Apple's iPad

Apple CEO and showman extraordinaire Steve Jobs introduced Apple's new iPad tablet on January 27, 2010 in San Francisco. It was an invitation-only event, but it was captured on video and posted it to the Apple Special Event site. The first half hour is pure Steve Jobs. The next hour is a series of more detailed demos on applications that already exist for the iMac, iPhone, and other Apple products that are also available on the larger device, the iPad.

PC World's review of the iPad lists five "best surprises":

• Price - lower than expected. Priced to compete with netbooks and/or eBook Readers
• Pre-paid, nocontract, unlocked G3
• External keyboard support
• iWork for iPad
• ePub support of International Digital Publishing Forum Standard for open-standards-based-format for digital books.

Another review, "Tablet Makers Rethinking Things in Wake of iPad's $499 Price" points out, among other things, that the iPad has no USB interface ports, so it is more like a larger version of the iPhone. Tricks to keep iPad price low:

• "... iPad left out some key hardware features and will instead charge users a nice markup on accessories designed to give those features back. Specifically, the lack of built-in USB ports and SD card support saved a few dollars per unit, and for a unit that will eventually sell in the tens of millions, that's real money."
• "...the classic up-sell. The company is charging considerably more for the 3G and/or more storage, with the result that buyers of the higher-end models are pitching in extra money to pay for the low-end model's discount."
• "...making up lost hardware revenues with content sales. ... Apple can afford to give away the hardware because it's taking a cut of iTunes, App Store, and iBook sales."

Our First Post

The Computer Club now has a blog! Stay tuned for interesting and timely items. Visit us online or at the San Mateo Senior Center.

We've added our logo of the computer holding a letter. How? It is an old logo and we only have it on an old brochure, so we made a digital image of it, saved it as a .jpeg image, and then added it to the sidebar.

We also added an avatar (representation of a person) in a computer classroom. That's fitting, right? Several of us will be experimenting and "playing" with the words and design, so please don't be surprised if the original orange template is a different color next time you look.

Homework for the computer club: Look over this blog and then learn how to create your own by taking the free & fun online course called "CSM Learning 2.0". There are 23 "Things" to learn -- learn one thing a week or one thing a month. Enjoy!