An audience larger than Avatar? Sales greater than 1.6 billion? Not since Moses has there been greater fanfare for a tablet. And deservedly so.
Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s iPad today. Martin A. Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations for The New York Times, demonstrated a Times app for iPad.
I’d very much like to hear from readers of Film and Digital Times whether they would like to read FDTimes on iPads instead of on laptop or paper. Please contact us with your thoughts. Hint: faster delivery, indexed searches, lighter, smaller, faster, no postal delays or loss…
The iPad is 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds. It will run most of the 140,000 apps in the App Store. Every app works in both portrait and landscape, automatically animating between views as the user rotates iPad in any direction. The keyboard is “soft” (no keys) and almost full-size. You can watch movies, TV shows and YouTube in HD. iPad runs apps already purchased for your iPhone or iPod touch. Apple also announced the new iBooks app for iPad, which includes Apple’s new iBookstore, to browse, buy and read books. The iBookstore will feature books from major and independent publishers.
iPad syncs with iTunes just like the iPhone and iPod touch, using the standard Apple 30-pin to USB cable, so you can sync all of your contacts, photos, music, movies, TV shows, applications and more from your Mac or PC. All the apps and content you download on iPad from the App Store, iTunes Store and iBookstore will be automatically synced to your iTunes library the next time you connect with your computer.
iPad’s 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display features IPS technology to deliver crisp, clear images and consistent color with an ultra-wide 178 degree viewing angle. The highly precise, capacitive Multi-Touch display is amazingly accurate and responsive whether scrolling web pages or playing games. The intelligent soft keyboard pioneered on iPhone takes advantage of iPad’s larger display to offer an almost full-size soft keyboard. iPad also connects to the new iPad Keyboard Dock with a full-size traditional keyboard.
iPad is powered by A4, Apple’s next-generation system-on-a-chip. Designed by Apple, the new A4 chip provides exceptional processor and graphics performance along with long battery life of up to 10 hours. iPad comes in two versions—one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G. iPad includes the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the 3G versions support speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on HSDPA networks. Apple and AT&T announced 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad.
