The Apple ipad Sourced

January 28, 2010

Entertainment, Gadgets, Gaming, Hardware, PC

To be honest I am not sure what to make of the Apple Ipad. In Steve Jobs speech at today's Latest creation event, he declared the Ipad "WAY better than a laptop" and regarded the device to be a better experience than a Netbook.

At a basic level, the Ipad is an upsized Ipod, running a moderately customised Iphone OS with a widescreen Multi-Touch display. Disappointingly there is no SD card support and the display really isn't 16x9 Widescreen. HDMI out would be nice as well as Flash support for the best web experience Steve Jobs was talking about.

ipad image front back side 512x298 The Apple ipad Sourced

In the end though, what you could do with such a device will be the selling point, what that will be remains to be determined. I am sure it fits in with various niches such as competing with the all popular Netbooks and the new crop of E-readers as the ipad is also a competitor to the Amazon Kindle. Long periods of reading Ebooks are not a great experience on any LCD or LED device, especially when you compare the display tech of newer dedicated ebook devices.

Ipad Tech Specs

Display

9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

Capacity

16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive

Processor

1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip

Sensors

Accelerometer
Ambient light sensor

Audio Playback

Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
User-configurable maximum volume limit

TV and Video

Support for 1024 x 768 with Dock Connector to VGA adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component A/V Cable, 576i and 480i with Apple Composite Cable
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.

Battery and Power⁴

Built-in 25Whr rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
Charging via power adapter or USB to computer system