The Apple tablet, aka the tech world’s worst-kept secret, finally came into the light on Wednesday at a Bay Area launch event. The rumor mill got some things wrong: It’s not called the “iSlate,” but rather the “iPad;” and it won’t run on Verizon Wireless for 3G, but rather on the AT&T Inc. network. And the way it will be sold is more like a notebook than a smartphone, even though the functionality is like an iPhone on steroids.
Accordingly, the 3G plan from AT&T is prepaid and activated over the air, right on the device. It costs $15 for 250MB of data per month and $30 for unlimited data, something Steve Jobs called a “real breakthrough” in pricing.
The iPad, which features a 9.7-inch touchscreen, a 1GHz processor and 10 hours of battery life, will be sold in Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi+3G versions at Apple Stores and online. Jobs also touted the affordability of the hardware: The Wi-Fi-only models cost $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. 3G models cost $130 more, making the pricing $629, $729 and $829, respectively.
Wi-Fi-only iPads will start shipping worldwide in 60 days, with the 3G models coming in April.
Jobs appeared almost giddy while demoing the device for an adoring crowd. With the iPad, Jobs said that he was looking to establish a “third category of products” between a laptop and a smartphone – a feat, he noted, that netbooks have not managed to do. He called the mini-notebooks nothing more than “cheap laptops.”
“In order to create a third category of devices, these devices will have to be far better at doing some key tasks,” he said, “or it has no reason for being.” Those tasks include music, videos, games, e-books, mail, photos and Web. This is “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” Jobs said.
Still, it must be noted that the gadget lacks a camera.
