This morning Apple officially released the much-rumoured Tablet they have been working on called the "iPad".

Some specific details:

• 9.7 inch IPS Display
• 1024 x 768 resolution at 132 ppi
• 1.5 pounds
• 1/2 inch thin
• Onscreen Virtual Keyboard
• Custom Apple 1Ghz CPU – the "A4″
• Comes in 3 sizes: 16Gb, 32Gb, 64Gb
• WiFi / Bluetooth
• Optional 3G
• Assisted GPS on 3G models
• Appcelerometer / Compass
• 10 hours battery life
• 30 days standby
• Case that doubles as a stand (optional extra)
• External keyboard dock (optional extra)

The iPad runs all existing iPhone Apps in 2 modes – actual size in center of screen, or full screen using pixel doubling. Developers can also officially support the iPad display natively by developing apps using the new iPhone SDK which will be released later today.

Apple is now moving into the e-book space as predicted. You will be able to purchase "iBooks" via iTunes and read them on the iPad. Apple has made deals with several major book and magazine publishers. Can they do for electronic books and magazines what the iPod and iTunes did for music? Time will tell.

Apple is also releasing a completely new version of iWorks (Keynote, Pages, Numbers), with iPad versions at USD $9.99 each app to be purchased via the App Store.

Initial pricing in USD is $499: 16GB/WiFi, $599: 32GB/WiFi, $699: 64GB/WiFi. Add $130 for 3G.

Apple is expecting the iPads to be available for purchase in 2 months, and 3 months for the 3G models.

You can view a YouTube video of the iPad launch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEiUlf9BAYU

Update: You can now view full details of the iPad on the Apple website.

I have not had a chance to play with this much in detail as yet but I have been impressed with every single part of my exposure to this tool so far. The website is fantastic, the software looks intuitive, and the features look very impressive. Comprehensive budgeting, alerts, and reports. Compare your budgets and spending behaviour to the wider community. Budgeting and spending recommendations targeted to you based on your activity history. So new things in here not found in any of the software I have reviewed in the past.

And yes it does offer automatic bank feeds for ANZ, Westpac, ASB, TSB – and maybe others.

Oh wait – and there is a native iPhone app for moneyStrands that at first glance is one of the nicest looking iPhone apps I have seen.

Looks like Mint.com for New Zealand may have arrived. In fact one reviewer said:

When put head to head with its competitor, mint.com, we believe that moneyStrands is a more complete personal finance app and much more user-friendly.

Stay tuned for a more detailed review in the future – I am off to have a play…

UPDATE: I have now spent some time in moneyStrands. It is a nice start, but a few key features are missing such as recurring budget items, being able to see upcoming bill payments, and any type of forecasting. It is basically a ASB "Track My Spending" on steroids. If you want to be able to categorise your spending and compare your budget to a wider community then moneyStrands is for you. If you need more functionality (as I do) then you should be looking at tools such as Buxfer, PocketSmith and others that I reviewed in my last post.

It continues to blow us away just how quickly the iPhone is moving mobile email forward. The iPhone now caters for 5.78% of the email client market, breezing past Gmail to become the 5th most popular email client in the world.

Put another way, iPhone now has more of the email client market than AOL, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird and Entourage combined. That's pretty incredible considering it's a mobile device and a relative newcomer compared to the rest of the market.

Thanks to their software update approach within iTunes, iPhone users are also prolific updaters. iPhone OS 1.0 and 2.0 are amongst the fastest shrinking email clients, while iPhone OS 3.0 is by far the fastest growing email client version on the market.

Was the upgrade worth it? Absolutely.

The new OS takes the device to another level. It finally supports Cut/Copy/Paste, optimised for a finger-based interface. It now includes Spotlight to search the entire device from a single location. In fact there are over 100 new features which are well designed and implemented, in true Apple style, and vastly improve the experience of using the device. You can view a quick summary of the "Top 40″ features over on the iSmashPhone article: How To Use The Best 40 Features of iPhone 3.0.

Do you want to know what the killer feature is however? The one that makes the $13.99 upgrade seem very reasonable indeed? Every iPod Touch (2nd Gen onwards) has a Broadcom BCM4325 chip inside, which in addition to supporting WiFi also supports Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. However the Bluetooth in the iPod Touch was disabled – until iPhone 0S 3.0. The upgrade has unlocked and enabled Bluetooth on the device. The hardware unlocking combined with the new API's made available to programmers in OS 3.0 allows the iPod Touch to talk to other iPods/iPhones for peer-to-peer gaming, exchanging data, and connectivity with 3rd party peripherals such as headsets, computers, speakers, car accessories, A2DP laptops/watches and more.

iPhone OS 3.0 is a free upgrade for existing owners of iPhones.

This image was sourced from the Stuff.co.nz Cartoon Gallery.

Watch Vodafone's Mark Rushworth on the 3 News website trying to justify their prices.

I wonder how many NZ's are interested in the iPhone? Especially now that the pricing has been released.

To view the Vodafone pricing details click here.

Vodafone New Zealand will be selling the iPhone in-store on July 11th. There will be two devices available: the iPhone 3G 8Gb for USD$199 and the 16Gb model for USD$299. This pricing is for an iPhone on a 24 month contract. It sounds like you can still purchase an iPhone without a contract (i.e. for prepay use) for somewhere between NZD$800-$1,000. There is no news from Vodafone NZ on the plans being offered.

So – July 11th it begins.

Why all the hype? Has Apple's marketing got to me? Well, yes it has. But it is not just hype, it is based on some pretty convincing facts. The iPhone package has already redefined the mobile phone – it is now redefining our expectations of mobile computing full-stop. Let me explain…

The Hardware
The iPhone hardware gives the average person unprecedented power in their pocket, and now for a pretty impressive price:

• The large Multi-Touch screen
• The Accelerometer that detects device movement and rotation
• The large storage space – up to 16Gb
• Assisted GPS
• 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth
• Unprecendented battery life for such hardware: 300 hours standby, 10 hours talk time, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio

All of these hardware features are packed into the slickest phone design ever. As the Senior Vice President of Walt Disney stated: "It really has the ability to pack the power of a laptop into the size of a smartphone." The hardware features combined with the OS X operating system means that Apple potentially fill more than the mobile phone space, but also move into the ultra-mobile computing space. With rumored 7 inch devices running the same multi-touch interface it will be interesting to see what comes next from Apple in this area.

The Software
It is not just about hardware with Apple – their software is consistently beautiful and simple. It is intuitive and appealing. The software on the iPhone covers off the needs of 80% of the market:

• PIM software to manage Contacts, Calendar, Email and Notes
• Full over-the-air push support for PIM info with Microsoft Exchange and MobileMe (Apple's new dotMac replacement)
• Desktop data sync with Microsoft Outlook and Apple software
• SMS and Voice Calls using the slickest interface I have ever seen for basic Phone features
• Safari browser offering desktop browser support on a mobile device. The webpages scales and zooms/pans providing a truly intuitive way to surf on a small screen. This feature alone has already redefined browsing from a mobile device, making it a realistic option for the first time.
• iTunes software allowing the full iPod functionality with an advanced interface.
• iPhoto support for viewing or managing your photos on the run. Combined with the inbuilt camera this is a slick combination.
• Maps with GPS – view an address on a map, plot and navigate your course. View your current location at any time. Full Google Maps support.
• A dedicated YouTube program optimises your YouTube experience allowing you to easily locate, view and bookmark your favorite movies.
• Office file viewers are included for Word, Excel and Powerpoint as well as Apple iWorks files.

And that just scratches the surface. These tools are not new in themselves – but as usual Apple takes them to the next level. It is a pretty convincing toolkit in your pocket, covering off most of the features the average user will ever need in a mobile device. And that is before 3rd party apps enter the picture.

Market Dominance

It is pretty clear that the Apple is now aggressively going after market share. Within the first 8 months of its launch the iPhone had already claimed over 28% of the smartphone market in the US, second only to RIM (Blackberry). At that point it was not available in other countries. As of today the iPhone is available in 6 countries, on July the 11th it will be launched in another 14 countries, and within a few months it will available in 70 countries worldwide. Combined with the significant price drops and locked ceiling for pricing worldwide we can see the picture.

Will Apple really start to dominate the mobile phone market? Yes I believe it will. The rapid adoption of the initial iPhone already paints the picture. More than that however, we can see that the iPhone lives up to the hype, receiving rave reviews from satisfied owners and critics alike. I have never seen a single device get so much attention from the media or the average person down the street – not even from Apple, who seem to be at the forefront of marketing the launch of such devices (eg the iMac and iPod).

Let's have a look at some of the target audiences Apple is obviously going after…

Children/Students
Let's be honest – Apple already had most kids with the iPod, and the iPhone is an even more compelling music experience. Now add the coolest phone with SMS and email. Now add the slick games powered by the accelerometer. What about the inbuilt YouTube support and the best mobile browsing experience? Now add the 3rd party software that has been launched – student learning tools, social networking software, sound mixers and much more. Do I need to say any more?

SME/Enterprise
Sharp pricing. "Push" email, contacts and calendar. Microsoft Exchange support. 3G data transfer speeds. Multiple secure networking options and Cisco VPN support. Remote device wipe. Support for Microsoft Office documents. MobileMe for remote sync, backups and anywhere/anytime access to data using the slickest browser-based toolset. Apple has ticked off the list of most business and corporate requirements. The overall packaged software combined with the slick hardware and pricing model is sure to be appealing to business users.

Developers
It is obvious that developers are a key target with this launch of the iPhone. The SDK (Software Development Kit) has been well publicized and marketed. The Apple WWDC was sold out for the first time ever and Apple has made no secret of this. The App Store joins the gap between the developers and the end users. And Apple is definitely showing off the 3rd party apps that have been developed, and emphasizing over and over again the short amount of time developers had to work on their application and how easy they found it. We can see that Apple are trying to get a singular message across to developers – developing for the iPhone is quick and it is easy. Whether that is true or not, developers are definitely listening and are more interested in Apple now than ever before. But again, this is based on more than just Apple's marketing hype.

The iPhone offers a pretty compelling picture to developers. The hardware is very powerful for a mobile device, and gives developers the ability to tap into features they have not had access to before – such as multi-touch, the accelerometer, and location awareness. Apple is making it easy for developers to work with this type of hardware – and as a result we are seeing some impressive and innovative software coming to the iPhone that we have never seen on any other platform. Apple helped by getting the hardware form-factor right in many respects as well – for example the screen resolution is large enough to create compelling and usable software that can be navigated with a finger, while still small enough to fit into a pocketable device. It is also powerful enough in terms of processing and graphics to remove limitations that developers were previously hindered by in the mobile space.

Apple has also cleverly architectured the iPhone operating system. It is not just a cut-down and limited version of their desktop OS – the core layers are exactly the same. It will be easy for developers to migrate from the iPhone to full OS X desktop development – a very clever strategy from Apple that they will move on more in the future I am sure. Apple is also clearly documenting and communicating their API, their conventions, and placing and enormous emphasis on best practice which will standardise the development efforts and the resulting software. I like the way that Apple brings their simplicity and clarity to the development community – it is a much clearer picture to navigate than trying to learn to develop for other mobile platforms from scratch.

Combine the above facts with the potential market share that the iPhone will pick up over the coming months. For a developer choosing a target platform for their software the choice is becoming pretty obvious. While the iPhone may not be their only target platform it will likely need to be at the top of their list.

During Bill Gate's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' Apple may well be saying the same thing in a few years time.

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Apple has been consistently wowing us for the past few years – OS X, then the iMac, the iPod, and now the iPhone.

It has been clear for a while that mobility is the future of computing. And the iPhone is emerging as the King of mobility. This device is indeed a game changer. It is more than a mobile phone – it is a new platform.

The iPhone takeover begins.