After an agonizing number of spy pictures and rumors His Steve’ness has launched the Apple iPad. Which in my opinion is a rather pointless device, that was created for the sake of it. It will just be another thing to carry around. But despite this I still want one.
Here is a breakdown of what it is and what it can do.
What is the iPad?
It is a tablet with a 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS capasitive touchscreen – Translation: Displays a great picture, responds to your touch and has a 180’ viewing angle. It is 1.3cm thick and weighs 450g. It has a glass screen and an aluminum backplate. It will be available in three memory sizes, 16, 32, and 64GB. The iPad is running a custom Apple A4 1GHz processor, which is pretty darn fast. Connectivity is as expected, a 30-pin dock connector cable, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G*, as well as an accelerometer and compass. The iPad will get 10 hours battery life from full, while using WiFi, watching videos or listening to music. A big let down is that the iPad does not multi-task, forcing you to keep opening and closing applications when busy with multiple tasks. Apple offers an optional case and keyboard dock, which the iPad sits on in portrait orientation.
The iPad is controlled in same way you control an iPhone. In fact it is using iPhone OS 3.2, the next version of the iPhones operating system. So the similarities are evident. The middle button takes you to the homescreen, where you have your preloaded applications and those purchased from iTunes. Most iPhone apps will work on the iPad in full screen. Also, just like the iPhone, you Sync the iPad through iTunes.
Pricing:
(Estimated South African RRP)
16 GB
WiFi: $499 (R5 300)
WiFi + 3G: $629 (R6 600)
32 GB
WiFi: $599 (R6 400)
WiFi + 3G: $729 (R7 730)
64 GB
WiFi: $699 (R7 400)
WiFi + 3G: $829 (R8 800)
*There are currently no 3G deals in place outside the USA. Apple promised to make the iPad 3G available internationally by June.
Features List:
Email
Surf the web using WiFi on all models and 3G on selected models
Edit your calendar
Take notes
Watch movies, tv shows and YouTube
Listen to music, podcasts and audiobooks
Use iTunes in with its full functionality
Purchase and read iBooks (eBooks)
Download most apps from the App Store
Play Games
Edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations
The Homescreen
Just like the iPhone your apps appear on your homescreen. On the iPad you can add your own backgrounds to your homescreen. Which will be a nice change from that austere black.
Surfing the web
Safari
Apple have implemented a similar version of Safari to that found on the iPhone, which is without doubt the best mobile browser. The menu bar with the URL editor, back, forward, bookmark and history buttons are positioned at the top of the screen. You can surf in either portrait or landscape. To scroll flick your finger up or down on the screen. To zoom pinch the screen in or out. There is also a thumbnail view that shows all open pages. I expect quite a lot from the browsing experience, it should be on par with a laptop if not more intimate.
Email
Mail
This is completely new and from the sounds of it, very cool. In landscape, there is a split screen view showing an opened email and your inbox. To view the opened email by itself you turn the iPad to portrait and the email will rotate to fill the screen. From the portrait view you can still check your mail and compose new messages. You will be typing on an on-screen qwerty keyboard; almost identical to the one on the iPhone, just bigger. This is pretty rad, to delete a message tap and flick it off the screen! Photos can be viewed in the massage and saved to your iPad. From the looks of it the iPad is going to handle mail very well.
Contacts
Making use of the screen real-estate the contacts application looks just like a written address book. It is far slicker than the one on the iPhone and without having played with it, it looks pretty good.
Calendar
A much more visual experience than the iPhone and even iCal on a Mac.
Video
Strangely, whilst the display has a very high resolution and from initial reports is very good, it is not widescreen. Movies, Series and Podcasts are viewed in much the same way as you would on the iPhone. The browsing experience is different though; Apple makes use of the extra real-estate and make browsing your media a much more visual experience. It is the same story when browsing YouTube. The difference now is you can watch YouTube videos in HD while on the move.
Music
iPod and iTunes
Just like the video, browsing your music on the iPad is a visual experience, closely mirroring iTunes on your computer. You can see album art in a grid format and sort it by genre, artist or album. iTunes is fully functional on the iPad. You can preview and purchase music, movies, and series as well as download podcasts. Again the experience is far more visual, with larger album art and full screen previews.
Photos
A much richer way to view photos. You can’t edit photos like you can in iPhoto, pictures are organized in a similar way. I am not a big fan of iPhoto so for me this is not a good thing.
eBook Reader & Bookshop
iBooks
This free application turn the iPad into an eBook, sorry, iBook reader. Books can be bought from the, you guessed it, iBookstore. There is no word whether the iBookstore will be available in South Africa, but I doubt it. If by some mirical it does become available, then iBooks looks flipping awesome. The books are displayed on your “bookshelf” a far more visually appealing way than current eBook readers. The whole experience is also said to be much more akin to reading a book than current eReaders. For instance, to turn a page, flick the page over and as you drag your finger the page turns.
Office Suite
iWork
It’s not all just fun and games for the iPad. Apple has created a version of its iWork office suite for the device. It will inlude versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote that have been “completely reimagined for iPad,” which will be available individually for $9.99 apiece. I’m not expecting much from iWork, but I would love to be proven wrong.
Gallery
Brendon Ambrose
Editor
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Great news for those who want to keep a look at there one's by having this software, i am sure apple will make sure it is available all over the world..
iPad spy software
Hi Brendon,
Where do you stand on the lack of Flash support?
Will the iPad kill Flash or will the lack of “the full browsing experience be the iPad's Achilles heel?
Joe
[...] level of discussion and commentary on the Apple iPad in online media channels over the last 24 hours has been phenomenal. To illustrate: State of the [...]