Interesting post over at iPadManiac.com:

Remember the web a little over 10 years ago? Some websites that wanted to be especially avant-garde toyed with Flash or large image maps. On those sites, your mouse became more of a discovery device than a point and click device.

Today it is the same with iPad apps: anything can be a user interface element. There are no standards, and it seems Apple is not doing a good job (yet) defining and enforcing guidelines.

Full post: A Beautiful 1999 at iPadManiac, the iPad blog.

Apple announced recently that it has sold more than a million iPad devices.

Naysayers who derided the device as a large iPhone with no phone function have been proven wrong about people not wanting exactly that — a testament to the powerful allure of these devices, which sit in a new category of computing somewhere between the smartphone and the netbook.

“One million iPads in 28 days — that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “Demand continues to exceed supply,” he claimed, “and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.

Apple today announced this year’s important product, the iPad tablet.

This is the most hyped product since the iPhone  – actually more likely since the Segway.

Now we can tell that the iPad actually lives up to the hype.

Here are the specs:

Technical Specifications

Size and weight

Height:

9.56 inches (242.8 mm)

Width:

7.47 inches (189.7 mm)

Depth:

0.5 inch (13.4 mm)

Weight:

1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) Wi-Fi model;

1.6 pounds (0.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model

January 27th is the day that Apple will share its “latest creation”.  The event starts at 9am PST (17.00 GMT).

Hold your breath!

Meanwhile,  the CEO of publishing house McGraw Hill commented on the Apple Tablet:

“[The] Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

And blogger Jason Calacanis went completely loco on Twitter, saying:

“Apple Tablet has thumbpads on each side for mouse guestures, reads fingerprint for security. Up to 5 profiles by finerprint for family.”

“Yes, apple tablet is oled + back has solar pad for recharging, but it really doesn’t work quickly. More a gimmic. Verizon+att,wifi yes!”

Today we shall see. We just hope that Apple is not going to announce a multi color iPhone.

In additional news, the iSlate supposedly will bring world peace, cure cancer, and have copy & paste from the go.

Flurry, a mobile app analytics company, has noticed approximately 50 devices in the Cupertino that match the characteristics of Apple’s tablet device. Flurry claims to have reliably placed these devices on Apple’s Cupertino campus, and are confident that they are “observing a group of pre-release tablets in testing.”

They’ve noticed that a large number of the apps downloaded were Games (140 total downloads or launches) and the next group was Entertainment, followed by News and Books. Flurry also noticed that the Apple device was running on OS 3.2, which has not been announced. This confirms suspicions that the Apple Tablet will be accompanied by an announcement of a new iPhone OS.

According to MacRumors, Apple has filed a trademark for the word iPad in the Canadian trademark database under the categories of handheld mobile digital electronic devices. The blog points out that while the original iSlate trademarks dates back to 2006-2007, iPad was filed in July 2009.

Very similar trademarks were also filed in Europe and Hong Kong in July. Furthermore, iPad trademark applications have showed up in New Zealand and Australia this month.

Despite iPad currently being trademarked by Fujitsu in the U.S., MacRumors believes that Apple iPad will be the name of Apple’s new tablet.

Not just that we run we run this blog as “iSlate blog” – we think iPad sounds as sexy as dishwasher pads!

Apple’s January 27 event has just been announced to tech journos all over the world with a new invite reading “Come see our latest creation” hitting inboxes left and right. The event will happen on January 27 at 10am PST.

Apple iSlate Invite?

This is it!

OK, your guess is as good as ours. What’s will the Apple Tablet be called?

Geek.com speculates about the multitouch abilities of the iSlate.

“[The] iSlate will sport cool FingerWorks’ stuff not found on the iPhone, including a somewhat complex new vocabulary of finger gestures that will enable “unique multitouch experiences,” like launching apps by putting three fingers down and performing rotate gesture. The tablet will also run a multitouch-optimized iWork version, a source said, meaning the iSlate could be a portable content creation device rather than a dumb media player with a flashy interface.

Apple acquired Fireworks in 2005, and most of the current Multitouch implementation is based on their technology. Fingerworks’ founders John Elias and Wayne Westerman became Apple engineers tasked with researching and perfecting multitouch technology and have been listed as inventors on many of Apple’s touch patents.

Firework’s products originally took Multitouch much further, with more complex gestures. In an interview, a Fireworks product manager said back in 2004:

“Our TouchStream gesture keyboards pack a lot of power. People are amazed by all the things a hand gesture user interface provides. We have a large number of easy- to-use gestures that cover just about every common computer operation. Users don’t have to reach for hot-keys because gestures are faster and easier to do. Reaches for the touchpad are also eliminated because the pointing function always stays with the fingers. “

This certainly would indicate that the iSlate is more of a portable content creation device than a passive reader.