My Cellphone My Terms

It’s the iPad, not iTablet

After much anticipation Apple has launched its long-awaited iPad, yes I said iPad (no jokes please). There are many blogs discussing the new iPad, here you will find everything you would care to know about Apple’s newest device. Our sources tell us that the Apple iPad will be available in Canada in late June or early July 2010. The iPad is a cross between an iTouch and a Laptop. It is not as functional as a Laptop, and a little more advanced then the iTouch.  Surfing the web, sending/receiving emails, playing games, listening to music, reading eBooks and using many of the Apps that are available for both the iPhone and iTouch will be more enjoyable on the iPads 9.7 inch screen. The weight of the iPad is 1.5 lbs, a little heavier than the Kindle or Amazon’s eReader. It is only 1.3cm thick with a large black border framing the screen. This black border may seem too large at first glance; its use is to have a place to put your hands without touching the screen, so you won’t accidentally turn the device on when carrying. The iPad uses Safari as its browser, and has a full QWERTY “virtual” keyboard; there is an external jack to connect an external keyboard, Bluetooth will be included, speakers, built in flash drive, which ranges from 16, 32, and 64GB, and a stand attached to the back of the iPad for more convenient viewing. The battery can hold up to 10 hours of video life.

“I can take a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole time,” Jobs said. “And it has over a month of standby time.”

For those of use who would like to do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations there will be an App selling for $9.99. Two downfalls to this oversized iTouch, is it does not have a camera, and when surfing the net, the lack of Flash support will make it impossible to view some websites.

Using iBooks, launched in conjunction with the iPad, users can now buy and download books straight to the device.
MacMillan, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and the Hachette Book Group are all signed up as partners. All books will be sold in the ePub format, which is an open standard that will be accessible to most e-readers.

Price for the basic iPad is US$499 ($530CDN) includes Wi-Fi and 16 gigabytes of storage. If you want the same model with 3G access you are looking at an extra US$130. The most expensive iPad is US$699 for a 64 gigabyte Wi-Fi model and US$829 for a 64 Gigabyte 3G model.

I can see the iPad appealing to people who like to read on the go, who travel a lot and need something a bit bigger than an iPhone screen to watch videos, read articles, eBooks, etc. If buyers had to pick between two devices, I still think that most would pick an iPhone and a Laptop over an iPad and another device. It looks like the iPad will just be a nice-to have.

Share