Apple iPad Announced | Apple iPad Reviews

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage this morning at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco at 10AM. “We want to kick of 2010 by introducing a magical and revolutionary product today… but first I have a few updates,” Jobs said. After mentioning the iPod had sold approximately 250 million units and that Apple now has 284 retail stores, Jobs got down to the business at hand.

The iPad bridges the gap between smart phones and laptops. A device that is better than the former at “browsing the web. Doing email. Enjoying and sharing pics. Watching videos. Enjoying music. Playing games. Reading ebooks,” according to Jobs.

“So, gonna give you a little overview. It’s very thin — you can change the homescreen to whatever you want. What this device does is extraordinary. You can browse the web with it. It’s the best web experience you’ve ever had.”

“Way better than a laptop, way better then a phone. You can turn it any way you want. To see the whole page is phenomenal.”

The iPad will contain a large QWERTY keyboard.

The Itunes store is build into the device as well.

The iPad is ideal for browsing the internet at full resolution and photos are easy to scroll through and map out.

The iPad is a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display, and it’s running a custom 1GHz Apple “A4″ chip developed by the P.A. Semi team, with a 10-hour battery life and a month of standby. It’ll come in 16, 32, and 64GB sizes, and it’s got the expected connectivity: very little. There’s a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, and 802.11n WiFi, as well as an accelerometer and a compass. As expected, it can run iPhone apps — either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen — but developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.

Embedded video on news sites is no problem for the iPad.

The popular application Brushes is also very impressive on the iPad. The drop down menus and the ability to really dig into the app is fantastic.

Gaming looks pretty impressive. Gaming on the iPad is like holding an HD screen up to your face, so the experience is like none other.

The built-in “bookshelf” allows users to browse their book library quickly and easily. Apple has created the iBook store which can be downloaded directly onto the iPad.

Reading e-books looks fantastic, with a really cool page turning animation and the ability to change fonts and sizes.

There is a host of other tools and applications available on the device. As far as data plans, there are two different price points: 14.99/mo for 250MB data transfer, and $29.99/mo for unlimited. Service can be activated from the iPad and no contracts are necessary.

The iPad will be Wifi capable and 3G capable models are coming soon.