The Apple iPad was unveiled on January 27th with much multimedia fanfare.  The specifications of this product are now available and the basic reviews are arriving.

The innovation is remarkable and predictably the iPad has been named as a big iPhone.  The screen consists of a broad 9.7″ LCD video display with various volume and sleep buttons on the sides.  The iPad is really thin at just half an inch deep – similar to the iPhone itself.

The iPad works very similar to the iPhone.  You slide to unlock the unit and the homescreen holds the usual Apple icons – Mail, Safari, iTunes, iPod and Youtube among many others.

The iPad will be able to operate all the existing iPhone apps in addition to the many another iPad particular applications that will surely to inundate the market place.  You will be able to run all the iPhone apps on it in either full screen or at the resolution you would usually use for the iPhone.

The iPad represents the most advanced in Multi-Touch engineering but using a display much larger than touch screen lovers have ever used before.  Further, the iPad is far slimmer and less heavy than any laptop.  This is Apple’s attempt to participate in and capture the e-reader marketplace and on initial impression the iPad may well put up a big challenge to the market authority of Amazon’s Kindle, in particular for the casual reader of magazines and more glossy texts.  It remains uncertain if the lighter and more portable Kindle will continue to dominate the market place for small paperback book readers.  Many have heralded the iPad as the gizmo that will combine all variants of media and it is true that all the important media players are anxious to sit at the iPad party.

Simultaneous with the launch of the iPad, Apple unveiled a few official iPad accessories.  Clearly it won’t take very long before accessory manufacturers like Griffin and Belkin start to release their variants of keyboards, docks and cases.