front, and when Jobs held it sideways, there wasn’t a camera pinhole in back either.
Unless Apple has integrated the camera into the display, or otherwise obfuscated it, looks like this isn’t the lap-based video conferencing unit we expected.
[image via GDGT]
And now some of the specifics of my particular iPad tablet beef have come out.
The chip is from PA Semi, an ARM-based CPU, as guessed. It’s called the A4, and it “screams” at 1GHz.
The iPad is 0.5 inches thin, weighs 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch IPS, fully capcitive multitouch display.
“All the usual suspects: accelerometer, compass, speaker, mic, dock connector. And it’s got battery,” says Jobs.
And what a battery! Netbook style! 10 hours! A month of standby. Remarkable for a device so thin.
Come in flavors between 16 and 64GB of flash, SSD storage.
Only connectivity that Jobs has mentioned so far is 802.11n WiFi. Let’s see if they unveil the 3G partners shortly.
[image via GDGT]
We’re still waiting for iPad details to come from the mouth of Jobs, but here are some first observations.
Like everyone said, it looks just like an iPhone that met a rolling pin.
It’s way thin. Like MacBook Air thin, from the looks of it. This is bread slicing and jugular slicing.
The Home Button is at the bottom, which implies, like the iPhone, a dominantly vertical based orientation, although an accelerometer flips it.
There’s a WiFi signal clearly visible at the corner, so we have 802.11n support here, but I see no icon for 3G… yet.
The iPad doesn’t have a frontal camera and Steve has yet to show any Magic Mouse like capacitive case tech, although obviously, this is a vibrant, 10-inch multitouch device.
More to follow!
[image via GDGT]