It’s taken years to materialize, but the mythical Apple Tablet computer is finally here. Along the way, Apple started (and is on the way to winning) a smartphone business, and sold more Macs and iPods than ever before. Over the last few months, weeks and days, the speculation and rumours came thick and fast. The result? Meet the Apple iPad. It has a funny name and it’s priced cheaper than you think. I think that we probably have equal number of people who are excited and disappointed by it.



What’s most surprising to me is how Apple positioned the iPad. It’s not the Kindle killer (at least not explicitly), but it’s the netbook killer. I think for people who treat netbooks as a third device (between the desktop/laptop PC and the phone), this could be true, but not for people who treat netbooks as their sole device (as a cheap laptop).

About The Apple iPad

Here’s what we know about the Apple iPad

- runs iPhone OS 3.2 (not the full Mac OS X) and can run almost all iPhone apps
- 9.7 inch screen, comparable to a Kindle DX, but in colour and with multi-touch of course
- 1GHz “Apple A4″ system-on-a-chip
- newly rewritten core apps (Mail, Contacts, Photos, Notes, iPod, Calendar, Maps)
- new iBooks ebook reader app
- built-in App Store, iTunes Store and a new iBookStore
- 10 hours battery life, 1.5lbs light, 0.5 inches thin
- no ports except for standard iPhone/iPod Dock connector
- Bluetooth and WiFi (802.11n)

There are six versions of the iPad – 3G and non-3G versions in 3 storage capacities : 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

So what does the iPad replace? Nothing, really. It’s not a replacement for your iPhone or your laptop. It’s a third device for someone who’s entrenched in the Apple iTunes/App Store ecosystem. Think about the investment you’ve put into digitizing, purchasing, organizing your content and apps into Apple’s iTunes. The iPad makes all that effort just that much better.

People who were expecting an Apple tablet at a premium price ($800-900) would have been pleasantly surprised at the starting price : just $499 for the entry level 16GB version. That’s just $10 more than the Kindle DX. Even the most expensive iPad is just $850, well below the $1,000 threshold. Next year, when these storage capacities double for the same price, and with a number of apps written specifically for it, the iPad will probably sell very well.

I’m expecting the Keyboard Dock for the Apple iPad to be a very popular accessory. There are many people who want this for their iPhone, so hopefully Apple can release that version soon.

Would I buy it myself? The answer would be yes. I’ve been wanting a netbook for a while now, and the iPad actually can do most of what I want : editing blog posts, web browsing, ebook reading and watching video. It’s a little bit more than what I was planning to spend on a netbook, but all my media is ready to go for the iPad.

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Filed under: Mobile News

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