That announcement from Apple…

It can’t have escaped many people’s notice that Apple finally unveiled its new gizmo yesterday to much media fanfare… and as largely expected, it was a small tablet computer which Apple hope will fill a gap between a smartphone  / PDA and a laptop, and is called the iPad.

Basically, it seems to be a large iPod Touch, running a version of iPhone OS but with a more powerful processor as well as large touch screen. My first impression was that it is something that would be ideal for someone who wanted what most computer users want (web access, sorting out their music and photo collection, play the odd game, type letters, send emails) without the hassle of actually needing to use a computer, worry about viruses, etc. Most people don’t need a proper computer after all, and find them hard to use (think of your parents or grandparents). For that kind of casual user, the iPad would be ideal. You can connect it to a Mac or PC, but I’m not entirely clear yet whether you need a ‘real’ computer as well, it would seem a shame if you do.

From the development perspective, the interesting thing is that there is a beta available of version 3.2 of the iPhone SDK, and this supports iPad development. The iPad will run iPhone/iPod Touch software and uses the iTunes App Store in the same way, so presumably the main thing in the new SDK will be support for the larger format screen (rumours of support for multi-tasking seem to have been jumping the gun). Apple’s website says something about universal applications working on both devices which presumably means apps which can present different interfaces depending on what device they find themselves running on. The iPad uses a custom designed chip, more powerful than the ARM processor in the iPhone so it’s not clear if it shares the same instruction set or will emulate ARM code.

If the iPad takes off, it will represent a big opportunity for iPhone developers. At the very least, refactoring the UI of existing apps so they can take advantage of the larger screen will keep a lot of people busy for a while. A lot of iPhone apps are very cheap, in some cases novelty items, or wrappers for website to provide a better mobile interface – it will be interesting to see if the iPad drives up the quality and price of the software on the App Store. We might get a new price point emerging, less than the price of full Mac or PC software, but more than the couple of pounds/dollars/euros that the majority of iPhone apps cost.