Apple announces the iPAD tablet

Yesterday Apple finally unveiled the new iPad tablet. This is basically an oversized iPhone (it is running the same OS). It doesn't have an OLED display, nor an E Ink - it's an IPS LCD (which has a better image quality and viewing angle than normal LCDs, but requires more power).

Apple iPad photo

It is also an e-reader - supporting ePub, PDF and Kindle books (via an application). The e-reader app is called iBooks, and there's a bookstore too (iBookstore) that uses the ePub format. Apple also targets this for newspaper with rich content and video support. Apple claims 10 hour battery life with a month of standby.

So will this shake the new e-reader market? It seems hardly likely - it's an expensive, big, heavy device with a very bad battery life, compared to 'dedicated' e-readers. The display might be an issue too - it looks superb, but it's not as easy on the eye as an E Ink. But then again, this is Apple... so you never know. I guess the real question is whether people want a dedicated e-reader that is great for the job, or would rather have a more general-use tablet PC that is also a good e-reader.