Most of us probably weren’t able to make it to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco yesterday. Even if you were there, you probably didn’t get to go inside the Apple Store because of the massive security. As such, you missed the chance to see Steve Jobs’ introduction for the Apple iPad first hand. Well, worry no more Apple fans, the video of that presentation is now available for you to salivate over. Jobs walks us through the reasoning behind the device, its goals, and how it will blow the competition away. It’s not like this is some sort of historical event, but it is really cool to watch. Check out the video after the break.
The video is mammoth. We’ve given you the first 6 parts (about 5-6 minutes each) embedded here. The entire video (90+ minutes) is available in Quick Time format on the iPad website…but you’ll have to sit through the first five minutes of Jobs explaining why Apple makes so much money. (No joke).
What could fit between the iPhone and a Mac? The iPad. Steve explains what it is.
Jobs shows us the iPad and what it can do.
Photos, music, and maps!
Video and movies. Then Jobs discusses hardware. The applause at 5 minutes in for the battery life is impressive. I had thought the audience might be dead.
App Store for the iPad. The SDK is already out and most Apps should port to the iPad.
What developers can do for the iPad in just a few weeks. Video game demo, then the New York Times.
There’s a lot to digest in this presentation. Certainly iPad is going to be a well designed tablet computer with a functionality somewhere between iPhone and Mac. Cool. Will the iBook store help Apple kill Kindle? Maybe, but more than likely it will just encourage the Kindle to get better. Will the iPad save the New York Times and print media? Probably not, but the big names are already adapting to the digital age on their own. Just watching the keynote, there’s no reason to believe that the iPad will change the world.
Yet I thought the same thing about the iPod and the iPhone. It’s not that these devices were the first of their kind. Far from it. MP3 players, mobile phones, tablet computers…Apple takes these concepts and extends them, refines them, until they sell like hot cakes. People love these things and they sell so well (250,000,000 iPods sold , 3 billion Apps downloaded) that they start to define their industries. It was really funny to watch everyone outside the Yerba Buena Center, trying to catch some news about the announcements inside. I’ve never seen so many darkly clothed and chicly coiffed people in my life. Not surprisingly, most had their iPhones out, taking snapshots and talking to friends. I only saw one Android phone the entire time I was there. And that guy? He was typing on his Mac.
[screen capture and video credit: Apple and iPadInsider via YouTube]
