Today was the official day Apple announced their most advanced technology yet: a new touchscreen tablet computer dubbed the ‘iPad’; seeking to carve out a niche between the laptop and smartphone.

“You can have black-and-white, colour, video in your books – whatever the author wants,” Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said. “We think the iPad is going to make a terrific e-book reader, not just for popular books but for textbooks as well.”

“Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle,” Jobs said. “We are going to stand on their shoulders.”

“We’ve got five of the biggest publishers in the world supporting us and will open the floodgates for the rest of the publishers starting this afternoon,” he added.

Initial Thoughts

Spotting a gorgeous screen that is tilt responsive; the iPad is super thin just like how the iPhone is. In my words, I would describe the iPad as an oversized iPhone. Here are some initial thoughts from Engadget:

-          Stunning screen at 1024 x 768 resolution

-          Superfast CPU speed

-          It’s quite heavy weighing in at 1.5 pounds (.68 kg) for the Wi-Fi model and 1.6 pounds (.73 kg) for the Wi-Fi + 3G model

-          No multitasking

-          No camera

-          Running on iPhone OS 3.2

-          No flash hence no Hulu

-          Keyboard is not responsive

Anyways here’s the video for you to judge:

From what I can see, it’s nothing special coming from Apple. Sure it has an iBook, iTunes and app store but I can’t see myself carrying this to work. Steve Jobs claimed that this will replace the netbooks; I think otherwise. The least Apple could do were include multitasking feature, a camera and probably some USB ports but nada. Will this be another flop just like how the MacBook Air is? What do you think? Share with us your views and opinions on it.

In the meantime, here’s a spoof by MadTV relating to the iPad:

Browse Timeline

• « Are Local Trends A Boon Or A Bane For Businesses?
• » Social Media Now Top Priority For Marketers In 2010