Welcome everyone and thanks for joining me on Tablet Day. Stay right here for the latest on the Apple Tablet announcement as it happens.
I'll post the newest information at the bottom. Prior to the event, feel free to leave a comment and I'll do my best to get back to you.
*NOTE: YOU WILL NEED TO REFRESH THIS PAGE TO SEE THE LATEST INFORMATION.*
12:00: Waiting for news that the event has started.
12:01: Steve Jobs is on stage.
12:02: He's talking retail stores and number of iPods sold. Apparently, 250 million since 2001. Wow. 250 million. Who would have ever imagined?!?
12:04: Talking about mobile devices - iPods, iPhones, laptops.
12:05 - as per usual, the first few minutes are all about reminiscing and looking back. Amazing that the iPhone has been around for 3 years!!
12:07 - the magical question. Is there room for something between a laptop and a smartphone. Glad you asked, Steve Jobs. This blogger certainly thinks there is.
12:08 - Steve says that if the device isn't better than a laptop or smartphone for the tasks at hand, "it has no reason for being." We'll soon find out what the tasks are.
12:11 - it seems to be called the iPad. I was hoping for any other name than iPad. This thing is beautiful. Working on getting photos. It's gorgeous. Virtual keyboard. It's amazing.
12:13 - I'm typing as fast as I can - the address book is beautiful - the whole experience looks amazing. Email in a vertical iPhone like strip so it fits with other things. There's an iPhone like dock at the bottom with room for more icons. I'm blown away.
12:15: It's truly a cross between a MacBook and an iPhone. The photo gallery is beautiful - like iPhoto but so much better - maybe the look will end up in the new iLife 2010? Not sure, but hopefully.
12:17 - let me just say that I can totally see myself reading a book or a newspaper on this thing. It's big but not too big and it makes the kindle look like a toy from 1987.
12:20 - typing looks awesome because you can use it flat - so that means that while you can hold it like an iPhone, you can just tap on it. Sorry if you were looking for an actual physical keyboard. While that might be an option later, it appears as though this is meant to be a virtual experience.
12:22 - other tidbits - can sync between mac and Pc. The menus seem to pop down from the top. The keyboard is big and roomy - nothing like the small iPhone, although similar in style.
12:25 - some other bloggers are saying this and I concur - it's like a large iPhone but it does more. The operating system is much more tailored to a bigger device. So far I havent' seen anything the iPad can't do that my MacBook pro can.
12:27 - I hope the name grows on us. In 2001, we all laughed at iPod, but 250 million later, we love it. iPad just seems unnatural, but you know what - it's a pad, not a tablet. Maybe that's a great way to look at it.
12:29- .5 inches thin. - that's half an inch - 9.7 inches - I'll round up and say I was right in predicting 10 :-)
12:30 more details: 16, 32 or 64 GB. 802.11n, WiFi, bluetooth, speaker, microphone, accelerometer, battery life of 10 hours. Processor speed 1GHz. **NO MENTION OF 3G. Interesting. Just Wi-Fi ... at least so far.
12:32 Steve says it will run pretty much all apps as is now - you can use a button to double the size. More on that later when I can find out what it means. Just trying to get it all and digest it.
12:34 - the battery is built in - sorry if anyone thought Apple would change that. Just not going to happen.
12:34 - most interesting thing so far to me is that there doesn't seem to be any 3G. It's Wi-Fi only unless Steve is saving it for later. I really thought there was going to be some sort of cellular partnership. That clearly means there's an iPhone in Verizon's future.
12:36 - they are demoing some games now. 3D. I can only imagine the gaming potential of this thing. I'm already amazed at gaming on the iPod touch and iPhone - this is just the next logical step. Sitting at a coffee shop in a comfy chair with this thing on my lap? Yep. Just me and my iPad. I still need time to get used to that. iPad. Pad. iPad. I'll get there.
12:38 - There will be a place in the app store for iPad apps.
12:39- sadly not a single mention yet of price. I'm a little worried folks because without a cellular tie-in, Steve might come in too high. If he comes in at $999, I really worry, no matter how powerful it is. I really want to see $599 for the 16Gb and $799 at the max, but I have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed.
12:41 - The New York Times is there to demo the specific app - if this is the future of newspapers, I'm interested - breaking news alert on an iPad? Yep. Real.
12:44 - sync between the iPad and the iPhone app - for the New York Times. Never be without the news. That's pretty impressive folks. Almost as impressive as someone putting a microphone on me for TV while I type :-)
12:46 - embed video right within the story - so embeddable video in any app is pretty sweeet.
12:47 - There's an art browser app - can you imagine if you could draw something and hang this on the wall? Talk about your digital photo frame.
12:48 - other gaming companies about to do demos as well.
12:49 - things that are missing so far, besides knowing the price, include any mention of a camera and cellular service. I don't think there will be a camera - that would be a nice feature, but it doesn't seem that way. And I'm really hoping it's not $1,000. Really hoping - not just for me, but for Apple in general.
12:51 - here's a link to some photos that our social media intern Katie Rogers put together from around the Interwebs. http://chicagonow.com/uxX3
12:54 - Apple introducing new app called iBooks - it's better than a Kindle already. Steve Jobs said they are going to go further than Amazon. Definitely from what I've seen.
12:55 Now we're talking about iWork - which is Apple's answer to the Microsoft Office suite - the idea of word processing using an iPad seems absolutely amazing in every way.
12:56 - it's just like the desktop experience. There's Keynote for powerpoints and Pages for word and numbers for Excel - and it looks fantastic.
1:02 The price is still the outstanding thing. But so far clearly I'd rather have one of these than a Macbook - at least right now.
1:05 - by the way, you can turn it on its side and get a bigger keyboard - like an iPhone but clearly a bigger keyboard.
1:09 - all caught up now. Steve Jobs is still talking about iWork - specifically the Numbers app. We can't be too far away from the price - it's always toward the end.
1:10 - it is possible that there will be a cellular carrier added later but I'm just guessing at this point - it doesn't need to have anything other than Wi-Fi, but everyone was pretty sure it would be more robust in terms of wireless capabilities.
1:12 - the syncing is done over USB - I'm always hoping for Wi-Fi sync but not yet, I guess. Soon, though. Same like an iPhone - you can backup exactly.
1:13 - there will be 3G versions. Steve Jobs says there will be 2 plans - $14.99 for 250 MB of data. I really want more data than that. Unlimited plan for $30. It's a deal with AT&T. Great. AT&T. Well, let's see how they handle this.
1:14 - free use of AT&T Wi-Fi. Thank goodness. OH THIS IS GREAT - Prepay. No contract. Cancel anytime. $29 a month. That's great!!!
1:15 - It seems to be an unlocked version. New GSM micro-SIM. This is looking great for those of you that hate cellular contracts - like I do.
1:18 - price is .... drum roll please ... it's not $999 .... $499!!!
$499
1:20 - $130 more for 3G. $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64Gb plus $130 for 3G. Ships in 60 days.
1:23 - I feel good about this - I love the fact that it's $499 to start. I wasn't expecting the extra $130 for a 3G model, but the fact that I can prepay and not have another contract is huge. And I have choices. $499 is pretty fair. I'd be very happy with a Wi-Fi only version of this. What about you?
1:25 - and the keyboard dock is great. This thing is just amazingly designed. I wish it had a camera for videochat, but you know what, I'm ok with it. Maybe down the road. Also wish there was flash because we'll need it for Web surfing.
1:27 - no camera, LED backlighting.
1:28 - looks like this is the end of the big news - still keeping track in case that's not the case - and I'll be posting to the blog and rounding things up in the evening - and trying to catch up on your comments and your tweets.
1:32 - waiting to see if there's any more.
1:34 - nope. The event is over. It was pretty awesome in my opinion.
If there are things that you want to know, please leave me comments and I promise I will get back to you in the evening. I have a day of meetings coming up but I'm going to answer all the comments and tweets over at
@iptib
