Today, Steve Jobs took the stage to satisfy the cravings of thousands of geeks. We've been hearing rumors about the Apple Tablet for well over a year now, and the past month has been sheer torture with all the speculation surrounding this unicorn of a device! It's called the iPad . I'll get to the price in a couple minutes, but first let's take a look at what it does. 

Steve talked about having a spot to fill between the iPhone and a laptop. There's a gap there that netbooks have tried to fill, but they haven't been so successful at filling the need. I'd agree with Steve on that with the exception of the Nokia Booklet 3G. There is a need for a portable device that's larger and does more than the iPhone but isn't as heavy or cumbersome as a laptop. That was Apple's goal with the iPad. They wanted it to be better, more intuitive at browsing the web than a laptop is. They wanted people to be able to share and browse photos and videos, listen to music, play games and read eBooks. My initial opinion? They mostly succeeded, with a couple exceptions. 

The device is very thin at 1/2 an inch, and it weighs 1.5 pounds. No netbook that I'm aware of matches these specs. The screen is 9.7 inches, which I'm thrilled about. I really didn't want an 11 incher. They're using a custom silicon chip called the A4 and Steve says "it screams". It has 802.11n, WiFi and Bluetooth. The battery life is 10 hours. That's much better than the iPhone and better than most netbooks. Of course, it has an accelerometer, a compass, a built in speaker, a mic and a dock connector. There are a couple accessories. One of them is a black case that doubles as a stand. The other is a dock with keyboard. I love that they did this. I don't mind a virtual keyboard one bit but it certainly is nice to use a real keyboard from time to time. 

Outside of the expected apps on the iPad like Calendar, iTunes, Mail and Google Maps, there will also be three things to look forward to - iWork, iBooks and 3rd Party Apps. Apple has spent the last year rebuilding iWork to play nicely with the iPad. Keynote, Numbers and Pages are all available in a format that looks very pleasant to use. You can even hook up a projector to display your Keynote Presentation. Each iWork app will be available for $9.99. 

iBooks is their eBook reader application. The browsing and purchasing process is very visual - it looks like a bookshelf so you can not only see book titles but also the covers. You'll of course be able to download books directly from the iPad. Apple teamed up with Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachett Book Group to provide a full library of books. Not only best sellers and classics, but also textbooks. 

You'll have access to the same 3rd party apps from the App Store without the developers having to make any modifications. Devs can modify their apps with the new SDK, but they don't have to. When you're viewing an app, tap a button to scale it to full screen. I expect this will be tied to your iTunes account, so whatever you have on your iPhone, you should be able to get on your iPad. 

There are two major things the iPad lacks. There is no camera. At all. So no iChat or video conferencing with this device, which is going to be a huge disappointment for a lot of people. The other thing is multitasking. Unfortunately I think this might be a deal breaker for me. For the iPad to truly be in the middle...in between the iPhone and a laptop, it really should have the ability to run a couple applications at once. The main reason Apple doesn't do this is because running multiple apps makes it possible for the device to crash from time to time. But, it's more of a hinderance on the educated consumer to not be able to do what we need to do than to have to deal with a crash from time to time. 

Let's get down to business. I know you want to know one thing and only one thing. What are they charging?? There are three base models. The 16GB model is $499, the 32 gig is $599 and the 64GB version is $699. These are WiFi devices only, and if you want 3G capability, add $130 to any of those base prices. We all thought Verizon would be taking claim to the 3G contracts, but as it turns out, there will be no contract with AT&T. It's prepaid and you can cancel at any time. The 250MB plan is $14.99/month. Unlimited access is $29.99/month. This is half the price of any other data plan you can get on any of the networks. We can expect the WiFi models to start shipping in 60 days, and the 3G versions in 90 days. International plans will be coming in June.

The prices are better than we expected, but it's lacking some functionality. Will you be buying one? Leave a comment or tweet me . This episode was brought to you by Angie'sList.com where you can use discount code GEEK to save 25% off your subscription. Angie's List will help you find respected contractors, housekeepers, plumbers and more. I'm Cali Lewis. Thanks for watching!