Apple iPad Overview

Writen on 27th January 2010 by Kelvin Jones - article updated 29th January 2010

Apple have just anounced their latest product, the new Apple iPad. A cross between the iPod Touch/ iPhone and their Apple Mac laptop. With a sleek design and touch screen, the iPad is “not a cheap laptop”.

The much anticipated iPad has had many spoof concepts created by people across the internet over the last few months, but it is clear that many of those concepts weren’t far off the mark. The scaled-up iPhone features the same sort of functionality, and if you’ve ever sat back and admired the beauty of the iPhone or iPod touch for its ease-of-use and crisp design then this next leap will be a real wow.

The 9.7 inch touch screen iPad, offers 16GB to 64GB of flash storage and an excellent processor, full qwerty keyboard, and all squeezed into a 1/2 inch thick device.

Existing Apps that run on the iPhone will also be usable on the iPad as the device is said to scale these Apps up with built-in technology.

At the launch event, Apple then demonstrated how in depth games could be on the larger touch screen using multi-touch, tap, shake etc. This would be possible from the built-in accelerometer, but initial thoughts are, that games on such a small - yet large - handheld device would be a difficult marriage. The device would need to be held in a stand to allow users to navigate areas of the screen at speed, and shaking or turning the device wouldn’t feel natural!

The iPad looks, at first glance, a great device to use as an e-reader, with the added advantage of full internet access, rich-app capabilities and, for those of you that have Apple TV, there was also the suggestion that you can access your movies from anywhere with an internet connection available.

Next up from Apple was the launch of iWork, now this is big news. It shows that Apple mean business with the iPad. It’s the first version of iWork for the iPad, and there is no doubt that Apple will develop this further and further over the coming months to prove a real contender to Google Docs or Microsoft Office Online. These cloud-based applications will be available to iPad users and Apple have built the software to make full use of the multi-touch, multi-tap touchscreen. Should users need word processing, slideshows, spreadsheets and the like, on the move, iWork will be available on the App Store for just a few pounds.

The price for this new device has to fit well into the market to be competitive, acceptable and not too distracting from the larger commercial products available from Apple laptops. This was one of the key factors considered while Apple were developing the iPad. And with that prices start from just $499 (£308)!
Thats around the same price as a large capacity iPod Touch, and with free Apps and cloud-based word processing available, there really is no need to go for the larger memory versions unless you are keen to store your music on it.
But this device is not an iPod so we see no reason to use it for all your music, it is more suited to being an e-reader, on-demand web browser and communications device. And dont forget, you will still need your laptop/computer to sync music to the device, or to your existing iPod. We hope that Apple have looked at this factor and made it possible to sync from it to the iPod or have a remote library system such as Spotify that allows access to your purchased and existing music without need for another machine.

So what does that get you? It gets you the iPad, with 16GB on board memory but no 3G. The price-breaks step up at $100 a time as you increase the memory or opt for 3G built-in but this price range seams very acceptable to us.

The iPad should be available within 60 days (from 27st January 2010) for the standard range device, with the full 3G device available 30 days after that.

Full specifications of the new Apple iPad

Software and key features:

Safari web browser
On-screen QWERTY keyboard
Google maps
iTunes
Email
iBooks
Youtube
Play HD movies
Contacts app
Slide-to-unlock
Photos app
iWork is completely re-done for the iPad
Run nearly all existing iPhone apps without any modifications

Hardware

0.5 inches thick
1.5 pounds in weight
9.7 inch display
Full touchscreen
Multitouch support
1GHz Apple A4 chip
Available with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB flash memory
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Wifi 802.11n
Accelerometer
Compass
10 hours battery life
Over one month standby time

Cons (awaiting comfirmation)
1 app at a time

Despite there being a lot of Anti-Apple people out there with the success and mass-adoption of the iPhone should mean that the iPad will do well. For full information go to the Apple iPad website.