the Informer

Since before the launch of the iPhone 3GS there have been rumors of another mystery Apple device. Needless to say the iPhone 3GS premiered without its rumored counterpart. Six months later Apple delivers invitations to a creative event, saying, “Come see our latest creation.” The expectations which had been building since its failure to show six months previous grew to new heights, higher perhaps than before the original iPhone debuted.Before the event it was never confirmed to be tablet device, it was generally assumed it would be so. The form and power though remained in question.
Wednesday morning in San Francisco Steve Jobs took the stage to debut his new product. He began with a recap of where Apple has been in its 34-year history. With 250 million iPods sold and just recently crossing the mark of a $50 billion company making Apple the largest mobile device company in the world.

Mr. Jobs then addressed the problem with the mobile device market currently. Whereas other companies have invented between phone and laptop with netbook lines, Mr. Jobs said, “the problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything!” With that, in between a picture of an iPhone and a MacbookPro projected behind him, the word ‘iPad’ appeared and the world gasped.
Admittedly I’m not a fan of the name; they could have done so much better, the reference to “iTampon” quickly trended on twitter. But iPad captures the uniqueness of the product. This isn’t a MacBookTouch, it is more a singular product.

Specs quickly followed. A 9.7 inch captive multitouch screen, a speaker and microphone. Storage sizes equivalent to 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. ten hours of battery life and one month of standby. The latest revisions of Wifi and Bluetooth, and an optional 3G connection. Then perhaps most important spec. Apple’s first in-house built processor the 1 GHz A4. Apple again missed the boat on the camera—front facing or on the back—leading to a similar disappointment when the iPod Touch made the same mistake. This means no video conferencing on the go, or photo taking at all for that matter.

Mr. Jobs wasn’t done there though. Next came new revisions of the Apple iWork platform specifically for the iPad. Pages, Numbers and Keynote all saw revisions for the new device, available now as applications on the App Store for $9.99 each.

Building off of what Amazon and the Kindle had begun, Mr. Jobs unveiled the third Apple branded store: iBookstore. With its counterpart the iBook app, users of the iPad can now read book for an estimated $12.99 to $14.99 per book. It remains to be seen whether reading on a screen lit like the iPad’s is different from those made of eInk (which Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Nobles’ nook use).

The iPad runs an OS similar to that of the iPhone. Basic functionality remains; ‘slide to unlock,’ apps arranged in a rectangular free floating format above and a set of apps docked to the bottom. The iPad runs all the apps the iPhone runs, except they are scaled up to fit the larger screen. In the coming weeks third party apps will be reconfigured to run with different presentations for the different screen size. Apple owned applications have already been reconfigured. Safari now runs in full screen (on the iPad), Mail took some major revisions with increased usability, and iPhoto has some awesome new features including photo album peak. However Apple fell short of another expectation, the ability to run multiple apps at the same time. Sorry, you can’t stream your Pandora app while viewing the web. A revision that is critical to the iPhone if it is to compete with Google’s Android which can already accomplish this feat.

Traditionally Apple follows up an announcement with a ‘one more thing announcement.’ Rumors suggested that Apple would be opening the iPhone to multiple carriers as it has done in other countries. Other rumors suggested the existence of an iPhone 4. But as the hour and a half presentation drew to a close it became obvious that there was no new iPhone announcement. Mr. Jobs had said all he was going to say on the matter and was about to slip back into secrecy, supposedly to guide his company to the next big thing.

Whether the iPad succeeds in between the smartphone and the laptop is the story that has yet to be told. Apple smartly and aggressively priced the tablet device at $499, half the price of the suspected $1000 price tag, for the smallest sized model. Add a $100 for each solid state size upgrade and $130 for 3G connectivity, the pricing model runs from $499 to $829.

If you consider that you can buy a good netbook for $400, the iPad runs just a $100 more that that. Not bad considering it’s an Apple product.

Apple fans will most likely rejoice and run out and buy it when it debuts in 60 days, as to whether the regular consumer will drop the $500 will decide whether the iPad shines like the iPod or fails like the Apple TV.

Photo courtesy of Engadget.com