Apple’s new iPod Touch for giants – the iPad

Last Wednesday Apple announced there long awaited tablet device. The ipad, as it was called, is basically like an enlarged version of the iPod Touch. The iPad is 7.47 inches wide by 9.56 inches tall by 0.5 inch thick and weighs in at a very light 680grams.

The glass protected touch screen has a maximum resolution of 1,024x768 pixels. Although video output is available via the dock, HDMI output is not supported so the max you will get out of iPad is 480p. This might cause some gripes with people who want to integrate the device into their home entertainment system.

Furthermore, the fact that this thing looks like a giant iPhone or iPod touch cannot be ignored. For something that was build as such a revolutionary product they could have made the design just slightly unique. Instead, the iPad carries on in the same line as the iPhone sporting its home button.

When you look inside the iPad, you hope that things will start to change. However, the iPad is running a version of the iPhone OS not a full Mac OS. It just runs like a beefed up iPod Touch. This is achieved by a 1GHz A4 processor, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and a battery life of around 10 hours.

In terms of features, what does set the iPad apart from the iPhone is it’s e-reader. Through the new iBook Store you will be able to download books to the device. I guess Apple are trying to go after the Kindle here. With the iPad’s e-reader, the way you turn pages is very cool. It really looks like you are turning a page on a book as you can kind of play with the page and role it around.



In the US, there will be 3 types available 16GB ($499), 32GB ($599), and 64GB ($699). You will have to wait till May if you want a 3G version and hand over an extra $130 per unit, in addition to a monthly data plan.