Apple’s new tablet device: halfway between an iPhone and a MacBook.

After much hype, Apple has launched its latest product – the iPad – to mixed response, with claims that it’s just a giant iPhone.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the company’s new device in San Francisco yesterday (27 January), saying that the “iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.

“… [It] creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Mr Jobs described the tablet, which will cost between $499 (£307) and $829 (£510) in the US, as a “third category” between smartphones and laptops.

Just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, the iPad features a responsive 9.7 inch high-resolution Multi-Touch™ display, letting users physically interact with applications and content. It is 0.5 inches thick and weighs 1.5 pounds – thinner and lighter than laptops or netbooks.

The new gadget really does appear to be like an oversized iPhone, with the same single Home button, and allows users to do many of the same things, but on a bigger scale. Browsing the web, reading and sending emails, looking at photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games and reading ebooks – it is a consumer’s dream.

And that is exactly the point – the iPad is for the personal consumer – people (like me) who want a user-friendly, stylish, unbreakable device that does clever things that entertain and work nicely. It is not really designed for those who want to mess with the software, do multiple tasks at one time, or use it extensively for business.

The intelligent soft keyboard pioneered on iPhone takes advantage of iPad’s larger display to offer an almost full-size soft keyboard – but it also connects to the new iPad Keyboard Dock with a full-size traditional keyboard, which makes it a portable device that can also set up nicely at home.

It is powered by A4, Apple’s next-generation system-on-a-chip – which Apple claims will give a battery life of up to 10 hours.

It will also come with 12 next-generation applications built in – which will work in both portrait and landscape, automatically animating between views as the user rotates iPad in any direction. Furthermore, it will also run almost all of the 140,000 apps in the App Store – so iPhone or iPod Touch users can synch their existing apps over very easily.

Apple also announced the new iBooks app for iPad, which includes Apple’s new iBookstore, similar to iTunes, allowing users to browse, buy and read books on a mobile device. It will feature books from major and independent publishers, and will be in a format allowing use on a number of other ebook readers.

Having been kept a secret for some time, now the iPad has appeared, many might be disappointed with what seems to be a slightly pointless gadget if you already own a laptop and iPhone. However, it does offer an impressive set of features, and I do love my iPhone, which leads me to believe that if one were ever to fall into my hands, I’d probably want one.  Apple is all about fun and functionality – and that’s plenty enough for me.

iPAD SPECIFICATIONS
• 9.7 inch (25cm) multi-touch display
• 1 GHz Apple processor
• 16, 32 or 64 GB of flash memory
• 0.5in (1.25cm) thick
• Weighs 1.5lbs (0.7kgs)
• Wi-fi, bluetooth and 3G connectivity
• Speaker, microphone
• Accelerometer, compass