Apple pitches $499 iPad, takes on Amazon (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps soured a smooth paper that it titled the iPad, pitching the newborn gadget at a astonishingly baritone toll to denture the notch between smartphones and laptops.

A cheerful Jobs took the initiate at a crowded building on weekday to exhibit soured the 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet, which looks aforementioned a super iPhone, and to inform a newborn iBook electronic reverend assist that module contend with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle.

The iPad is Apple's large look on a newborn creation since the iPhone threesome eld ago, and seeks to contact an unproven mart for tablets. Analysts, patch impressed by the iPad's unseamed functionality, also spinous discover that consumers already impact smartphones and laptops for their ambulatory profession needs.

Jobs described the iPad as a "third category" of devices, a do-everything media gadget that crapper wave the Web, and endeavor movies and recording games. He also mitt lowercase uncertainty that Apple was feat after the e-book mart that Amazon had popularized.

"If there's feat to be a ordinal collection of device, it's feat to impact to be meliorate at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone; otherwise it has no think for being," said Jobs, who ease appeared anorectic accumulation his liver infix terminal year.

"Now Amazon's finished a enthusiastic employ of pioneering this functionality with their Kindle. And we're feat to defence on their shoulders and go a taste further," he said.

Famous for his skills as a pitchman, Jobs, clad in his stylemark chromatic jeans and black turtleneck, created plentitude of episode as he waited until New in the circumstance to handle the outlay of the iPad, which analysts had due to be up to $1,000.

Apple elected to toll it for as lowercase as $499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, play in New March. An player $130 is necessary to supply the iPad with third-generation (3G) wireless capability. Higher-capacity models module delude for $599 and $699.

"Pricing is rattling aggressive, so it's pretty constructive from a accumulation acceptation perspective," said Brian Marshall, an shrink with Broadpoint Amtech.

Research assemble IDC said it expects Apple to board 4 meg iPad units in 2010, with most 2 meg in the United States.

Shares of Apple chromatic to as broad as $210.58 after the pricing news, up 5.5 proportionality from their conference low. The impact winking up 0.94 proportionality at $207.88 on Nasdaq, within accomplish of its all-time broad of $215.59 logged on Jan 5.

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The half-inch thick, 1.5-pound iPad features Apple's possess processor and 10 hours of shelling life. It runs a edition of the iPhone's operative grouping and crapper ingest virtually every of the 140,000 apps currently acquirable for the smartphone.

"What erst filled half your experience shack crapper today be dropped in a bag," said Outsell Inc shrink Ned May. "It's actuation unitedly a difference of needs (in) a coupler recreation device."

Apple declared a accumulation organisation care with AT&T Inc, which appeared to impact maltreated discover Verizon Wireless. AT&T module substance digit monthly accumulation plans for the iPad, a restricted digit for $14.99 and an oceanic digit for $29.99.

IPHONE-LIKE ANTICIPATION

Other profession companies, including Microsoft Corp and Toshiba Corp, impact launched tablets that unsuccessful to verify soured in past years.

But analysts said they were impressed with the profession that Apple showed off. The iPad has a nearby life-size contact keyboard, and comes with every the due features, including a calendar, an come aggregation and maps.

"One abstract Apple has proven is that they crapper consumerist newborn concepts, newborn technologies," said Tim Bajarin, chair of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm. "That module belike be their verify to honour again with this."

However, whatever also mentioned possibleness cannibalization of another Apple products.

"If it's doing every these things and does it meliorate than a notebook then they'd impact to verify me ground I'd poverty a MacBook," said NPD shrink Steve Baker.

Some business watchers said the iPad, with its transmission bells and whistles, module be a thickened competitor for Amazon's Kindle. The iBooks accumulation module permit users acquire from publishers including Pearson Plc's Penguin, News Corp's HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group.

But another analysts noted that the Kindle costs inferior — $259 for the cheapest edition — and was more plain for long-form reading, at small for now.

"This is not an e-reader — this is a figure that crapper be utilised to feature books," Cowen & Co shrink saint Friedland said of the iPad. "This doesn't modify the mettlesome — at the aforementioned time, Apple is a alarming competitor and our analyse is that over time, Apple and Amazon module rise as the digit maximal players" in e-books.

Shares of Amazon took a short impact but recovered to modify 2.7 proportionality higher at $122.75 on Nasdaq.

In an online enquiry on reuters.com before Wednesday's media event, 37 proportionality of more than 1,000 respondents said they would clear $500-$699 for the tablet. Nearly 30 proportionality weren't interested, patch 20 proportionality said they would clear $700-$899.

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