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Apple on Wednesday finally unveiled its tablet computer, dubbed the “iPad” at an invite-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco. The device, which looks like a larger version of Apple’s iPod Touch will be available in two to three months, and starts at $499.

Read on to get a quick overview of everything that was announced, and why it matters.

New hardware: The iPad

Proving rumors right, Apple unveiled the iPad, a device that looks akin to a large iPhone or iPod touch. It sports a 9.7 inch LCD touch screen display, which makes use of the same multi-touch technology found on the iPhone, Apple’s Magic Mouse and its notebook trackpads. It also has the same in-plane switching display technology that made its debut in the latest crop of iMacs.

Like the iPhone and iPod, it sports a finger-friendly OS with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard, and an accelerometer that can detect whether the device is in portrait or landscape mode. It has a 30-pin dock connector, built-in Wi-Fi and a home button that jumps users back to the main screen of the OS. It also has a volume rocker and a mute button–just like the iPhone.

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

Along with a big screen, it’s sporting a 1Ghz custom Apple chip (from its pick-up of PA Semi back in 2008) and will come in 16, 32, and 64GB capacities for $499, $599 and $699 respectively. Apple says it can get 10 hours of video, which is about four more than the iPod, and the same as the latest generation iPhone. This translates to “a month” of standby time.

Besides its different capacities, the iPad will also be available in models with a 3G wireless modem built-in. iPad users who want to make use of the 3G service, which is being offered by AT&T, can pick up one of two plans for that: $15 a month for 250MB of data, or unlimited for $29.99 a month.

The iPad with just Wi-Fi will be shipping in the next 60 days, with the 3G version in the next 90 days.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

• MLB.com unveiled a tweaked version of its app that adds video highlights, team info, virtual baseball cards, and more on-screen overlays.
  • 250,000,000 iPods have been sold since 2001
  • Apple has 248 retail stores which have seen 50 million visitors
  • The App Store now has more than 140,000 applications
  • The new OS borrows a few cues from Snow Leopard, including the capability to change background wallpapers, and a 3D-style dock.
  • 125 million credit cards are already hooked up to the iTunes and App Store.
  • Apple is selling a number of first party accessories including a dock with a full-sized keyboard, a camera connection kit that lets users import images from their SD cards, and a case that doubles as a stand. Apple has not announced pricing for any of these items.

Apple also introduced an updated version of its iWork software. It’s the first version of the software to run on one of Apple’s portable devices, and makes full use of the iPad’s touchscreen. This confirms a rumor from The New York Times earlier this month. Worth noting is that iWork will be offered as three separate apps, all of which will cost $10 a piece. Having Numbers, Keynote, and Sheets will run iPad users $30, as opposed to the $79 price tag for the desktop version.

Book distribution

(Credit: (James Martin/CNET))

Jobs unveiled a new content delivery system called iBooks (not to be confused with Apple’s former laptop line, the iBook). The new app features a virtual bookshelf with content from all five major publishers: Harper Collins, Hachette, Penguin, Simon and Shuster and MacMilan.

Just like iTunes, books are split up into what’s popular and by genre. Users can preview the first few pages before purchasing, and downloaded books are sent directly to the user’s virtual bookshelf. They can then be read in a similar manner to what’s already been available with Amazon’s Kindle app. Users can read their books in portrait or landscape mode, change the size of the test, and hop around using a persistent table of contents.

Other tidbits

Bigger apps

As for apps, the iPad’s screen runs larger that what can be found on Apple’s smaller portable devices, which means developers have more screen real estate to work with. At the same time, the iPad is backwards compatible with existing iPhone and iPod touch applications. Apps with smaller screen resolutions are simply scaled up to fit. Apple is giving developers a way to modify their applications to work with both sets of hardware.

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated the tablet running numerous first party apps, including iTunes, a photo gallery, its Safari Web browser, iCal, e-mail, Google Maps, and YouTube. Many shared traits of what’s been seen on the iPhone, just with more screen real-estate. This was most evident in Apple’s Mail app, which now features a two-up panel display. According to Jobs, all of its apps were re-written to fit natively on the bigger display.

Several companies also demonstrated their new iPad-optimized apps:



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