Apple is hold a press announcement for it’s tablet device, called an iPad.
No price announced yet, but rumors say around a grand.
Update: I posted more details over at the Urbin Report.
Apple really slammed the price down. $499 for a 16 Gig WiFi model and $829 for 64 Gig with WiFi & 3G.
Downside: It’s a big iTouch. No standard USB port, no SD slot and it’s locked to iTunes to load new content.
On the other hand, it’s a good Netbook replacement for around the house. Surfing, basic email and a better screen to watch video on. Apple finally came out with a keyboard, it’s not Bluetooth, but connects to a docking port. A step in the right direction.
Since it’s a big iTouch, it runs all the iTouch/iPhone apps. So you can ignore Apple’s iBooks store, load the Kindle app and buy books from Amazon. Or you could load Stanza or Bookshelf and read your own DRM free e-books, like the ones you purchase from Baen Books.
Apple also announced a new SDK, so it will be interesting to see what new features the iPad has when people start digging into that.
Update: It appears that the iPad actually does have a webcam.
Filed under: Apple, Gadget | Tagged: Apple, Gadget, iPad, iPhone |
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Alot of bloggers aren’t too pleased with this new iPad.There was just 2 much hype regarding it and alot people got disapointed.Quite frankly, I actually see great deal of the awesome potential of this gizmo. Third-party apps for playing music, games, newspapers and magazine and FFS books, tons of neat stuff, but they failed to sell it right (excluding the books). It looks kinda not finished
Oh, it has flaws. No flash, no SD/MicroSD slot, locked to iTunes for updates, the tyranny of the iTunes store.
Oh, did I mention no camera? The thing should have a front facing camera for video VoIP.
Still, the $499 model is really going to bit into the home netbook market. Apple priced this sucker to move!
It will be interesting to see what kind of third party apps come out of the new SDK, and what new features are in that SDK.
I’m torn. The screen’s no good for reading long documents, but it would be great for maps.
I’m going to hold out judgement on the screen. I’ve had good success in reading novels on LCD screens (Palm PDAs and iPhones) using the old Dr. Pournelle color pick. White letters on a dark blue background. If the screen is a high enough resolution, it should be fine.
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I’ll have to try that. I wonder if the Kindle app for iPhone supports the Pournelle scheme…
And, unfortunately, the iPhone Kindle app doesn’t have a sc reen color change. Which iPhone doc reader would you recommend?
Ya, the Kindle app only does black on white or white on black.
I’m currently using Stanza for most of my iPhone reading, which has a very nice range of configuration options for the screen, It also has a desktop app that you can load etext in multiple formats (including MS-Word doc files), and then load them from there on to your iPhone (iTouch/iPad/iWhatever) over WiFi.
I haven’t bought any e-books from Amazon yet, so I don’t know if they can be loaded on Stanza.
So ipad or not? Im tempted, but not quite. The limitations mentioned are pretty significant. I’ll wait for more widespread HTML5 adoption, multi-tasking, the next wave of apps and a webcam. Great review though, surprisingly balanced.