Apple introduced its iPad tablet computer yesterday, so I guess I have to write about it. Of course, a huge amount was written before the introduction, most of it wrong if not downright ridiculous. A notable exception was Tuesday’s Display Daily, written with good sense and appropriate skepticism by my colleague Steve Sechrist.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor

What we can say post-introduction is that the iPad will be an interesting test of the proposition that tablet PCs are not appealing as consumer products. The new device is a perfectly reasonable hardware package, but it is a tablet PC whose existence seems to have been motivated more by Apple’s desire to broaden the range of media it sells through iTunes, the App Store, and the new iBook Store than by any crying need in the marketplace.

Having said that, let’s turn to the display. (This is, after all, Display Daily.) Despite some overwrought speculation that the iPad would incorporate either an AMOLED or a Pixel Qi display, the reality is more prosaic, and far more sensible given the state of technical development and/or manufacturing scale of the alternatives. (Analyst estimates of first-year sales range from 1 to 5 million.)

The actual iPad display is a 9.7-inch,1024×768, TFT-LCD with multi-touch and LED backlighting. Apple is making quite a bit of the fact that the LCD uses in-plane-switching (IPS) technology and therefore has a wide viewing angle. The more common alternative for this general type of application would a TN display.

Most reports from people who actually saw the display are favorable, although one critic complained that in a side-by-side comparison the display was not as bright as the one in his iPhone. It’s not clear that the iPad needs to be as bright as an iPhone, and Apple certainly has to balance luminance against battery life. The company is claiming 10 hours, but previous estimates of battery life from Apple have been on the optimistic side, and short battery life is one of the ongoing criticisms made of the iPhone. We’ll see.

It’s highly unlikely the iPad display will be sunlight-readable. That, combined with the device’s 1½ pound (0.68Kg) weight - a Sony PRS-600 eBook reader at 10.1 ounces (0.29Kg) weighs less than half as much- may deter heavy EBR users from regarding the iPad as an ideal reading device.

When your hear "IPS," you may be inclined to think "LG Display," and that seems right. Analysts at UBS believe the display will be sourced from LGD, with AUO as a possible second source, Gabriel Madway reported for Reuters yesterday. Touchscreens will come from Wintek and TPK Solutions, said Madway, and fabrication will probably be done by Foxconn, which makes the iPhone - and, seemingly, everything else in the world except the Boeing 787.

For the sake of our friends at LG Display and Wintek, let’s pass on our best wishes for the iPad’s success - even if it doesn’t have an AMOLED display, built-in camera, or built-in pico-projector, and uses beleaguered AT&T as its 3G supplier. If you want to avoid AT&T, you can get the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad for $130 less than the Wi-Fi and 3G version. For the complete specs on this system, direct from Apple, click here.