The Apple iPad
Hello Chandler Crossings! If you are as obsessed with gadgets as I am, you probably paid a little bit of attention to the announcement made by Apple Inc. during the last week of January. At an invitation only event on January 27, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s latest device: the iPad. If you have not seen or heard about it yet, the iPad is a tablet computer that some computer experts have described as a larger version of the Apple iPod Touch.
This media tablet features a 9.7 inch touch screen. It is very light weight and thin, tipping the scales at about 1.5 pounds and it is about an half-inch-thick. Consumers can choose between the 16,32, or 64 gigabyte flash memory storage versions of the iPad. It also comes with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity already built in. It runs many of the same programs as your standard Macbook or laptop does (like Microsoft Word) and also boasts at least 10 hours of battery life (where a full-sized laptop only has three or four hours). The iPad starts $499 for the 16 gigabyte model, but Apple will also sell a 3G version of the tablet for about $130 more. Data plans for those computers will be priced between about $15 to $30 dollars. Expect the iPad to hit stores in March.
Electronic experts around the country have been pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of the device. Other than it’s portability and battery life, Jobs contends that his iPad is superior to netbooks because it has much stronger chips than it’s similarly sized counterparts. The more powerful chips are said to be better for handling video and other processing-intensive tasks. Although the iPad does not come with a physical keyboard, Apple will sell an add-on recharging dock that will double as a keyboard. The device also might take some market share away from e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle or the Barnes and Noble Nook. Consumer’s might be willing to pay more for a device that does more than download digital books.
When it comes to the tablet, critics have pointed several disadvantages. The iPad does not support Flash, so the device can not display many online videos or play online games. Also, the media tablet does not have a USB port which many people find surprising. Therefore, you can not work on your paper from another computer and then use a flash drive to finish it on your iPad. There is also no camera built into the system (like many new laptops have now). It seems that Apple has some work to do on the iPad 2.0!
What do you think of this product? Is this going to be something you are going to buy in March? Or will you wait for the second version, if at all?
-Shaun Holness
Tags: apple ipad, ipad, new ipad, tablet, tablet pc
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Hot Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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