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• I pad, therefore I am.

We just locked beloved intern brand new “tech reporter” Allie Essinger to her desk, fed her some sweet tarts and forced her to frantically bullet point all the relevant details about Apple’s new iPad, the release of which just concluded. I’m kind of pissed as I was pretty sure it was going to be called the iTrapper Keeper, and am now out $50.

The Money Quotes:
—“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product today…and we call it the iPad.”
—”In order to justify its existence as a device to fill the gap between a laptop and a smartphone, it must be BETTER than both.”

—The Specs:
½ inch thin and weighs 1.5 pounds.
9.7 inch IPS display,
Multi-touch Sensors (Over 1000 hardware sensors).
1GHz Apple A4 chip
16GB-64GB of flash storage
Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
30-pin connector
Speaker
Microphone
Accelerometer
Compass
10 hours of battery life (1 month of standby charge)
LED Backlight + IPS technology for better off-angle viewing

The Hype and the Breakdown:
—It’s got icons like the iPhone and a dock like OSX.
—The keyboard is almost life-size (in landscape mode). It’s a larger version of the iPhone’s and almost exactly like a laptop’s.
—Accessing photos and emails is just like the iPhone—easy and visual.
—There’s a built-in calendar
—The music player is a hybrid between the iPhone’s and the actual iTunes.
—The screen isn’t 16:9 (widescreen), but YouTube, TV, and movies are all viewable, even in high definition.
—Web pages have navigational buttons at top, just like a browser’s.
—With the touch screen, there’s zooming and swiping, just like on the iPhone.
—The inbox can be viewed normally or in widescreen, where the message is displayed on the right, next to a dropdown box displaying its contents.
—There’s some sort of location-sensing device, although Googlemaps nor GPS were mentioned by name.

Software:
—iWork for the iPad with an all-new interface for Keynote, Numbers, and Pages. ($30 for the entire package, or $9.99 each).
—Can use almost any App from the App Store, in either 1:1 or in full-screen mode. And you can sync the Apps you’ve bought for your iPhone, so that you don’t have to pay twice.
—The New York Times will create a custom app for the iPad, just like they did for the iPhone (basically exactly like the NYT reader.
—“Brushes” is a painting app with brushes, swatches, etc.
—A partnership with Electronic Arts allows for a hybrid game experience, with fully touch-enabled controls and 1st-person POV.
—MLB.com allows for live-streaming of games, interactive displays for comparing teams, stats, and pitch trajectory.
—iBook—the answer to Amazon’s Kindle—has deals with Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette so far… basically an all-book App Store.

Connectivity:
—Wi-Fi + 3G,
—$15 up to 250MB data
—$30/month for unlimited data. (AT&T)
—AT&T will let you use hotspots for free.
—Pre-paid, no Contracts

Pricing:
—Wi-Fi without 3G: 3G:
16GB: $499 $629
32GB: $599 $729
64GB: $699 $829

Availability (Worldwide):
—60 Days for Wi-Fi Models
—90 Days for 3G versions

Accessories:
—There’s a keyboard dock that doubles as a stand.
—There’s a carrying case, like for the Kindle.