Finally iPad - the Tablet from Apple revealed

Thursday, 28 January 2010

Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off a sleek tablet that it called the iPad, pitching the new gadget at a surprisingly low price to bridge the gap between Smart Phones and Laptops. Jobs took the stage at a packed theatre on 27th Jan'10 at Apple event to show off the 9.7-inch touch screen Tablet, which looks like a large iPhone, and to introduce a new iBook electronic reader service that will compete with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle. The iPad is Apple's biggest bet on a new product since the iPhone three years ago, and seeks to tap an unproven market for tablets. Analysts, while impressed by the iPad's seamless functionality, also pointed out that consumers already have Smart phones and Laptops for their mobile computing needs.

Jobs described the iPad as a "third category" of devices, a do-everything media gadget that can surf the Web, and play movies and video games. He also left little doubt that Apple was going after the e-book market that Amazon had popularized. "If there's going to be a third category of device, it's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a Smart phone; otherwise it has no reason for being," said Jobs, who still appeared thin following his liver transplant last year. Famous for his skills as a pitchman, Jobs, dressed in his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck, created plenty of drama as he waited until late in the event to discuss the cost of the iPad, which analysts had expected to be up to $1,000.

Apple elected to price it for as little as $499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, starting in late March. An extra $130 is needed to equip the iPad with third-generation (3G) wireless capability. Higher-capacity models will sell for $599 and $699.

The half-inch thick, 1.5-pound iPad features Apple's own processor and 10 hours of battery life. It runs a version of the iPhone's operating system and can use virtually all of the 140,000 apps currently available for the Smart phone.

Research group IDC said it expects Apple to ship 4 million iPad units in 2010, with about 2 million in the United States.