iPad Event Coverage

Text and Photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Francisco, CA: Today's iPad launch event was everything that was expected and more. The buzz heading into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was palpable. After weeks of anxious speculation, Apple finally revealed its latest tablet. Hit jump for our photo essay.

Talk on possible specs, capabilities  and various wildcard features (tactile displays, Siri, quad core processors) filled the lines as bloggers and journalists waited in the morning sun.

Once inside, the music leaned heavily towards Adele, which was nice and soothing. Apple's executive core were in full attendance and were just a few rows away from us. Eddie Cue, Jonny Ive, Scott Forstall, Bob Mansfield and of course CEO Tim Cook were chatting with guests and visitors until the music gave way to the applause.

CEO Tim Cook got things started with a rundown of specs, sales figures and the mandatory preview of the newest Apple Retails stores in Amsterdam and in New York's Grand Central Station. They showed some videos of the store opening and captured the overwhelming commercial success and traffic that these Apple Stores generate.

The message during this event was the Post PC economy. Mobile devices, namely tablets, are now viable replacements for PCs. The proof is that the iPad alone outsold PCs from giants Acer, Dell, Lenovo and HP. The Post PC slant was an underlying theme during this keynote and Apple's executive's demonstrated how the iPad, its features and apps, make it a viable replacement to a PC at least for certain functions.

Apple's Senior VP for Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller (above) has become the quite showman and demo artist. His enthusiasm for the products is genuine but he also focuses on what people can do with the technology and he did a great job demoing the iPad.

Not called the iPad 3 or the iPad HD, the iPad 2012 looks almost identical to its predecessor and it looks like most cases and accessories should fit. The big feature was the Retina Display with 4 times the number of pixels and  a 2048-by-1536 resolution, 44 percent greater colour saturation and an astounding 3.1 million pixels — in the same 9.7-inch space. 

The iPad now has 1 million more pixels than an HDTV and Apple redesigned their processor to push all these pixels around.

The A5X processor is a dual core ARM processor but with four core graphics. The new display is also ultra-vivid with improved colour saturation and brightness.

According to Apple, developers can easily scale their apps to take advantage of the Retina Display. For a number of existing apps designed with Apple tools, the scaling can be done automatically on a case to case basis.

The other expected feature was the 4G LTE capability which supports faster data networks. Canadian telcos BEll, Telus and Rogers were announced as launch-partners which means that LTE enabled iPads on these networks will be able to use the high speed data plus do double duty as WiFi hotspots for other devices.

The improved graphics on the iPad were demoed to be perfect for games like Inifinity Blade's Dungeons  (Above) which is like Diablo on graphics steroids for the iPad. It is also great for design and creation apps like Apple's own iMovie, iPhoto and Garageband which bring multi-touch apps to a new level of interactivity and complexity. 

Another notable feature is the new 5 megapixel iSight camera similar to what is on the iPhone 4S with advanced optics for taking stunning pictures and recording full HD video.

Backside illumination allows you to take great photos in low-light conditions and a new video image stabilization feature removes the bumps and shakes typically seen when filming with a hand-held device.

Apple's one two punch is compelling hardware and accompanying software. Not only do users have powerful tools, they also have a variety of ways to use those tools and get things done. No other tablets come close to the new iPad's screen resolution or its camera capabilities.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white on Friday, March 16 for a suggested retail price of $519 (CAD) for the 16GB model, $619 (CAD) for the 32GB model and $719 (CAD) for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G will be available for a suggested retail price of $649 (CAD) for the 16GB model, $749 (CAD) for the 32GB model and $849 (CAD) for the 64GB model. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores, and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPad will also be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands on Friday, March 16. Customers can begin pre-ordering their new iPad today, and the incredible iPad 2 is now offered at a more affordable price of $419 (CAD) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and just $549 (CAD) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model.