By: Steph Dlugon
OK, let me set the scene. I’m sitting in our conference room with about a dozen co-workers. We’re munching on Rascal House Pizza and sushi from Sushi 86 (they have AWESOME inari and other vegetarian options by the way). We’re all hanging out together so we can follow Apple’s live product announcement. My goal today is to report the response from my co-workers. They’re nerdy and funny so this should be good. Throughout this blog I’ll simply refer to them by their initials.
Like everyone else, we’re reading the posts of several bloggers who are covering the live event. My co-workers are commenting on what a weird concept this is. We’re awaiting news on a highly advanced piece of technical gadgetry, and we have no choice but to get this news line by line, with no audio, or video. Pretty ironic, right?
OK - So far we know they released the tablet and it’s called the iPad. Here are a few observations from the room.
CMS - “Screen’s a little smaller than I thought.”
RBB noted the “big ass calendar.”
Co-workers are digging the photo viewer. And there were a few murmurs of approval when they flashed a photo of the nice address book interface. EW claims it looks “real and papery.”
Our boss just said he would buy iPads for everyone of us in the room today! Hooray for our boss!! (OK, no he didn’t. But I was hoping blogging it would make it true).
Another person in the room said they’re “glad the keyboard is big.”
CMS is wondering about a pressure resistant keyboard. He seems to recall that Apple filed a patent for one awhile ago. He just knows stuff like that.
We’re following 3 different live blogs. All have failed at one point or other. RBB is scrolling through them really fast so we can catch up. EW is getting dizzy.
We’ve moved on to the gambling portion of our lunch meeting. 11 of us decided to throw in a buck and predict the price of the iPad. Here’s what each person guessed.
EW – $800
AB – $1200
RBB- $1150
CMS – $1000
AS – $999
TAH – $850
SD – $800
KK – $1100
TC – $700
JC – 1399
AH -1150
RM – 2000
We’ve learned a little more about the device’s dimensions. It’s 1.5 pounds, and has a 9.7” screen. Nice and sleek.
CMS thinks it’s cool that Apple is using their own chip for the first time. The device has a compass, accelerometer, and Bluetooth. Everyone in the room is impressed by the 10 hour battery life. Our earth-friendly creative design specialist is very excited by the environmentally responsible materials Apple used to build the iPad. She said, and I quote, “I dig this.” We’re guessing there’s NOT a built-in GPS. I’ll have to look at some product documentation to confirm this. So, don’t quote me to this. GPS is a battery hog, plus it would be a little awkward to go geo-caching in the deep woods clutching an iPad.
Apple says the new SDK available today. This is pretty cool for us. We’re ready!
We’re all eager to see the New York Times app. It’s taking forever for the blog presentation to catch up to the NYT demo. In the meantime, the developers in the room suggested some potential iPad apps.
Finger Sutra
Finger Twister
iPad Fart (with Dolby sound)
Real mature, guys. Real mature.
OK, there’s general disappointment that the NYT app uses a standard newspaper view. However, the embedded videos within articles is cool.
We all agree that the Brushes app will be a huge hit.
AB – wonders if iPad apps are going to be more expensive. Still waiting to hear pricing info.
We keep checking iTunes Connect for the SDK. It’s still not up. We want to develop NOW!!! COME ON!!
Crap! all the blogs are down. Reloading.
They’re demo-ing a baseball app put out by EA Sports. AB noticed the screen shot featured some pretty obvious in-game advertising. This leads us to wonder what else is in store for advertisers.
Just a little non sequitur: A lot of people had to keep quiet about the iPad for a long time. Sure there were some leaks, but this was a mostly impressive feat of shut upishness.
Interestingly they’ve only shown the NY Times. So far no magazines or books shown.
And just moments after I wrote that line, they announced iBooks which is the built-in book reader. They appear to have contracts with 5 major publishing partners. They all publish using the ePub format. A co-worker guesses the reader was developed by a third party and re-branded for Apple.
iPad app prices are more expensive. The apps demoed at the product release event are all being prices at $9.99.
iPad also appears to have a full word processing interface. There was something mentioned about spreadsheets. That frightened me so I stopped listening for a moment and went to a safe place in my mind.
RBB thinks the iPad will be perfect for students. It’s a great way to take notes in classes.
The room is delighted that the iPad can “easily be connected to projectors.” Finally! An easy way to demo!
OK, here’s info on the data pricing plan. $14.99 for 250 MB of data. Unlimited data plan for $29.99. We’re not at all pleased about the new “Micro SIMs.”
OK… and now for the hardware pricing part of the presentation. I’m really hoping to win our big office pool here. 11 bucks would really come in handy right now.
WOW!!! We’re all surprised by the $499 starting price. One co-worker thinks that will drive the Apple stock price up even further. The highest priced model is $829 (64GB, includes WiFi, and 3G). It looks like the iPad will be released in stages.
The event has ended and now our chief software engineer is back in his office downloading the new SDK. We’re rolling up our sleeves and getting ready to build great things.
For more info on the iPad click here.
