TECHKNOW: Welcoming King iPad

All hail Apple’s latest! The iPad. The new device which enjoyed lots of hype prior to its release, unveiled in San Francisco America on January 27, by Steve Jobs, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer.

The iPad is designed in form of a slate, looks like a bigger version of the iPhone. It is handy and multifunctional, and allows for browsing on the web, reading e-books, sending e-mails, viewing photos, watching movies and a whole lot more packages.

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device, at an unbelievable price. The iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of device that will connect users with their application in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before,” Mr. Jobs enthused.

Features

The iPad is sleek. It features a 9.7 inch LED multi-touch screen, which displays colourful and crispy clear images. Its screen has an ultra wide 178 degree viewing angle and it produces 1024 x 768 pixel resolutions. The screen can be viewed both vertically and horizontally, by simply flipping the device sideways.

The device has dimensions of 9.56 inches x 7.47 inches x 0.5 inches. It weighs 1.5 pounds and 1.6 pounds for the 3G model. It showcases the soft touch keyboard just like in the iPhone and can also connect with an iPad keyboard dock, with full traditional Mac keyboard size.

The ipad is powered via a 1GHz A4 processor. The A4 chip showcases as Apple’s next generation of processors, which provide exceptional performance and wonderful graphic display. The device comes with various inbuilt hard disk storage capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. The iPad 3G model also has same storage sizes.

Twelve new (next generation) applications designed specifically for the iPad, also debut, one of which is the iwork application. This comes with distinct features of making stunning presentations with animation. The device would also have access to over 140,000 applications through Apple online store. Its operating system is the iPhone OS 3.2.

Fun and entertainment

Loaded fun and entertainment on the go, is what the iPad offers. It can import photos through a Mac PC or a digital camera. Photos can be collated into albums and can be viewed in slide show. It also allows for Hi-Def movie watching, listening to music, watching television, and other social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube etc.

The iPad with added function as an e-book, is accessible to the ibook store just created for the device. The ibook allows for downloading of many e-books for reading pleasure. The iPad syncs with iTunes too.

The iPad comes with lithium-polymer 25 W-h batteries, which is said to last for 10 hours while surfing on the web and 140 hours music playback.

The iPad would be available in Apple stores worldwide in late March, at a retail price of $499 (N74,850) for 16GB model, $599 (N89,850) and $699 (N104,850)for 32GB and 64GB models respectively. The 3G model would be available in April in the U.S and selected countries for $629 (N94, 350) with 16GB and $729 (N109, 350) and $829 (N124, 350) for 32GB and 64GB models respectively.