Tuesday, February 09, 2010 by Adrian

After months of speculation, Apple have unveiled their new tablet device - and we have finally met the iPad

Apple's Chief Exec, Steve Jobs, showed off the new, touch-screen computer to an excited, whooping crowd at the event in San Francisco, and made clear his hopes that it will win ebook market domination for Apple.

Priced between $499 and $829, with a familial resemblance to the iPhone, Jobs described the tablet as a "third category" between smartphones and laptops. On the iPad's 9.7in colour screen - the same size as Amazon's black-and-white Kindle ereader - he demonstrated email, websurfing, watching films and gaming, and a number of other nifty tricks to the crowd.

The biggest talking point of the demonstration came with Jobs' unveiling of iBooks. This app allows users to "discover and purchase and download" ebooks from the iBook Store, straight to the iPad, in much the same way iTunes already allows with music.  The rumoured deals with publishers were confirmed, and publishers HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette announced as being on-board. The majority of the publishing world breathed a sigh of relief as they were introduced to the prodigal son, who it is hoped, will deliver the publishing world safely into the digital future.

Apple's awareness of their position and strength in technology markets was made clear by Jobs as he made a direct reference and comparison to Amazon's Kindle. After acknowledging its strength, Jobs waged a war he must feel certain he will win, stating "Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this [ebook] functionality with the Kindle, and we're going to stand on their shoulders". What comes as a further delight for publishers are reports that publishers for electronic content will be offered a 70% share of sales through iBook, and that Apple are also allowing book publishers to set their prices higher than currently seen with Amazon.

Other third party apps are available - both specially designed for the iPad and those already available for the iPhone - and syncronisation between the two possible. As previously mentioned in our blog, The New York Times who took part in yesterday's event, has developed one such app. Their intentions for the look and feel of the newspaper to be recreated on-screen in rich text, as well as allowing further features such as video was shown by Jobs' fluid demonstration.

After all the news, we wanted to know when we can see it. International prices are set to be announced in June, but in the meantime the iPad is only available for purchase in the U.S. The $499 - $829 differentiation is down to the cheaper having a 16GB flash memory size and the more expensive having a 64GB flash memory size and connectivity via a 3G signal. Other general features include 10 hours of battery life; 1 GHz Apple processor; a weight of 0.7kgs and thickness of 1.25cm and comes preloaded with twelve applications.

Impressive stats after a lot of hype; now with a lot of publishing hopes riding on it. No wonder tags related to the iPad occupied seven of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter the day after launch!