iPads Here May 28 – Starting @ $629 inc.

Published: May 6, 2010 | Author: Adam Smith

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iPad Coming To Australia on May 28

After selling over 1,000,000 iPads in the first month in the US, the iPad is finally coming to Australia. Pre-orders can be made with Apple from the 10th of May and will available to purchase on May 28.

Expected Australian pricing (including GST) for the Wi-Fi only iPad is $629 for 16GB, $759 (32GB) $879 (64GB). Prices for the 3G model is $799 (16GB) $928 (32GB) and $1049 (64GB).

After bringing PDA’s to the masses, it looks like Apple will finally be the first company to make a tablet device a success. Bringing a mix of style, latest display and touch screen technology and an easy to use operating system, Apple appear to have brought the tablet form factor to the mainstream.

If you already have an iPhone, your apps will also run on the iPad with many app developers bringing redesigned or updated versions to take advantage of the bigger screen resolution. There also a host of iPad specific apps available and a new iBookstore which has already sold over 1.5m books!

Competing Tablets Coming Soon…

Fortunately for consumers, Apple won’t have in all their own way.

Microsoft have their new Windows Phone 7 coming soon and will develop a tablet OS based on this. For those that have used traditional Windows Mobile phones, Windows Phone 7 is a complete departure for Microsoft. The operating system has been re-designed from the ground up and should translate into a exceptional tablet type device. To see what a Windows 7 Phone will look like click here

Microsoft are also building their own network and development tools that will integrate Windows based PC’s, the Xbox 360 and the Windows Phone 7 and have the ability to share apps and data seamlessly. Imagine playing a game on your PC or Xbox, getting in the car and continuing the game on your phone – at the point you left it! This is the some of the things Microsoft are envisaging for the future.

Google have the Android phones, that although are not largely available in Australia yet (HTC do have models available from Telstra), are already big in the US and Europe that will translate into excellent tablet devices. They are also building an operating system based on the Chrome browser. The benefits Google can bring to their devices are being able to direct link into their cloud based programs like Gmail, Google Docs, Buzz and they already have a 50,000 program app store up and running.

You can also expect plenty of 3rd parties developing Android based devices as the OS is open source and there is expected to be hundreds of Android based devices in the next 12 months alone.

And just last week, HP purchased the Palm company which will bring Palm’s WebOS to a tablet as well as new phones. Palm based WebOS phones are apparently exceptional but lacked the market presence due to Palm’s financial troubles of recent years. Being the worlds largest PC maker HP have buckets of money to back their new addition, which could turn around Palm’s fortunes. HP were to deliver a Windows 7 based tablet in the next few months, but have already scrapped this to focus on bringing out a WebOS tablet.

Why A Phone OS?

Although it seemed liked a strange decision to use the iPhone OS when the iPad was announced it is probably the primary reason it works. Tablets have been around for years, but have always run an over bloated OS in devices that were not designed to run a mainstream PC operating system. Throw in a minimum battery life of 10 hours, the ability to show full screen video and an app library of 200,000 programs and it works. HP with their ‘Slate’ device running Windows 7 were looking at around 3-4 hour battery life, so you can already see why PC based tablets aren’t going to work.

Is It Too Late?

Apple have a massive head start and have an exceptional product, even though it’s missing things like a front facing camera amongst others. For the other companies to compete they are going to have to do things as well as or better than Apple. Traditionally Apple do develop exceptional and easy to use products and in the last few years have transformed the MP3 and PDA categories into mainstream use. The way things are looking they look like adding Tablets to this list.