The Apple Tablet Is Here, And It's Called the iPad

http://i.gizmodo.com/5458292/the-apple-tablet-is-here-and-its-called-the-ipad

by jasonlbaptiste • 16 years ago

56 105 16 years ago

i.gizmodo.com

dlsspy• 16 years ago

So, it's an iPod Touch. A large one. The iPod touch is a min-iPad and this is the max-iPad.

maukdaddy• 16 years ago

Really?? This isn't digg.

cookiecaper• 16 years ago

I don't get it. Why is his comment Digg-like? It seems adept to me.

gcheong• 16 years ago

It was the first thing I thought of, and I never read Digg (or Reddit).

kordless• 16 years ago

So about that. It's the INTERNET. We're all here, sharing access to it, ya know. Yes, I love YC because people here are much more mature, but the fact is that we all like a good bit of humor now and again.

My wife came home today and said, "hey, what's the gizmo from Apple called?". I told her and she made a face and said, "that's stupid". I have to agree, and also agree with people making jokes about it.

ekanes• 16 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1BUH9eXy18

Prescience much? :)

andreshb• 16 years ago

So far, I think ill stick to getting a netbook, just because im not a fan of depending on the iPhone OS on anything but a phone, and even that is a deal breaker for me. Maybe if it came with Mac OS

rinich• 16 years ago

Your words make no sense. You don't like the OS except on a phone but not on a phone but this isn't the iPhone OS whatsoever.

Also: Can we not say stupid things until Steve finishes telling us everything? As I type this they're just announcing iWork. I don't fucking see iWork on my fucking iPhone, or on a netbook for that matter, so let's not conflate the two.

randallsquared• 16 years ago

I don't fucking see iWork on my fucking iPhone, or on a netbook for that matter, so let's not conflate the two.

Well, any hackintoshed netbook could run iWork, so there's that.

hop2• 16 years ago

And how much is it... refresh refresh refresh

mattwdelong• 16 years ago

I thought you are supposed to under promise and over deliver?

I see nothing new and innovative.

sker• 16 years ago

To be fair, Apple didn't promise much. The lunatic media did.

borism2• 16 years ago

isn't "lunatic" media the result of Apple marketing?

neilc• 16 years ago

Since when has Apple "promised" anything about the iPad? Most/all of the hype around it was externally-generated.

ericb• 16 years ago

I see a platform that will let Steve do a lot of "and that's not all..." in future presentations. Maybe live hd tv, video calling, augmented reality, and other wow moments in the future that wouldn't have worked on a smaller screen quite so well and need either touch, or a sturdy portable device to be practical.

nopinsight4• 16 years ago

If they include a pull-out or pluggable physical keyboard, arranged to allow the pad to stand like a frame, it could be a great replacement for most netbooks and allow for hands-free reading--therefore a Kindle killer as well.

Wonder if they have ever considered the idea and reject it simply for the aesthetics of having the simplest, smoothest device possible. Aesthetics is good, but if a small compromise can be made for much greater functionality, it would be a good trade-off.

I think some other companies might have come up with a device I described above. Anyone here knows of one? I would consider buying it. A link would be appreciated.

w00pla• 16 years ago

Or just a USB port to plug in a mouse.

What would also be nice is that if it has a USB port so that you can download movies/books from your PC to the tablet. And it also should charge through USB...

sumeetjain• 16 years ago

Looks like you got your wish:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/apple-...

dzlobin• 16 years ago

Horrible name, and no flash..again? What a serious waste of money

Perceval• 16 years ago

I agree that the name is lame. Regarding Apple and Flash, Gruber has a pretty good overview: http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash

darien• 16 years ago

I see this going the way of the Macbook Air.

ryandvm3• 16 years ago

Indeed. Apple is allowed to whiff every now and then just like everyone else.

joubert5• 16 years ago

Thinner & lighter than any other netbook?

stevejohnson• 16 years ago

Except that the Air has a much different price point.

TeHCrAzY2• 16 years ago

I disagree. The iPad is directly competing with netbooks, but providing less functionality at a higher price point.

A quick survey around the dev team here highlight this: They think it is too expensive and impractical. (and this is no anti-apple bias, a good 3/4 of the team have iPhones)

anonjon• 16 years ago

ynterestingly, Fujitsu already have this particular product name trademark and apple has been trying to wrestle yt away from them for a while now.

yt ys an ynteresting feat of branding that apple has been able to establish president that they have claim to any name starting with the letter i. (The same thing happened with Cisco and the iPhone).

Personally, y've always found that particular piece of branding obnoxious. Really? a lowercase i?

Luckily we have cognates and perhaps y-combinator can release its own brand of yPhone, yTouch, and yPad? (all, of course, running on a lisp OS).

pavs• 16 years ago

you accidentally, i.

quantize• 16 years ago

The innovation was in the iPhone. The news apps, book apps, content consumption and games, all MOBILE. The i-pad makes these innovations PRACTICAL with a bigger screen, and that is something worth buying.

khelloworld5• 16 years ago

It seems their main target is the macbook-buying college student. I wish this thing doesn't cost more than 499 ($599 max).

khelloworld5• 16 years ago

499 it is!!! Yay!

chrischen3• 16 years ago

A college student with a MacBook is NOT going to get this. They lug around a computer already, what's the point of lugging an ipad around too?

khelloworld5• 16 years ago

I was talking about the soon-to-be college students, not the soon-to-be-graduating ones.

andre• 16 years ago

ATT providing the 3G service: #FAIL

DrJokepu• 16 years ago

however, all model are shipped as GSM unlocked so there's nothing stopping anyone from signing up with another GSM provider.

holdenk• 16 years ago

But do we know which 3G bands it supports? i.e. for American users will it work on t-mobile 3G?

ryandvm3• 16 years ago

Yeah - it's a big iPod. yawn

As an instant-on, full-page web browser, it's far more useful than a netbook, but it's pretty underwhelming for everything else.

With shorter battery life, greater cost, and more eyestrain than the Kindle, I doubt it will have much impact on the e-reader market.

lliiffee• 16 years ago

Fast page refresh makes it potentially very attractive for things like textbooks where you need to skim around. For linear novel reading, I'd think a Kindle is much better.

ericd5• 16 years ago

How many do you think are going to look at the Kindle at $250-500 and then the iPad at $500 and choose the single-purpose-does-one-thing-somewhat-better device?

If Amazon dropped the price to sub-$100, I think they'd sell them by the boatload, but at current price points... nah.

borism2• 16 years ago

$500 is still twice $250, and at twice the weight of e-reader... I'm not compelled, especially with iPhone OS and App store limitations.

ryandvm3• 16 years ago

At 24 ounces, the iPad is a brick. There's no way you can comfortably hold that thing like a book for more than 30 minutes. No wonder Ives has arms like a prison guard.

Like I said, it's a fine netbook killer (though I think the segment was killing itself). But there is no way this thing is taking market share from the e-books.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

No keyboard. Less space than a netbook. Lame.

bmj• 16 years ago

Keyboard dock available. Obviously, not part of the $499 package, but still, it's out there.

cschep• 16 years ago

I think he was poking at the classic iPod review on slashdot.

cliveholloway2• 16 years ago

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257...

z8000• 16 years ago

It will work with bluetooth keyboards.

joubert5• 16 years ago

Starts at $499. Suck that, netbooks.

edd• 16 years ago

And $629 unlocked to take to what ever 3g network you want.

khelloworld5• 16 years ago

Well, that would be 649 then.

tortilla2• 16 years ago

Wow. I was expecting $899 and up. I don't need it, but at that price...

joubert5• 16 years ago

$829 for 64GB + 3G.

noodle• 16 years ago

plus the no-contract AT&T 3G data deals are nice.

nopinsight4• 16 years ago

Why does 3G need to cost $130 extra though? Is the component that expensive, or just a way to capture more value from customers who can afford it?

liuliu• 16 years ago

Maybe they pay back AT&T for the 3G deal?

wmblaettler• 16 years ago

Apparently the 3G version also has a GPS unit built-in.

varenc• 16 years ago

you can have root on a netbook...

swannodette• 16 years ago

How many of your average computers users really care about that? If I can access a shell and write some code on this thing, I'm sold. The battery life alone is worth it.

Edit: Sadly reading this thread is like reading Slashdot about the announcement of the iPod.

tvon• 16 years ago

And do what with it? Install a slew of apps that you can run on any other computer, just on a tiny screen and tiny keyboard?

joubert5• 16 years ago

One wants the computer to go away.

wvenable• 16 years ago

My netbook was $279 with a 6 cell battery and a 160GB harddrive. That's throw away money! But at $499 for 16GB that's not really in the same market.

elblanco5• 16 years ago

You also forgot that you can run office and other productivity software on it, photoshop, use it for live performance music mixing, composing, play real games, don't need to dock it to have a real keyboard and mouse and can plug in a DVD burner to watch more movies, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Jun8• 16 years ago

Price looks really good until you think about the following: No SD card slot, no camera (can't use it for video chats), no USB. And of course, the killers are: no multitasking support (yet) and no HDMI port (how are you going to hook it up to your TV?). I still want one, though!

ApolloRising• 16 years ago

Lack of camera/video chat was surprising. You would think this would be a fun video ichat device.

spamizbad• 16 years ago

i was underwhelmed until I heard the price: at $499 this thing is going to be a huge hit.

blehn• 16 years ago

It was great how Steve fully acknowledged the problem with tablets, "So all of us use laptops and smartphones... the question has arisen; is there room for something in the middle. We've wondered for years as well -- in order to create that category, they have to be far better at doing some key tasks... better than the laptop, better than the smartphone."

Then he proceeded to introduce a device that underperforms vs either smartphones or laptops in almost every way.

nopinsight4• 16 years ago

The pricing suggests they plan to make a lot more money selling apps & books/magazines than the hardware itself.

kyro• 16 years ago

I don't know how I feel about this. Part of me wants to say this'll be a great light mobile device to carry around, and the other part says this is somewhat useless as I can do most of these things on my iPhone. I really don't see anyone using iWork on the iPad to create presentations or documents. You usually wanna crank that stuff out quickly, and the speed at which you can type up a slide title, browse the net for an image, copy and paste it over, etc, on a laptop is, I'm assuming, far greater than you'd be able to do it on the iPad. Not to mention, I'm worried that typing on this thing is going to be extremely awkward. The keyboard is too big to use while holding the iPad with your hands (unless you're a hunt and peck typer), and laying it on a flat surface will mean you'll have to hunch over to see what you're typing. The screen real estate is great, and I can definitely see myself using it to read books, but for $500, I'm not quite sure it's worth it. I would've loved to see them unveil some sort of medical charts app for use in hospitals. That would've been a wow moment for me. But they didn't, so I'm torn.

Keyframe• 16 years ago

Can't wait to see what other devices like this will be out there in a matter of months based on Nvidia Tegra - and at what price. Could this be the downfall of netbook growth?

hop2• 16 years ago

Charging $100 extra per 32GB must be a big money maker for Apple. I just bought a 32GB USB stick off newegg for $70 and considering Apples buying power, it probably costs them a lot less.

khelloworld5• 16 years ago

What about a camera? Did I miss anything?

xsmasher2• 16 years ago

No camera; that was a surprise to me. Apparently there's a "camera connection kit" to let you copy photos from your camera or SD card though?

cliveholloway2• 16 years ago

I wonder if it will come with wings? So we can (say) safely use it while exercising ;-)

joubert5• 16 years ago

Also runs on Apple's own silicon. The A4.

rcoder• 16 years ago

I love the "notepad" joke implicit in that name.

chrischen3• 16 years ago

Truth is between my laptop and my iPhone, there really isn't space left for another $500 device. If I can take the iPad around I can take my laptop too. IPad can't beat iPhone in terms of taking out of my pocket and quickly getting some info. Can't be my laptop because it can't run my work apps.

It's an entertainment device that can't fit in my pocket, and can't work like a bigger computer. I've got some space for it in my bathroom though, however doctor says I shouldn't sit there too long.

Seriously if it ran OS X it might be enticing, but why get an oversized iPod touch that can't fit in your pocket.

I'm going to wait for the iPhone with pico projector embedded.

a-priori• 16 years ago

I don't have a need for one of these things, but I think it might be great for my mother or grandmother.

fretlessjazz• 16 years ago

The target demographic for this device may not be current iPhone, iPod or MacBook users. Consider the many people that want MacBooks but can't afford them. The iPad + keyboard dock is a lower-cost alternative, especially with iWork applications for $10 a pop.

I see this product as doing nothing but growing Apple's customer base.

tortilla2• 16 years ago

I can see getting this for my mom. All she needs is email and some light web browsing.

paydro• 16 years ago

Would also be great for her if there were a camera for video conferencing!

xsmasher2• 16 years ago

Exactly. The iPhone put a smartphone into the hands of people who were not gadget freaks. If this device gets moms and grandmas surfing the web from the couch, then it'll outsell any netbook. There's still lots of blue ocean there.

MrSartorial• 16 years ago

Presentation just finished. I have to say I'm disappointed. First point is trivial; they should have gone with a new name like iSlate. Playing off of your own products name (IPod) is weak marketing. It sounds like something somebody would try to knock off an iPod with.

Actual problems with the iPad:

1)It should have 128GB of storage available. I understand this would lead to a big price leap, but availablility would be nice

2) They should've gone 16:9 Aspect Ratio. EVERYTHING is that ratio now. Notice all the vids didn't fit the screen? Furthermore, the keyboard built in would be much more effective with the increase in dimensions.

3)Thank the lord they have 3G. If they didn't I would've lost it. But why can't they just put this on the same bill as my phone? THAT would've been a good contract negotiation. That way Phone providers get even more of our data usage and it's built in. This would help me use up my 6GB monthly dataplan. I want simplicity Apple, not another plan to activate.

The battery life is brilliant though.

nopinsight4• 16 years ago

In 10-15 years, I can see most students carry an iPad-like device to school instead of a bunch of books many (esp in Asian countries) need to put in their bags today. It would also be a great replacement for brick-heavy textbooks. If we can collectively break the textbook oligopoly, the costs would be much lower as well.

Together with video lecture inserts to clarify difficult points and interactive & intelligent tutoring software, this could potentially change the way people learn.

TeHCrAzY2• 16 years ago

The price would need to drop quite significantly, and/or the durability would need to increase drastically (children + strong, well engineered device = broken device in short amount of time!)

asnyder• 16 years ago

It seems like it will be excellent for for salesmen or pharmaceutical representatives.

Personally, I'm fighting whether I should continue with my Kindle DX purchase, or get this instead.

jwhitlark• 16 years ago

I was in the same boat. I went with the DX. Not making my eyes bleed after all day looking at lcd screens, transfer things with usb, (don't need iTunes), and last more that one day on a single charge made my choice easy.

This device looks interesting, and might open up new use cases, but I'm not interested in going back to a walled garden.

biggitybones• 16 years ago

All the flash (or lack there of) got me excited, but there are a few glaring questions left unanswered:

1) Support for multi-tasking? This is a must on something like this. Perhaps they want to ensure performance of single applications by restricting multi-tasking?

2) Flash support? When Steve was browsing the flash plugin was missing... another must on a device that is trying to act as an intermediary between laptop and phone, primarily for web usage.

3) All of the focus on the iPad as an e-reader is neglecting the fact that the screen will be difficult to read off of. The screens of Kindles and Sony e-reader products are the major attraction, in my opinion. There's no way I could read for several hours on a backlit screen.

It's a great multimedia device, and has some awesome practical implications. However, I think the things I listed above are big time issues for the intentions of this device.

elblanco5• 16 years ago

One thing we have to think about with this is that Jobs is not afraid of a wholesale platform change.

This makes me think that his is really a quiet thrust back into general computing, from a platform, hardware and software ecosystem that's been very successful and is wholly owned and controlled by Apple.

The current Mac ecosystem is basically no different, or just a variation on, the PC open platform. Jobs has stated many times in the past that he prefers to "control the end-to-end user experience" which is code for "prefers to control the margins on Apple products, from hardware to software".

Everything in the iPhone ecosystem allows Apple to control the end to end margins retrievable from the consumer. The Mac ecosystem lost this message a long time ago and this seems to me like a soft-shoe effort to turn the Apple consumer onto a new computing platform that's on the Steve Jobs "margin controlled" message.

It also cleanly gets the moved away from the Wintel style computing and back into proprietary and incompatible land. Within two years, people will be using these things for general computing, with mice and keyboards and webcams and all kinds of specialized docks and iPad 2nd monitors and such. Within 5 years they'll offer a complete out of the box computer running in this constrained ecosystem and traditional Macs will be relegated to some type of "Pro" offering targeting writers and artists.

Already it's principle release feature is the presence of 140k apps, ready to roll with it that you can purchase only from the Apple controlled online store. And there's discussion on porting more traditional productivity apps (iWorks) to the platform.

Effectively, this puts the iPod/Phone/Pad derivative products into direct competition with Apple's own products, which already have plenty of competition from traditional Wintel boxes, Netbooks of all varieties, other tablets, the upcoming Chrome OS machines, and Android computing platforms. But because it's so tightly controlled the intersection in the primary computing ecosystem is minimal.

The Apple Tablet Is Here, And It's Called the iPad

Related Stories