Apple iPad Unveiled: Hits and Misses
Now that Apple has revealed all of the iPad, we can finally discard all the wishful rumors that surrounded the tablet's launch. It's time to hold the tech press -- ourselves included, of course -- accountable for all sorts of iPad hopes, dreams and miscalculations.
Not that Apple shouldn't have included some of the things we heard about. For reference, here are a few rumour roundup stories we ran leading up to the iPad's unveiling. Let's seem how many of those reports came to fruition and how many didn't, but should have:
The Name
iPad. It sounds like iPod, which could be a problem for Boston-area natives, but it sounds friendlier than the other frontrunner, iSlate.
Look and Feel
AppleInsider was right on the money saying the tablet looks like a big iPhone, with an aluminium shell, home button and 30-pin dock connector. Missing the mark was iLounge, which predicted two dock connectors for easy access for horizontal and vertical alignments, but it would've been nice.
Screen and Dimensions
Nope, not OLED, but IPS. Not 11 inches, not 7 inches, but 9.7 inches. Dimensions remained largely out of the tablet hysteria, but the iPad measures a half-inch thick and weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7kg).
iPad User Interface
In the haze of 2009, one report suggested we could see a tablet running Mac OS X, but today's product looked a lot like the iPhone's app-centric interface, but with a background. Many apps featured big, drop-down menus, something you're not likely to see on the iPhone. Multitasking did not make an appearance at Apple's iPad event.
iPad Specs
Predictions that the iPad would have an ARM processor (single-core at first, multi-core later) didn't pan out. Instead, its a 1GHz Apple A4 chip, the fruits of Apple acquiring PA Semi. GPS and 802.11n Wi-Fi are indeed on board, along with 3G for an additional charge. No much was rumoured about storage, but you can pick from 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Battery life is 10 hours. Disappointingly, there's no camera despite France Telecom Deputy Chief Executive Stéphane Richard's not-so-confirmation.
Content
What was all this about saving old media? While the New York Times briefly showed off an app, and we saw an online bookstore called iBooks, Apple didn't show any radically new content or business models, and no magazine subscriptions, just free websites. The iPad is very much a large-screen iPod Touch -- in fact, it supports the entire existing App Store. The New York Times was right on saying the iPad will run a multi-touch version of iWork.
Price and Availability
Fortunately, there's no such thing as a $1,000 iPad. The closest you get is a 64GB iPad with 3G, for US$829. Base price is US$499 for 16 GB, plus $130 for 3G. AT&T is exclusively providing the 3G service (so, no Verizon), at $14.99 for 250 MB per month and $29.99 for unlimited data. There's no subsidy, but no contract either. iPads without 3G will arrive in 60 days, and iPads with 3G are coming in 90 days. The Wall Street Journal wins for calling a March arrival, and Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu loses for picking June.
Jared Newman
PC World is New Zealand’s top selling computing and technology magazine.
Comments
Go James!
The key connectivity question for me is whether Apple will allow tethering an iPad to your iPhone. I already pay for a 250 MB/month data plan (in recent months this has been upped to 3 GB/month via the Vodafone promo) and NZ iPhones aren't locked to any specific carrier. I can't recall if tethering is enabled on non-jailbroken USA iPhones but, if so, the question would be a valid one for the USA as well.
Tethering works brilliantly on my laptop using either the cable or Bluetooth. The inbuilt Bluetooth hardware in the iPad would be very likely to support tethering but will Apple allow us to leverage our investment in the iPhone?
Oh, and a question for Ted: are you looking at an ePub version of NZ PCWorld that would fit into Apple's future view of publishing via the iBookstore? I reckon I spend up to $1000 annually on print based books/mags/newspapers that end up in the recycling after a few months. God knows what my 6 person family of up to 2 books/week each racks up. Kiwis are pretty keen on their books and mags.
I'll subscribe the first day you or any half-decent content creator/publisher makes this a reality in my areas of interest and drop back my print spend. It wouldn't be a stretch to see up to 6 iPads in my household if publishing goes this way - not to mention that 4 of my 6 are textbook-toting students.
This topic would make a great editorial or future focus piece for PCWorld.
Posted by: Clive Bull | February 10, 2010 2:25 PM
If you are of the opinion that Apple missed its target with features on the iPad then you don't "get" what the iPad was designed for.
Despite 99% of web animations using Flash they didn't miss putting Flash support into the iPad. Apple is on pushing for the HTML5 standard to be accepted on the web which will replace the bloated crappy code that is Flash. More on HTML5 here http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/09/19/why-apple-is-betting-on-html-5-a-web-history/
As to the price of the base model of the iPad, Apple was right on the money. No other manufacturer will be able to survive if they try and under cut Apple at the $499 US price point and they won't survive at higher price points because Apple has them covered too. The Kindle which originally came out at about $449 and has since dropped to $259 on Amazon.com means that Amazon is probably losing money or barely breaking even. Apple will be making at least $200 on every base model iPad sold.
The specs - Apple owns PA Semi who are responsible for the custom design part of the A4 chip which means that while other companies already use the ARM chip including Apple, no other company can use the PA Semi designed customisations.
The iPhone Developer Kit, App store and 100 million happy customers means Apple has a pre existing market already familiar with the product and ready for more apps to run on it.
The iPad also connects to a docking station and keyboard for those who prefer the more traditional method of typing such as business and enterprise users.
In short they just hit another winner out of the ball park with loaded bases.
Posted by: James | February 1, 2010 10:05 AM
Do we also expect the thing to be locked to a particular provider (I mean besides Apple) where our new iPad can only connect through a named ISP/telco/thingy? Is this even more money lost to data-roaming charges?
However, there is some concern that Apple plan to do to books what they did to music.
DRM in music is pretty much a dead issue - however it is alive and kicking for books and movies. To be fair, it wasn't the disaster for music that was hyped - if only through consumer resistance (also called "rampant piracy"; and "sharing with your friends") - but still.
FSF Defective By Design team has a petition in the hope that apple can be persuaded to drop DRM on books before it is too late. As if that would happen - but at least signing up demonstrates a mandate.
Getting an unlocked tablet looks to be impossible, even with the upandcoming Android tablets. I can see how same people would figure: "If I'm going to be in prison, I may as well make it a comfortable prison."
Posted by: Simon Bridge | January 29, 2010 1:52 PM