We've managed to lay out hands on a huge feature set for Apple's recently announced iPad device. Check out all the below, including fresh, official pics and let us know what you think.
Safari The large Multi-Touch screen on iPad lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen - one whole page at a time. With vibrant color and sharp text. So whether you're looking at a page in portrait or landscape, you can see everything at a size that's actually readable. And with iPad, navigating through the web has never been easier, or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. You can scroll through a page just by flicking your finger up or down on the screen. Or pinch to zoom in or out on a photo. There's also a thumbnail view that shows all your open pages in a grid, to let you quickly move from one page to the next.
Mail See and touch your email in ways you never could before. In landscape, you get a split-screen view, showing both an opened email and the messages in your Inbox. To see the opened email by itself, you just turn iPad to portrait, and the email automatically rotates and fills the screen. No matter which orientation you use, you can scroll through your mail, compose a new email using the large, on-screen keyboard, or delete messages, with nothing more than a tap and a flick. If someone emails you a photo, you can see it right in the message. You can also save the photos in an email directly to the built-in Photos app. And iPad will work with all the popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.
Photos With its crisp, vibrant display, and its unique software features, iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share your photos. For example, the new Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap or pinch to open the stack, and the whole album opens up. Then you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while your iPad is docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: you can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the Apple Camera Connection Kit.
Video The large, high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching any kind of video: from HD movies and TV shows, to podcasts and music videos. You can also easily move between wide-screen and full-screen with a double-tap. And because it's essentially one big screen, with no buttons or anything to distract you, the picture fills your line of sight. So you feel completely immersed in what you're watching.
YouTube The YouTube app organizes videos so they're really easy to see and navigate. To watch one, you just tap it. When you're watching in landscape, the video will automatically play in full screen. And with its high-resolution display, the latest YouTube HD videos will look amazing on iPad.
iPod With the iPod app, all your music is literally at your fingertips. You can browse by album, song, artist, or genre, with a simple flick. To play a song, just tap it, and the now playing screen will show the album art at full size. Then you can listen to your music with either the powerful built-in speaker, or with wired or Bluetooth wireless headphones.
iTunes Just tap on the iTunes Store icon, and you can browse and buy music, TV shows, podcasts - or buy and rent movies - wirelessly, right from your iPad. There are thousands of movies and TV shows (in both standard and high definition), along with thousands of podcasts, and millions of songs to choose from. You can even preview songs before you buy them. And you can sync iPad with the content you already have in your iTunes library on your Mac or PC.
App Store iPad will run almost 140,000 apps from the App Store. Everything from games to business apps, and more. And new apps that have been designed just for iPad are highlighted, so you can easily find the ones that take full advantage of its features. Just tap the App Store icon on the screen and you'll be able to browse, buy, and download apps wirelessly, right to the iPad.
iBooks The iBooks app is a great, new way to read and buy books.1 Just download the app for free from the App Store, and you'll be able to buy everything from classics to bestsellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you've bought a book, it's displayed on your Bookshelf. To read it, all you have to do is tap on it and it opens up. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich, color, so it's very easy to read, even in low light.
Maps See more of the world with high-resolution Satellite and Street View images. You can even see topography with the new Terrain view. You can also search for a nearby business type (for example, "Restaurant") and then tap on that business to see the route and directions from your current location.
Notes With its expansive display and large, on-screen keyboard, iPad makes jotting down notes easy. In landscape mode, you get not only a note-taking page but a list of all your notes. It even circles the current note in red. So you can see where you are at a glance.
Calendar iPad makes it easy to keep on schedule by displaying Day, Week, Month or List views of your calendar. That way, you can see an overview of a whole month, or the details of a single day. iPad will even show multiple calendars at once, so you can manage work and family calendars at the same time.
Contacts The Contacts app on iPad makes finding names, numbers and other important information quicker and easier than ever before. A new view lets you see both your complete contact list, and a single contact, simultaneously. Need directions? Just tap on an address inside a contact and it'll open Maps.
Home Screen The Home Screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can also customize your Home Screen by adding your favorite apps and websites, or using your own photos for the background. And you can move apps around to arrange them in any order you want.
Spotlight Search Spotlight Search allows you to search across iPad, and all of its built-in apps. Including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, iPod, and Notes. It'll even search apps you've downloaded from the App Store. So no matter what you're looking for, it's never more than a few taps away.
So it doesn't have OSX and the ability to use OSX applications like a MacBook? If it had, I'd find the cash and could justify buying one. An oversized iPhone doesn't suit my needs at all unfortunately. Lovely little product though. A great internet viewing device, which in many respects should suit a lot of people with laptops (certainly everyone I know with one).
there will be an ipad version 1.2 in sale withing moths of the relase of ipad, including a 2.0 megapixel camera, 5% bigger memory, 2% better performance, and then after a few more months ipad slim will be released.
Sold- I'll use this to work on websites infront of the telly (laptop just seems so clunky when you're lounging on the sofa). Think I'll probably get the 32GB 3G version, just incase I ever need to take it anywhere on business.
I've noticed a lot of comments on several websites about continuing lack of Flash support- as far as I can see this is a good thing- Flash is a dinosaur that needs to either become a fully runtime scripting language or gtfo. It flies in the face of everything the web is meant to be today- updateable, searchable, dynamic and resource friendly.
I don't agree with everything Apple do (and I will admit to foaming at the mouth with anger every time someone said "I'm going to buy a Mac, theyre just better" not that long ago) but I think they've made a brave move by standing up to Adobe on the flash issue- There is very little that flash can do that can't be achieved with CSS3 and jQuery nowadays, and I hope heavy adoption further forces them to rethink their product over time.
As for gaming- I hope this thing can pull off graphics an order of magnitude better than my 3GS, because if it does theyve got a very interesting device indeed.
CVG- Please integrate captcha or something these spam messages are everywhere at the moment
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