Steve Jobs sitting in a chair on stage, presenting the ipad
Well, the Applet tablet is finally official, and it even has name…ipad! Steve Jobs is on stage at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, CA presenting the device even as I write:
Breaking: Price starts at $499! Amazing! Available in 60-90 days.
- If you need to type seriously, then plugs into ipad keyboard dock.
- The device looks beautiful, as expected.
- It appears to run an iphone derived OS and is a top of the line e-reader.
- Unlike clunky devices like the Kindle, this thing is in full color, allows all objects, images, etc to be touchable with your hands.
- Maps look beautiful on the device.
- 1Ghz Apple A4 custom chip with 16GB to 64GB memory. 0.5 inches thin, 1.5 pounds. 9.7 inch display.
- 10 hour battery life, 1 month standby life.
- High defition video HDTV.
- Virtually every iphone app will work on the device.
- It is basically a big ipod touch, but way more powerful.
- This could revolutionize gaming – powerful processor, excellent graphics, combined with multitouch capability never seen before on a gaming platform.
- A key strength here seems to be that the ipad will seamlessly allow the thousands of developers for the iphone to jump onto the ipad and develop stunning applications quickly, easily.
- Ibook store to offer enormous amount of book and publisher content
- Way better than traditional books. Web 2.0 enabled with video, images, author updates and additions
- “The most beautiful word processor you will ever see”
- iwork – spreadsheets, word processor retooled from the ground up for this device
- As powerful as a computer, but an intimate experience that is unlike anything else available today
- Easily connects to projectors
- Uses AT&T for 3G network…oh no!
- $9.99 for each iwork app – not bad!
- syncs over USB with itunes, just like ipod/iphone
- Activate directly on ipad itself. It is unlocked, so can use with multiple networks worldwide
Pricing:
- 16 GB version is $499 with WiFi
- 32 GB is $599
- 64 GB is $699
- 64GB plus 3G – $829
The Kindle doesn’t hold a chance against this thing. More to follow. Below are some screen shots of the event:
baseball on the ipad
Look out kindle...ipad ebooks rock!
In front of the yerba buena center...is Aaron Saenz in the picture?
neat!
Comments
I think the iPad could revolutionise work and school if used properly. The former is more likely than the latter because we don't seem to care about educating our children with modern, updated techniques, but if we did we could introduce an interactive education program that would teach kids using all three learning styles (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic) which can make school fun and keep them interested for longer while doing away with the need for school text books, pens, paper and a highly educated teacher since the kids could pretty much teach themselves at the speed they want to learn. I could quite easily see kids finishing secondary school by age 12 if you can keep them interested. How many times have you felt that you've been held back because the kids in your class can't understand the concepts?
I remember at university for some of the more complicated genetics concepts we used interactive computer programs that showed us how it worked. The concept was broken into multiple pieces and at the end there would be a test. If we failed any of the questions it would go back through those sections until we understood what was happening. Now apply this strategy to primary and secondary maths and science and we could see kids getting near perfect scores in end of year exams. Using a touch pad like this primary school kids could also be taught how to write and spell properly without the need for teachers. Teachers could be relegated to “support staff” status or replaced completely.
For the Trekkies reading this, think of the episode “Cogenitor” from Star Trek: Enterprise where the children of the future pretty much teach themselves.
Too bad Ipad is crap. And let me explain why. First of all, similar to iphone you can not install custom progs. Only what apple will let you install. I can't copy paste my .doc and .pdf files and read them electronically. Nope, I actually have to BUY those books to be able to read them. Where is the fun in that? Can I install an old NES game and play it? Nope. Can I install some custom tools for work? NOPE!
Basically it's just a bigger Iphone.
FAIL!
“High defition video HDTV.”
“This could revolutionize gaming [...] excellent graphics [...]“
Although one may seem to imply the other, h.264 decoding is often delegated to specialized hardware – and simply blitting the output buffer to screen is pretty easy. Has there been any word on what GPU hardware is being used in the ipad? Unless it uses something from NVIDIA or AMD/ATI, I wouldn't hold my breath for its 3D capabilities in general.
True generalized, realtime graphics processing in the form of raytracing is still a ways off even for desktop processors. Although this isn't needed for making good-looking games, it may be a necessary advancement in game development before onboard solutions can begin to catch up to specialized solutions. I'm still waiting for AMD and Intel to prove me wrong on that point