iPod...iPhone...now, iPad
iphone or ipadSAN FRANCISCO: Apple, trying to expand beyond the Macintosh, iPod and iPhone, introduced a tablet computer with a touch screen, Web browser and e-mail functions.
The iPad can display full Web pages and has a touch-screen keyboard that’s almost full size, chief executive officer Steve Jobs said late on Wednesday night at a company event in San Francisco. The iPad supports Wi-Fi communications and runs the more than 140,000 applications already available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The iPad is “so much more intimate than a laptop, so much more capable than a smartphone,” Jobs said. The device, which has a 9.7-inch screen, is half an inch thick and weighs 0.7 kg, he said.
Jobs, 54, has spent the past decade transforming the maker of the Mac personal computer into a consumer-electronics juggernaut. The iPad builds on the digital media and mobile technology behind Apple’s market-leading iPod players and the iPhone, and will challenge dedicated e-book readers from Amazon.com Inc and Sony Corp.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fell $2.76 to $203.18 at 1:40 pm New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares, which more than doubled last year, rose to a record $215.04 earlier this month on anticipation of the new gadget.
Apple investors typically run up the stock ahead of product events and then sell on the news, said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co in Minneapolis.
Apple Chip
The device, made of aluminum and glass, can display maps from Google Inc., and has calendar and address book functions. It also lets users display thumbnail views of photos. The iPad has a 1-gigahertz Apple chip and battery life of 10 hours, Jobs said.
“My question is how big of a market this is, and it’s probably reasonably big,” said Michael Yoshikami, an analyst at Walnut Creek, California-based YCMNet Advisors. “I’m still getting my hands around how many people are going to want something of this size.”
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