We've been hearing about it forever now. It's the next "worst kept secret." It's Apple's new big-assed iPhone looking thing, called the iPad, and it was just announced by Steve Jobs at Apple's conference in San Francisco. A "truly magical product," he calls it. It's a digital tablet. It's "between a laptop and a smartphone."
Browsing. Email. Photos. Videos. Music. Games. eBooks. "Way better than a laptop, way better then a phone," says Jobs.
iTunes is built in, as is a QWERTY touch keyboard. You can watch TV on it. A full browser is included. Full multitouch with gestures. Watch HD YouTube videos. Books are handled by a new app called iBooks.
Why do you care? You may not, but as gamers, you should at least take note of what they're trying to do here for us. This device takes your little iPhone/iPod Touch games and scales them up to be played on a bigger surface. WiFi and 3G connections mean that you can pull games and apps down anywhere ($29.99 unlimited data from ATT). The games run with no issue, and can even be "double pixeled" to run full screen. Also, games can also be written to take full advantage of the larger screen. Gameloft brought a beefed up version of their FPS N.O.V.A, showing tight graphics and new possibilities for control schemes. For example, a two-finger slide can throw grenades.
If you're a tech freak or an avid reader, then the device's other features will surely appeal to you. It's part iPhone, part MacBook and part digital reader. It's .5 inches thin, 1.5 pounds and has a 9.7 inch IPS display. It sports a 1ghz Apple A4 processor. There's up to 64GB of storage space, also coming in 16 and 32GB sizes. It has 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. 30-pin connector, speaker, microphone, accelerometer and compass. 10 hours of battery life.
No Flash support yet. Oh, and butterfingers? It's reeeeeally going to suck if you drop this one.
The price is set at $499 for the cheapest model (16GB). $599 and $699 for the 32 and 64GB. The 3G models cost an extra $130, so $629, $729 and $829 for them. The iPad ships in 60 days, or 90 days for the 3G models.
Apple Tablet Liveblog [Engadget], live.gizmodo.com [Gizmodo]
Contest:
12:13 PM on 01.27.2010
| 
Also MSRP of $999 and your first born child makes it a great gift! Don't forget the $500 a month monthly 3G data plan contract by your ever loving AT&T!
Suddenly, graphic designers around the world splooge at the opportunity to spend a small fortune on an Apple product.
Is there still a 10MB limit on downloads over 3G?
(I just love Steve Jobbs!!)
If this thing gets Flash and the iPhone doesn't I'm going to freak.
Note book gaming for me is classics that run fine on that hardware, Do not need.
I guess Jobbs doesn't realize gamers are poor.
You know the editor gave you a link so that thick fucks wouldn't clutter up comments with a huge string of images, right? Right? Guess not... thanks.
Why would I shell out the money for a tablet PC that has no stylus input and can't be used for graphical applications? I think Apple totally dropped the ball on this one.
If I could use Photoshop, Maya and ZBrush on this baby I'd be ALL over it. As it stands, it's just a beefier iPhone. No thanks.
sorry couldn't resist. Im sure dtoid is going to remove my images either way, but as soon as I saw the gaming images I couldnt wait to share. Sorry to everyone!
Actually some models do have 3G
Meh, I'll stick with my Archos 5.
pass.
I mean seriously, they are using an IPS display on the bastard.
Those are basically exactly like LCD displays, except the crystals used in a certain way that gives slightly better color when viewing at angles. The problem is that it consumes much more power as it requires a much stronger backlight. The iPhone already has a battery life issue and it's screen is much smaller and a standard LCD to my knowledge.
Don't dig the price point, but with most apple products, it's the year AFTER they announce the thing that the price gets reasonable. I won't be buying one now, though.
And, yes, I am a Mac fan (and I own an Xbox...LOL WUT?!). They make good computers if you don't really want to game with them, and if you do you can always use boot camp.
Being an Apple fan you would note that the price doesn't really change only the features you are given for the same price. IE 32GB iTouch for the same price as last years 16GB.