OK, you’ve got at least two months to decide whether you really want/need/can’t live without a shiny new Apple iPad. It won’t ship for another 60 days or so, but we now officially know the specs for Apple’s new tablet:

  • CPU: 1GHz Apple A4 ARM-based processor
  • Display: 9.7 inch IPS multitouch display, 1024 x 768 pixels with 132 ppi
  • Storage: 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB
  • Connectivity: 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, optional 3G
  • Dimensions: 9.56″ x 7.47″ x 0.5″
  • Weight: 1.5 pounds (1.6 pounds with 3G modem)
  • Battery: 25Whr with up to 10 hours of web surfing, video, or music playback
  • Other features: Accelerometer and compass
  • Apps: Runs all iPhone apps plus new iPad apps including games, iTunes, iBooks, New York Times reader and others
  • Video support: H.264 video up to 720p
  • Input: On-screen keyboard that looks like a giant iPhone keyboard
  • Optional accessories including a keyboard dock, camera connection kit, and a case that doubles as a kick-stand
  • Accessibility: Closed-captioning playback, VoiceOver screen reader, full-screen zoom magnification
  • Environmental cred: Arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free LCD, PVC-free, recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure

The most intriguing aspect is probably the pricing. The base model with WiFi and 16GB of storage sells for $499. You can double the storage for $499, and the 64GB WiFi only model costs $699. For $130 more you can get the 3G enabled version, with prices ranging from $629 to $829.

What’s probably most impressive is that Apple worked out a deal with AT&T to make 3G access palatable. The cheapest plan is 250MB per month of data for $14.99. A $29.99/month plan gets you unlimited data (which in the US often actually means 5GB of bandwidth, but we won’t know for certain until we can read the fine print).

So… do you want one?

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82 replies on “Now that we know the iPad specs and price, do you want one?”

  1. I want one really bad. It sucks that it does not come to stores for another 2 months. But When it do hit the stores I will be the first one to get one.

  2. Absolutely, I want one. This thing will have a web cam, Flash support and multi-tasking in a matter of months. A bluetooth web cam would actually be ideal since now you could place the camera

    Great job Steve!

    Andrea

  3. I have only one purpose for a tablet and that’s bathroom surfing.

    We have 2 netbooks at home and the next buy will be whenever the ARM-MIPS based netbooks/smartbooks come out around 200$.

    The only thing that would make me change my mind is one of those netbook/tablet combos Ive seen once or twice…. The ones where you have a netbook and you can remove the screen from the hinges and use it as a tablet too.
    That would be something I could deal with.

    My netbooks all do buttloads of stuff like recording podcasts using Audacity (Mandriva Linux), editing/cropping pictures on top of my wife correcting her students papers (while she’s at our sons soccer practice), emailing, skyping, surfing and so on.

    Having one foot of glass doenst attract me if I have to hold it constantly and the Ipod we have is hidden under 2 inches to protect it from scratches.
    You have to see the plastified covers of our netbooks to realize that a iTampon would be scratched within 30mins of buying it.

    And Im a touchscreen non-believer.
    I use a mouse to manipulate my interface and gesture on a screen is cute for a few mins but nothing long term.

    1. Once you have gotten used to having a touch screen for couch surfing, its hard to get on with out it. It makes it smoother, quicker and less restrictive. I say this after owning a t91 for many months and then selling it due to lack of processor power. I am anxiously waiting for its replacement. Perhaps the viliv s10

  4. I’d prefer a clamshell Smartbook as the next computer in my electronic stable (and could live without it too). How many gadgets can I use?

  5. Well, unfortunately I think it is a cup full of FAIL.

    Which is sad, since I’m actually looking for a slate device at the moment.

    No multitasking.
    No flash support.
    No SD card slot or USB connectivity.

    After watching the presentation yesterday, now more than ever I am looking forward to the Lenovo Ideapad U1, which is basically an iPad, but married to a detachable keyboard base which houses an Intel Core Solo and Windows 7, runs Linux OS with UI when detached.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DYuVN6nuY

    Or I could just go back and reaquire an HP TC1100 from 2003.

  6. not now, will wait for next edition with camera, flash, gps, usb-card slots, oled and tv.

  7. I am not an Apple fanboy but I was hoping for more in the ipad. There is one good thing that nobody seems to have brought up. With the lack of flash support this product might just help bring HTML 5 video into the mainstream. One can hope.

    1. Good point, HTML 5 makes all these Flash issues that ALWAYS happen something that we can thankfully leave behind. (Sometimes I don’t understand Adobe. They couldn’t write Flash 10.1 to work with more netbooks? Even some?)

  8. The ipad failed to wow me as a consumer. Honestly, I was really hoping for a game changer that would alter and improve my daily habits but the Ipad failed to deliver that capability. The most interesting device that could change business/professional life is the microsoft courier. Unfortunately, MSFT tanked their own stock price on January 6th by allowing rumors of the courier to leak, then allowing Balmer to show up at CES without it. The underwhelmed business community immediately reduced MSFT share prices in response.

    The reason for courier enthusiasm is for the same reason as our initial iphone enthusiasm: the promise of a problem solving device with wide uses, great portability and better collaboration.

    1. Somebody get me off the floor ’cause I’m LMAO!! – good one, Caldude!

  9. Too pricy. Archos represents a better value, and Archos 5 has up to 500GB of hard drive storage, albeit games would fall short, but it has Flash and Opera. Size is 4×3 inches, but when your looking to a device such as this, size matters. Sorry as stated elsewhere, a netbook offers more bang for the $$$ with comparable battery life and battery swappable, and all the accy included and nearly as small less the touch screen. I can see advantages but the price isn’t going to make it a must have item….

  10. Do I want one? In principle, sure, I wouldn’t mind having one.

    But do I want to trade $500 or more for it? Probably not. The biggest downside for this product has to be its “real computer” size but its “only an iPod” application universe. And you have to pay for most of those apps through the App store.

    No thanks. I think I’ll wait for a multitouch tablet running Linux and sproting a 3qi screen.

  11. No. It’s a multitask-less, camera-less, phone-less, USB-port-less, card-slot-less, Flash-plugin-less, un-expand-able, un-pocket-able, oversized, overpriced, idiotically-named iPod Touch XL/LL…. I’ll take a hackintoshed netbook over the iPad anyday! Heck, I’ll take a Nokia N900 over an iPad anyday.

  12. After a look at the specs and capabilities, I am convinced that i need an Eee PC T91M and make the same but better…

  13. I’m going to side with most of the commenters here and say “No”. I can pay the Apple tax, get locked in to the Apple ecosystem and still not have a clear idea of what I would do with the device once I got it.

    For me I’d rather have a device that has a more open operating system, I can install things other that just what the device manufacturer says I can and isn’t design specifically to lock me in to the device manufacturer’s business model (I like having SD slots and USB ports and the like so I can put what I want to on my device thank you very much).

    Call me cynical, but I wonder if Apple circulated the $1000+ price rumor so that $500 would seem crazy low by comparison.

  14. well, its cool – but half way there. These guys left off SD slot, camera, ability to use as a phone, Flash, etc. Just exactly what is this thing supposed to do besides look cool and have a big screen????

  15. no thanks, I will wait for Ipad2 or (s) or whatever they ll call it
    No multitasking
    No flash support
    No camera
    No SD or USB slots
    smills like the first Iphone to me, few months after another model will released with all fixes nd all ppl who pay for the first model will have to suck it

  16. I am a convert Apple fan now. Screw all the netbooks. Who wants a 1.4 KG monster when you can get a 680g device to surf the net??

    If you are merely surfing and don’t need a keyboard, which 90% netbook users do, you must be an idiot to buy a 1.4KG machine as opposed to something 2 times lighter.

    1. i am also appreciative of apple products but some people just follow what others say, i have a macbook pro and an aluminium macbook, i had an iphone and exchanged it for a Nokia N900 must tell you wont be goin back! to be honest with you, for 999 you can buy sony vaio P Series which to me is way better than this, if i was looking for a easy to carry netbook! ultimately there is archos which have been in the market for a while, have just released the archos 9, if you want something cheaper there is archos 5 IT

  17. No, if it was a 10.1″ macbook, yes. But a 10.1″ iphone/ipod no way. I need more flexibility.

    1. If anything, this really give Asus a big opportunity. I think that this product is the weakest offering from Apple, perhaps ever. It just seems this product is much ado about nothing. It’s a combination of everything that already exists already. It’s not breaking ground, and it’s not dwarfing the competition. In my view, Asus now has the opportunity to be the new “apple”. The Eee Pad will include Tegra which last time I checked, was a monster in terms of battery life and multimedia capabilities. Oh, wow, 10 hours on the iPad? A couple years ago that might be fantastic, but if you’re not pushing 12-14, then you should keep the “10 hours” buried at the end of the press release. Playing videos will result in how much battery life? Let’s see.

    2. I could see paying that much for an OLED screen. If it is just a touch screen, I think it would sell better at half the price they stated. I read (or heard?) that these Apple devices do not usually catch on till they are reduced in price.

  18. $499 is still too high a price for me, but with the same price iPad is better, much safer, classier, and nicer than FusionGarage JooJoo. As for the proprietary Apple OS on the device, well do not worry ’cause Linux will be hacked into it in no time at all 😀

  19. Sadly, as an Apple user; I can’t think of any purpose that would make the iPad worthwhile. Maybe if it had a Pixel Qi display it would make more sense but that display looks too sharp to read text for long periods.

    1. If they price was half that listed, I could see it as a portable deivce that one could use to surf the internet at wifi hotspots or as entertainment device for long trips.

  20. Will I buy one? Nope.Will Apple sell a ton of them? Yes. I easily see millions of these selling.Will ten other companies be on their heels? Yup.Will those ten other companies sell as many? Nope!For better or worse this thing while not the elephant in the room is at least a bull moose. The best we can all hope for is this kicks people from Amazon to Xerox into action. Apple set the bar SO LOW, anyone could just put out a muti-tasking, port having, handwriting recognizing tablet and do okay. Come on Google, you can do this better! Let’s see a Google Chrome OS tablet device!!!

  21. Looks pretty cool to me, I’ll buy the low-end model for sure. Not sure why people expected anything different than what we got. The iPhone has an awesome UI and I’m looking forward to being able to use a larger version of it.

    I think fans of the iPhone will want something like this, the price is fairly reasonable too … What other tablet on the market can you get for under $500 that’s any good? I have a Nokia N800, and it was a few hundred cheaper but the screen is tiny, its CPU is slow and it doesn’t have a lot of applications designed for it.

    Guess Apple can’t please everyone.

  22. I was initially excited to see what innovations Apple would come up with for this form factor with the multi-touch interface, but it looks to be a retread of the iPhone OS, just bigger.

    I can’t see why anyone would possibly buy the new iWork packages for this, given its lack of multitasking ability. I don’t know many people who only have one document open at a time.

    The price was certainly lower than I expected, but the concomitant sacrifices that Jobs & Co. had to make to get it to that price make it little more than a super-sized iPod Touch. I cannot honestly think of an application for this thing that I can’t do better and cheaper on a device I already own. No thanks, I’ll wait for V2 or Courier.

  23. It is definitely not a video device (weak cpu)
    it is definitely not a music device (too big)
    it is definitely not a gaming device (even weaker cpu)
    it is definitely not a photo device (no camera)

    It is an ebook reader (great multi touch)
    it is a chating/blogging device (good keyboard input)

    conclusion: It is a let down

  24. Just so…very…limited.

    It does what I expected it to do, be a 10″ media content focused slate, but man did they bottleneck the thing. No major upgrade to the iPhone OS or a modified OS X really disappoints as there is no multitasking. They are releasing iWorks but that seems worthless when you can’t even transfer your documents with USB/SD storage…

    $500 is a good price point, it has the potential to be as productive as a netbook, with a better media experience, but no multitasking and limited storage kill it.

    And NYT was all they could muster in time? Where are the magazines.

    I think the quality and the execution are great, but they’re not winning many tech savvy fans over with this, all they can see are the limitations. The feedback has been surprisingly negative. They’re going to have to kill it in the casual market.

  25. No multitasking
    No flash support
    No camera
    No SD or USB slots
    No handwriting recognition
    = No purchase

  26. Do I want one? The lack of USB hosting and SD card slots makes this a no-go for me. Apple generally lives up to the pre-release hype, this was a huge letdown. Steve Jobs dissing netbooks in light of this jumbo iPod touch is laughable.

      1. Yes, I was aware of the adapter when I made that comment. Having to carry the adapter wherever I take the iPad is not an acceptable alternative to having the SD slot built-in. There is also an VGA adapter as well.

        Having to haul a handful of adapters technically solves the problem but it is a very inelegant solution.

  27. Wow, how lame. It’s too big to take everywhere for casual web surfing and doesn’t deliver enough for the couch web tablet. The Archos 9 with real Windows OS is a better choice for me but I’ll probably wait to see what HP releases. In the meantime, my carry everywhere portable tablet will be the Archos 5 Android Internet Tablet, until Dell releases the Mini5, that is! I can’t see why anyone would want to carry around this iPhone with a thyroid condition when you could get a much cheaper netbook with a real OS but that won’t stop the Apple fanboys, they’re already bidding up the stock. What a joke!

    1. Archos 9 may have a more functional OS but would compare in performance usability. That processor just doesn’t cut it. Too bad really, since it could have been what the ipad promises to be.

  28. I have a netbook (Lenovo S10) and its is okay, for but I find I enjoy the user interface and finger control of my iTouch much better. Netbooks are a compromised product with small keyboards and low end graphics. Any tool is about content and access to that content. There are other choices but none of them the same ease of access and usability as Apple. I’ll buy one. Bye S10

    1. Any netvertible easily surpass this (performance, connectivity, extensibility, flexibility and usability. I’m out of “-ity” for now but I’ll come back with more)

    2. I have to agree. In my living room at any given time are my DROID Eris, iPod Touch, Windows 7 Dell XPS M1330, and eeepc 1008ha. Most of the time I reach for the iTouch to pass time playing games, quickly check for new email, look at Facebook, etc. If I need to do anything more I grab the XPS. For me the netbook already doesn’t get used much but it does still have a niche. The iPad is definitely interesting and I may end up getting one to replace the eeepc but ultimately it just has too many limitations compared to a standard x86 PC. If they had given it an x86 processor running OSX, with the current interface as an OSX application, that would be a much different story.

  29. I’m mixed… Honestly, I’m quite disappointed by the netbook market’s failure to deliver a decent experience and have good battery life, at a decent price. Either the netbooks are too expensive, too limited in their punch, and/or too little battery life. Also, there’s the issue that thy run Windows, for the most part. I’d like to run Linux, but that means either a version of the crappy Intel graphics that’s actually supported in Linux, or Ion, which is, again, expensive.

    The tablet is expensive, still. However, LCD backlit IPS screen? Now that costs some money… It’s a far cry from the crappy screens on netbooks. But it’s got limited memory, which means limited uses. It’s basically an overgrown iPod Touch with a Kindle built in.

    For a little more money, and a lot of waiting and hunting around, I can find the polycarbonate Macbook for $850, or go with a bigger laptop from a major manufacturer like Dell or HP that has limited battery life and runs crappy Windows, but with the right legwork, I can get Mandriva to work on it just fine. Otherwise, I could sink a good deal into something with a great battery, great performance, and could potentially replace my desktop.

    Decisions, decisions…

  30. This might work. WiFi, Bluetooth tethering, ~10″ screen, 3G is an option, but not required. I can do without a physical keyboard. I would count not having to carry around a separate iPod as potentially a bonus. I will have to take a hard look at this. Yes, there is the “Apple premium” on pricing, but the price point is not the $1000 that has been bandied about. On the con side, there is lock in (iTunes/App Store). Let’s just hope the quality control is there, so that early adopters don’t get hosed.

  31. It seems to be chock full of SUCK. I was hoping for a LOT more than just a Shrek-sized iPod Touch.

  32. Lack of stylus input is a letdown, expected or not.
    As is lack of GPS.
    So what will run on it? Full-blown Google Earth, or other mapping software?
    Lots of questions remain.

    1. no gps, no flash, no phone capabilities, no multiple apps, no stylus, $830- yeah give me one

    2. It has assisted GPS same as the iPhone…Of course only on the 3G + WiFi models…

    1. Perhaps the person who buys it has more money than brains? I would go for the other tablets that are coming out before I would buy this one. I have more brains that money. 🙂

      1. If you have more brain, you should really proof read your sentence. That -> than . Besides, if you really have more brain, then why arent you rich? Steve Jobs seems to smarter person compare to you.

        1. Since Bill Gates is way richer than Jobs, he must be way smarter.

          Perhaps it was a typo. I am not as young as I used to be; then again, no one is.

          I did not say I was the smartest, just that I have more brains than money. In my case, I do not have much money.

  33. Just how is the device innovative? – Not seeing anything I can’t get cheaper and with more user choice around what the device will play etc.

    Not for me…..

  34. I want one for lazy passive net browsing, putzing around with apps and to support the use of high-quality screens in mobile devices.

    I DON’T want one for the practical considerations of carrying it around outside home/work and:
    = price -and- AT&T connection
    = likely lack of flexibility/compatibility for OS choices (vs Tegra or Snapdragon systems)
    = lack of 3qi (Pixel Qi) style screen

    Ultimately, I’ll have to pass…

    1. Thought it over some more. If it has support from most or all textbook manufacturers (w/discounted book pricing), it could be purchase-worthy.

      That’s one benefit I didn’t consider in my appraisal.

  35. I’d say I hate it, but I don’t want to make Steve cry.
    Any netbook is more flexible, cheaper and less painfull ergonomically.

  36. For the price I can get 2 or 3 pretty decent netbooks with a lot more storage and hackintosh them.

    No, thanks.

    1. LOL! Didn’t you hear Steve, he said netbooks are slow, have low quality displays, and [run] PC software (boo hiss boo).

      You believe his right? ROLF! Netbooks are selling millions of units so “of course” nobody wants them….it all make sense.

      1. Yeah. At least Netbooks can MULTITASK! (and are user-upgradable, have a faster CPU, 10 times the storage, run full-blown desktop OSes, have webcams, card readers, USB slots, keyboards………..)

  37. If it can get support for Adobe Flash… Yes. I’m actually quite interested, especially for a always on 3G enabled device with unlimited wireless at a reasonable rate… That would bring it over the top for me. I’d need to play with one before I make a purchase, but this is actually a compelling device.

    That said I’d love to see what the Tegra 2 platform is going to bring out… And how the GPU in the A4 compares.

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