The Apple iPad will come with two 3G data plans through AT&T, one of which is just $30 per month with no contract. You can cancel at any time with no penalty, and use AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots for free.

The other plan offered is $15 for 250MB of data, also through AT&T. You can activate directly from your iPad, which is objectively a pretty great deal given that you generally pay $60 for unlimited data on your laptop. The ability to cancel whenever you want to is also a boon, given how out of hand ETFs have gotten lately.

The Apple iPad will come with two 3G data plans through AT&T, one of which is just $30 per month with no contract. You can cancel at any time with no penalty, and use AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots for free.

The other plan offered is $15 for 250MB of data, also through AT&T. You can activate directly from your iPad, which is objectively a pretty great deal given that you generally pay $60 for unlimited data on your laptop. The ability to cancel whenever you want to is also a boon, given how out of hand ETFs have gotten lately.

The Apple iPad will come with two 3G data plans through AT&T, one of which is just $30 per month with no contract. You can cancel at any time with no penalty, and use AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots for free.

The other plan offered is $15 for 250MB of data, also through AT&T. You can activate directly from your iPad, which is objectively a pretty great deal given that you generally pay $60 for unlimited data on your laptop. The ability to cancel whenever you want to is also a boon, given how out of hand ETFs have gotten lately.

Google Maps on the iPad isn't significantly different from Google Maps on the iPhone. But Street View? It's huge. As is the Eiffel Tower.

Google Maps on the iPad isn't significantly different from Google Maps on the iPhone. But Street View? It's huge. As is the Eiffel Tower.

So is reading a book on Apple's iPad any better than a Kindle? Well, you have complete page flipping control. And that's something.

So is reading a book on Apple's iPad any better than a Kindle? Well, you have complete page flipping control. And that's something.

Just as we thought, iWork 2010 was announced today, and it's taking full advantage of the new iPad's capabilities, namely multitouch. It's the most exciting thing to happen to slide-based presentation software in decades.

The big update here is to Keynote, iWork's PowerPoint equivalent: Multitouch is actually a pretty great way to create and view slides. In iWork 2010's Keynote, you can drag, resize and move elements around on a slide, including photos and text, which is a natural way to do things. Animations and transitions are added from a list of pre-generated ones.

Next up is Pages, iWork's word processor. Without a hardware keyboard, word processing seems tricky, but there are definitely elements that can be improved with multitouch: Scroll through text, select text via touch, navigate through different pages, that kind of thing.

Now, Numbers, which (let's be honest here) is the party-starter of the group: Spreadsheets. The screen seems like a hindrance here, but having a constantly adapting calculator is kind of a cool idea. We'll see how usable it actually is, but it definitely addresses some of the square-pegged "it's not businessy enough!" iPhone haters. Also, it is about as pretty as a spreadsheets app could be.

And now we've officially got the prices and compatibility list. They're each $10 ($30 in total, in case you flunked second grade math), are compatible with the upcoming Mac versions as well as projectors (nice!) and will be available at the app store. [Apple iPad]

Just as we thought, iWork 2010 was announced today, and it's taking full advantage of the new iPad's capabilities, namely multitouch. It's the most exciting thing to happen to slide-based presentation software in decades.

The big update here is to Keynote, iWork's PowerPoint equivalent: Multitouch is actually a pretty great way to create and view slides. In iWork 2010's Keynote, you can drag, resize and move elements around on a slide, including photos and text, which is a natural way to do things. Animations and transitions are added from a list of pre-generated ones.

Next up is Pages, iWork's word processor. Without a hardware keyboard, word processing seems tricky, but there are definitely elements that can be improved with multitouch: Scroll through text, select text via touch, navigate through different pages, that kind of thing.

Now, Numbers, which (let's be honest here) is the party-starter of the group: Spreadsheets. The screen seems like a hindrance here, but having a constantly adapting calculator is kind of a cool idea. We'll see how usable it actually is, but it definitely addresses some of the square-pegged "it's not businessy enough!" iPhone haters. Also, it is about as pretty as a spreadsheets app could be.

And now we've officially got the prices and compatibility list. They're each $10 ($30 in total, in case you flunked second grade math), are compatible with the upcoming Mac versions as well as projectors (nice!) and will be available at the app store. [Apple iPad]

We said it long ago: The Apple iPad will redefine newspapers, textbooks, magazines. Were we right? Is Apple bringing a media revolution? Oh, it'll get there.

Books, Books, iBooks

We've had an iTunes store and now we've got an iBook store with content from Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette book group. We'll browse this content on a bookshelf-like page and add to it using a purchase system similar to the App store's. This interface looks clean, organized, and like you could really snuggle up with your iPad and a book—though I do wonder about eyestrain from a display like this.

The pricing we're seeing for actual books during the presentation resembles what we've heard before with a price point of $14.99. While Apple uses the ePub format, we don't have confirmation about whether you can import your own books into the iBook library—though odds are in favor of that freedom.

Newspapers With an Upgrade

We figured that a New York Time's iPad application was coming, and while it allows for playback of video clips and other enhanced content, we're not really getting anything that we couldn't get on the NYT website. The point is that now there's not only motivation for publishers to push online or app-based subscription models, present more enhanced content, put out their own apps—just as they did for the iPhone—but now there's an device which screams that it's ideal for the job.

We've seen mockups of a Sports Illustrated iPad application and that'll probably become reality soon.

Movies and Popcorn Butter Stained Screens

Sure there are plenty of movies in the iTunes store, but watching them in widescreen landscape format on the iPad leaves half the device's screen unused as. Bit tacky, but somehow I think we might overlook that considering that the iPad's battery lets us keep watching videos for ten straight hours.

What's So Great About It All?

Movies, books, music, magazine and newspaper apps. The iPad combines Apple's solid content delivery system and a device which is almost ideal for all that media. We'll listen to our iTunes collection while reading out iBook collection and squinting at the grease marks left from a popcorn-powered ten-hour movie marathon.

What's Missing?

Comic books. I desperately wanted to see the ideal comic book reader today, but that's certainly something an app could help with.