Hear Ye, Hear Ye Followers of the Church of Jobs: Your Tablets Are Here

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moses-ipad-tablets Not exactly, here, as in you can make a run on your local Apple retailer – they don’t ship for 60 days, but the iPad (speculated about as the iSlate) is finally official. We’ll give it to the Apple marketing team: we don’t think there’s any other company going in any industry who can whip their fans into a tizzy at the mere hint of a new product like the Cupertino company. Despite the fact that tablet computers are nothing new, there have been months of speculation, artist renderings, and even a bounty on information about the latest iProduct (Side note: speculation, sketches, bounties? Thank goodness they unveiled something, this was starting to sound like the hunt for bin Laden).

This time, there’s good reason for the hype: a little device called the iPhone. Smartphones existed for years before the iPhone in the same way MP3 players existed for years before the iPod. A large part of the success of both was the iTunes marketplace for songs, apps and more. With a larger screen device now entering the arena, Apple adding ebooks and games to the mix could give it a consumer appeal previous tablets were missing. Also, don’t forget that iTunes already stocks TV shows and some movies, which would be well suited to a larger screen.

At last! The greatest technological device ever invented (until the next product release) has arrived. We’ll round up the competition, who’d like to put up competition, but won’t, and who’s likely to be a casualty to “the most important thing” Steve Jobs has ever done in another post.

But for now, here are the details:

What You Really Want to Know

Pricing starts at $499 for the 16GB version with wi-fi only, goes up to 64GB for the 64GB version with wi-fi + 3G, with devices shipping in 60 days (mark your calendars)
3G adds $130 to the price of all models, and those devices will ship in 90 days
“Breakthrough” pricing with AT&T on data plans range from $14.99 per month for up to 250MB (as CrunchGear’s John Biggs notes, that’s a whopping 4 podcasts or so) and $29.99 for unlimited data (which will probably be limited under “fair use” but it’s a more reasonable deal)
With a plan, there’s also free use of AT&T hotspots, and no contracts. This is obviously US-only, but international deals will come around June.
The iPad 3G models will ship unlocked (w00t!) and run on GSM micro SIMs, so if your carrier offers them you should be good to go
Weight and measurements: 0.5″ thin,1.5 lbs
Display: is a 9.7inch IPS
Power: 1GHz Apple A4 chip
Memory: ranges from 16GB to 64GB of flash storage.
Connectivity: Wifi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. 30-pin connector, speaker, microphone, accelerometer and compass (goodbye GPS).
Battery: 10 hours, 1 month of standby time (seriously?! that is pretty great)
Environmental specs: Arsenic, BFR, Mercury and PVC free, touted as recyclable, but we can’t see one of these ending up in a local recycling bin anytime soon
There will be apps: the iPad can run almost any iPhone app unmodified, though the resolution will still be formatted for an iPhone (especially for games, this will surely change)
Buuuuut: the SDK that is the backbone of iPhone apps gets a new release today to support development for the iPad
However: the iPad, like the iPhone, doesn’t support Flash (which might not be a bad thing, but more on that later) or multi-tasking
There’s going to be an iBooks app (uh oh, Amazon v. Apple? Let’s wait for the price to see if this is a Kindle killer)
iWork will be available on the iPad with a completely new interface (will Microsoft release Office apps?)

The miscellanea

You can change the background of the device (yay! wallpaper!)
Like the iPhone, you can turn the device and pages will automatically be reoriented
The keyboard is “almost lifesize” and similar to the iPhone in that it’s part of the screen (no real keyboards to mess up the design), a keyboard dock is available as an accessory
The music player is a hybrid between iTunes and the iPhone music player
You can watch YouTube and videos in hi-def, though apparently not in widescreen
Like an iPhone, you tap and swipe to navigate