New iPad Details Emerge Ahead of Launch

The iPad finally went on sale Friday morning, and Apple unveiled some new details about its latest and greatest on the iPad webpage. We’ve got the details after the break including more on iBooks and day one sales.

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First and foremost, an overview of how 3G services are purchased was added for those interested in pre-ordering a 3G-capable iPad which will ship in late April. Customers will choose from two data plans provided by AT&T: a 250MB plan for $14.99 a month and an unlimited plan for $29.99, both without a contract. Managing the data plan is all done on the iPad itself, not on the Apple or AT&T website.

Simply pick the plan you want and enter in your credit card number. The settings menu also shows you the current status of the plan, including how much data has been used and how much data is left for the remaining time.

Secondly, Apple has also provided a more in-depth look than before at its eReader application, iBooks and the iBookstore. iBooks will initially only be available in the United States, and only by downloading the application from the App Store. On the feature page, Apple confirms that iBooks uses the ePub open standard and will allow the import of any non-DRM ePub books into iTunes for syncing to the iPad.

Other features revealed include the ability to touch and hold words to look them up in the built-in dictionary or Wikipedia, or to search for the word in the book and on the web. iBooks also works with Apple’s screen reader, VoiceOver, but this feature may prove controversial.

Hardware has stayed the same, no last-minute camera or video chat functionality, but one thing has changed. The mute switch on the side of the iPad, has been changed to a “screen rotation lock” for locking the orientation of the display. This feature will especially come in handy for users often using the iPad while lying down on their sides.

The Apple 2.0 blog is estimating that on day one, nearly 120,000 iPads were sold with 69% of those orders being for the Wi-Fi only models.