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Today Apple will reveal...something wonderful...to the press. Though a few other announcements are in the offing, there's been so much hype about the upcoming iTablet / iSlate / iPad, that everyone is lined up and eagerly awaiting the 10am PST release conference. Many are planning on live blogs...can YouTube be far behind? We'll be reporting back here as soon as the curtain is pulled aside.

10-01-27:1702 PST - Now that we've all had a chance to look the iPad over, what did Jobs get right, and what looks like a near miss? On the plus side, power and pricing both came off better than I expected. Yes, the top of the line with 3G and 64GB of memory costs upwards of $800, but the basic iPad only costs $499, close to netbook territory with similar features, though with a netbook they throw in the keyboard for free. The two feature that missed the mark, were that the device won't run multiple applications at the same time. I'm not sure how severe this constraint is though, as I'd have a hard time believing that you couldn't run iTunes while surfing the web, so it bears investigation. The other failing, especially for a device that was so touted for web surfing, is the inability to run Adobe Flash, a shortcoming of the iPhone as well. Though not all websites use Flash animation, it seems odd that Apple would leave something that their core audience is so invested in. On the plus side for the 3G versions, hosted by AT&T again, is that the data plans are quite reasonable, at $19.99 for 250 GB of data a month, or $29.99 for unlimited data. Since either plan is considerably less than a phone plan, one wonders what they're going to do to keep the device from cannibalizing iPhone adoption. Of course, since Apple controls the approved software for the iPad, they can just not let any phone apps in, but one doesn't expect that to go over well.

10-01-27:1012 PST - OK. I'm impressed. I won't be running out to get one for myself, though a review unit is certainly in the offing, but I have to agree with much of what Jobs claims. "The netbook isn't better at anything" is a bit harsh, and not completely true, but they do seem to have gotten the bulk of things right on the tablet, especially the estimated 10 hour battery life. Without that it would have been an ineffective paperweight, but with it Apple has a shot at game changing. Once again.

10-01-27:0727 PST - Listening to the radio today it's a tossup which announcement is drawing more interest, the Prez's State of the Union, or Apple's Tablet Announcement. ;)

10-01-27:0600 PST - So, if Apple hasn't released any images of the Tablet...what's Gizmodo basing it's header on? Of course, if the Tablet doesn't look like an overgrown iPhone we'll all just faint dead away. Gizmodo tablet header:

Previously on TechRevu:

iPad / iTablet / iSlate / iWait?
Waiting For The iSlate
by Ernest Lilley
Sure, I'm looking forward to seeing what Apple's version of a tablet looks like, but I have to wonder if it's going to have anything like the impact of any of Apples other "i" family of products. If I'm wrong, I'll actually be very, very happy...but I really don't think so.

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