For weeks the rumour mill has been in full swing with regards to a tablet device on it’s way from Apple. While excited to officially hear about the new creation, I was unusually tired of the speculation and delusion from many big unofficial Apple news sites, giving us random bits of detail from non-reliable sources – all of which, predictably, ended up being untrue.

So, after shutting down NewsFire RSS for days, I decided to leave it until the big man himself, Steve Jobs, got up on stage yesterday and unveiled this magical new product: the iPad. I didn’t have any huge expectations about what it would do but for me the iPad is the perfect bridge between the iPhone and iMac. No question.

iPad.jpg

For the longest time I have wanted something with a bigger screen that I could use for sofa and bed browsing and the ability to watch TV shows and Movies that I have purchased/rented through iTunes. With the absence of an AppleTV which I’m still not entirely sold on, I never do get around to watching the media I have bought. The idea of watching on the iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen is a nice one, but really not practical for doing so comfortably. The 10inches of the iPad = perfection.

I’ve been asked by various people today what I am going to use the iPad for…

- Browsing the internet/sending e-mails from the sofa and bed
- Buying and reading books from the Apple iBookstore
- The beautiful Classics app which will be so much more comfortable to read on a 10 inch screen
- Watching TV shows and Movies purchased through iTunes
- Showing personal photos to friends/family on a comfortable size screen when visiting them
- Games. Oh, the games!
- Arty drawing and painting apps such as Brushes
and the fabulous Charadium
- Apps in general, bigger screen, beauty.
- Goodness knows what else!

My PowerBook did a good job of bridging the gap between my iPhone and iMac for a while, but never gets booted up thesedays and needs to be connected to the mains permanently as battery lasts approximately 3 minutes. I have zero interest in buying a laptop as it’s overkill for my needs (see above). I know the iPad isn’t for everyone’s needs, but there’ll be a big market for this I’m sure :)

The iPad prices have not yet been announced on the Apple UK site, but Macworld UK have estimated the prices as follows…

iPad WiFi

16GB – £388
32GB – £510
64GB – £591

iPad WiFi + 3G

16GB – £490
32GB – £612
64GB – £693

Many of those don’t sound like Apple-ish prices to me, but again are just an estimate. I would take a guess at the 16GB WiFi starting at £379, with the 32GB coming in at £479. But, we’ll have to wait and see when Apple release the prices in GBP. I’ll update this post with the correct pricing when it’s been announced.

I have decided to go for the iPad 32GB WiFi model, at $599. I simply don’t need 3G as I have my iPhone for that. I actually saved up twice the US asking price as I’d heard that the tablet was expected to cost around $1k. So, I can now happily afford the little accessories such as case and dock! Roll on 60 days time. I’ll have a little review up for you when I get my hands on it.

See the indepth spec review of the iPad over at my friends blog, techese.