“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

~ Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs. It’s time for you to put a ding on the iCloud.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s answer to netbooks, the Apple tablet called iPad.

Sliding right into that niche between the smartphone and laptop (remember that Apple does not believe in netbooks), it’s pretty much a giant iPhone (or is it iPod Touch?) with a more easily viewable screen. You can use it for e-mail and web browsing (via 802.11n WiFi), ebook-reading (oh, yay! iBooks! This is like iTunes except for, you know, books), photo- and video-viewing, with functions for calendars and contacts, and of course, music (via iTunes). It also has Bluetooth 2.1 capabilities, accelerometer and compass.

It comes with an office suite called iWork. I’m trying to imagine what it would feel like to type on the pop-up keyboard. I’m thinking awkward, but then again… maybe we’re just used to a keyboard. Somehow, I could see the iPad as an entertainment gadget rather than something I can work on. However, they are throwing in a keyboard dock.

Half an inch thick and weighing 1.5 lbs., it has a 9.7″ LCD screen with a 1GHz CPU and, like the iPod Touch, comes with 16, 32 or 64GB storage. The iPad also comes with built-in Apple apps but will run most of the iPhone apps, but as software developers have already been working on iPad specific apps for a couple of weeks.

Price is at $499 for the 16GB model with WiFi only. 64GB of storage and 3G will set you back $820. AT&T will be offering 3G service with up to 250MB of data/mo.for $14.99, and an unlimited plan for $29.99/mo. No contract, which means you can cancel anytime you want. The 3G iPad is also unlocked so you don’t have to flock to AT&T to get service.

Battery life is said to be at 10 hours.

As with every shiny new gadget Steve Jobs unveils, I want one. So, what say you? Yea or nay?

SOURCE: Macworld
PHOTO: gdgt

Cult of Mac received a picture of an Apple Netbook from ‘a trusted contributor’ and thinks its the Apple iBook Netbook.

Given the size (length) of 9.5″ the only possibility is a 10″ or 11″ Apple netbook. This looks very different from the rumored Apple MediaPad touchpad as it obviously has a keyboard.

And it looks pretty cool -

Apple Netbook - It Lives!

From this picture its pretty clear that this is NOT a ’10″ iTouch’ or ‘larger iPhone’ or even a ‘MediaPad’. This looks much more like the netbooks from Acer and Asus that are eating away Apple’s marketshare. Finally, Apple gets its head straight and enters the only segment of the PC market that is booming.

Steve Jobs has been pretty dismissive of Netbooks, even though they went from under 1 million netbooks sold in 2007 to over 12 million sold in 2008.

1. Oct 21st, 2008 Steve Jobs said – “Not a lot of them getting sold,”. He also called the iPhone Apple’s entrance in the netbook category.
2. On further probing, he said – Apple is going to “wait and see … we’ve got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve.”
3. And ended with – “Our DNA won’t let us ship a $500 computer that’s a piece of junk.”

And how has that translated into actual results in end 2008 and early 2009? Well, the NPD Group’s reports state -

1. Apple, Inc.’s Mac sales dipped six percent in January as Windows PC sales jumped 16 percent, pumped by low-cost netbooks.
2. Mac retail sales in the U.S. in Dec 2008 were essentially flat last month compared to the same month year earlier. Sales of Windows-based notebooks grew by 23% year to year.
3. Mac retail sales in the U.S. in Nov 2008 fell 1% from a year ago, even as sales of Windows PCs climbed 7%.
4. Apple has now lost unit-sales market share for the past three months.

Apple must release an Apple Netbook to win back Marketshare

We are in a terrible economic climate and money is really tough. AIG is going to report $80 billion losses in a day or two, and Bank of America and Citi are both in danger of getting nationalized.

Apple has to realize what’s happening and release an Apple iBook/ Apple netbook to maintain market share. There is just no other way around it – If you have $349 Acer Aspire Ones and $350-$500 priced Asus EeePCs, there’s little chance people will put down $999+ for a MacBook.