Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs surprised a crowd of fans by taking the stage Wednesday to unveil the next version of his company’s iPad tablet.

Introducing the iPad 2
Mr. Jobs’s surprise appearance was greeted by a standing ovation by the crowd in San Francisco. The executive, who took a medical leave earlier this year, joked with the audience, saying he “didn’t want to miss today.”

Mr. Jobs, a cancer survivor and transplant recipient, appeared energetic though thin as he took the stage at the invitation-only event.

The Cupertino, Calif., consumer electronics maker unveiled a second-generation iPad. Mr. Jobs said the iPad 2, which has a dual-core microprocessor and two video cameras, is thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

The new version will start at $499, which is the same price as the original model. It will be available in black and white colors and offered by both AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless. Mr. Jobs said it will begin shipping on March 11 in the U.S. and in more than two dozen other countries on March 25.

Apple’s new iPad is hitting the market at a time when a slew of other manufacturers have announced plans to launch similar products this year. As competition intensifies in the growing tablet space, analysts and companies are also concerned about a looming price war.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at an Apple event March 2.
Mr. Jobs rattled off a list of statistics about the growth of the iPad. The device, which debuted last year on April 3, generated $9.5 billion in revenue in 2010, he said. More than 2,500 publishers have joined the iBookstore that was created for the iPad and the company has paid $2 billion to developers of programs sold at its App Store.

By the end of 2010 there were already 30 different tablets for sale, according to research company PRTM. The company now counts 102 tablets from 64 different makers that are either available now or in development.

The category “is completely overbuilt,” said Brian Gladden, Dell Inc.’s chief financial officer, in a recent interview.

Some of the most high-profile tablet contenders so far haven’t chosen to undercut the iPad’s price. Motorola Mobility Inc.’s new Xoom tablet, based on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, costs $799 without a cellular service plan compared with $729 for an equivalent iPad.

Apple is widely expected to unveil its next-generation iPad March 2, but it’s worth watching how the device will accelerate the Verizon Wireless vs. AT&T battle.

That’s the takeaway from Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Larsen. Larsen notes that the Verizon iPhone features Qualcomm’s latest Gobi chipset, which can handle both GSM and CDMA networks. If that formula is followed with the iPad 2 consumers will be able to pick their carrier at the point-of-purchase.

The new Verizon iPhone contains Qualcomm’s latest Gobi chipset, which could be configured to provide service to both GSM and CDMA networks. This would make it easy, in our opinion, for Apple to manufacture, distribute and sell one iPad that can be sold to AT&T and Verizon customers. This could, however, open up a whole new era of competition between the two largest US carriers. Imagine that a customer goes into an Apple store and buys an iPad with 3G connectivity. At the point of sale, they make no decision about which carrier to use, and will only do so when they log into the device and either select Verizon or AT&T. The carriers could be forced to compete on price, in addition to airing “my 3G network is better than yours” commercials.

The wild card here is Verizon’s 4G Long-Term Evolution network. Larsen speculates that there is a slim chance that the iPad will include an LTE chipset.

Indeed, a Verizon LTE iPad “could trump all in the near term,” said Larsen. The analyst isn’t putting a high probability to an LTE iPad, but such a device would stop Motorola’s Xoom before it even got rolling.

After much waiting, Apple Inc. is expected to unveil a new version of its iPad tablet device on Wednesday.

Last week, Apple emailed invitations to the media for a special event on Wednesday in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The company didn’t say what the topic of the event would be, but hinted at it with a graphic of its calendar app peeled back to reveal the corner of a device that looked like an iPad.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

When Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad a year ago in January as a “magical and revolutionary device,” some Apple watchers were skeptical of the company’s ability to sell a device that was meant to fit into a brand new market in between a smartphone and a laptop.

The Cupertino, Calif., company subsequently proved doubters wrong. Apple sold 14.8 million iPads as of the end of 2010, racking up $4.6 billion in sales, or about 17% of its overall revenue, as consumers snapped up the tablets to read emails, surf the Internet, play games and even make work presentations.

.This year, Apple’s challenge will be to keep up that momentum. Now that the company has established the tablet market, more rivals are racing to come up with devices of their own.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. is expected to ship its PlayBook tablet in March or April at a similar price range as the iPad, which starts at $499. The PlayBook’s biggest point of differentiation: it will have tighter security and integration with corporations’ back-software.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., meanwhile, just launched Xoom, a tablet that will support 4G, the next generation high-speed wireless network, through Verizon Wireless for $599 with a two-year contract. Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp. are all also preparing tablets.

Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said Apple is more than up to the challenge this year. “Apple has a strong first-mover advantage,” she said, adding that consumers will be comparing a second-generation iPad and more than 60,000 iPad apps with first-generation devices by other competitors.

She predicts that Apple will keep at least an 80% market share in the U.S. in 2011, down from nearly 100% last year. Overall, Forrester expects U.S. tablet sales to more than double to 24.1 million from 10.3 million in 2010.

People familiar with the situation had previously told The Wall Street Journal that the next version of the iPad will be thinner, lighter and more powerful than the original. It will also have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, these people said.

As with many of its product events, Apple will also likely introduce new ways to use the iPad. The event will also be closely watched to see if ailing Mr. Jobs, who last month announced he was taking a medical leave from Apple, will appear.

The Week Ahead looks at coming corporate events.

Verizon representative Carlos Fonte cleans the screens of the Apple iPads displayed at a Verizon store in Coral Gables, Florida.

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — Daniel Mead, chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, talks about the company’s plans to start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone early next month, ending rival AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the device in the U.S. and more than doubling the potential customer base for the touch-screen smartphone. Mead speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — Ted Moore, a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, and Bill Whyman, head of technology research at ISI Group, discuss the outlook for AT&T Inc. following Verizon Wireless’s agreement to sell Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Moore says three million of AT&T’s iPhone subscribers may move to Verizon in the first year. The iPhone will be available on Verizon’s network on Feb. 10 with preorders for existing customers starting online Feb. 3, the company said in a statement today. They speak with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Verizon Wireless will sell a version of Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer that can connect directly to its network, posing another challenge to AT&T Inc. as the carrier’s exclusive hold on the iPhone draws to a close.

Verizon will get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network, Francis Shammo, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc., the parent of the wireless unit, said today in an interview in New York. IPad users currently need an extra device to connect to Verizon’s network. Shammo declined to say when the change may happen.

Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, began selling the iPad in its stores in a package with its credit card-sized Wi-Fi device in October for $629.99 to $829.99. Apple, which introduced the iPad in April, offers versions of the tablet that connect directly to AT&T’s network.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, sold about 7.5 million iPads through September and, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., may sell more than 37 million of the devices this year.

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, said today it will begin selling the iPhone on its network to all customers on Feb. 10. AT&T, based in Dallas, had been the exclusive carrier of the smartphone since 2007.

Verizon Communications, which co-owns the wireless unit with Vodafone Group Plc, fell 56 cents to $35.36 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. AT&T declined 43 cents to $27.91. Verizon has lost 1.2 percent this year and AT&T has declined 5 percent.

FoxNews has obtained exclusive images of Palm’s forthcoming competitor to the iPad, called the PalmPad, which will debut at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.

The Apple iPad has a solid lead in the tablet space. But Steve Jobs had better watch out: the competition is coming.

This year at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, pundits predict that manufacturers will unveil a host of tablet-style devices to compete with Apple’s funky iPad. But the product that could prove to be the strongest competitor isn’t from Blackberry-maker RIM, nor a gizmo from the Windows and Intel crowd.

It’s from the dark-horse rival, Palm — and its owner HP.

FoxNews.com has obtained spec sheets for HP’s forthcoming PalmPad tablet this week from a trusted source. And I’m super excited to see these things debut at the 2011 CES IRL (that’s in real life). Here are some of the basic highlights.

HP will introduce three models of the PalmPad at CES, with minor hardware differences distinguishing them. All three will run a new iteration of the WebOS operating system, version 2.5.1; they’re collectively a spin-off of the never-released HP Slate. A fourth version won’t be shown off at CES, I’m told, but it will be custom made for university students to prove how versatile the machines can be.

The consumer version of the PalmPad will run on Sprint’s fast 4G network, but otherwise it has hardware specs nearly identical to Apple’s iPad. There are minor differences, of course: It has a mini HDMI port, for example, while the iPad requires a special dongle for video output. And there are front- and rear-facing cameras (1.3 megapixel and 3 megapixel, respectively), both with LED flashes.

The PalmPad is slightly thinner than the iPad with rounded edges closer to the Amazon Kindle. At 1.25 lbs, the PalmPad also sports a USB 3.0 port and a “multi-switch” just like the one on the Palm Pre.

The university version sports an 8.9-inch screen and will have access to a university’s internal educational software; it’ll also sport any other specs specifically requested by the institution. Students will start using these in the Fall 2011 semester, HP hopes.

The three versions being shown off at CES haven’t been finalized yet, but will probably have a larger screen than the university version, one nearly identical to the 9.7-inch LCD on the iPad.

All of this lines up nicely what we heard from HP’s Todd Bradley during a recent earnings call. Bradley told shareholders, “You’ll see us with a Microsoft product out in the near future and a webOS-based product in early 2011.” Sure enough, the company plans to make the PalmPad available in March 2011.

We know CES will be chock full of tablets, but I’m particularly interested in this one. I’ve always felt that Palm’s WebOS, with its card style layout, lends itself to a tablet experience better than any other mobile operating system. And I say that as an unabashed iPad fan.

It might not be selling iPads in its stores like rivals AT&T and Verizon, but Sprint is benefiting from brisk demand for Apple’s hot new device regardless.Dan Hesse, chief executive of the third-largest carrier in the U.S., told me in an interview that most iPads sold are of the Wi-Fi variety, and as a result the company has seen an uptick in demand for its Overdrive (3G/4G) MiFi wireless-hotspot device, as people use it to connect their iPads to the Internet when on the go.

What about the iPhone? After all, iPad and iPhone seem to go hand in hand. When I joked with Hesse about how (unlike every other U.S. wireless company) his company wasn’t publicly linked to the iPhone, he declined to comment and politely added that Sprint doesn’t comment on its relationship with vendors and the conversations it has with third parties.

Instead of iPhones
For now, the Overland Park (Kan.) wireless carrier is betting on two major smartphone platforms: BlackBerry and Android. HTC Evo and Samsung Epic are two of its Android-powered 3G/4G devices, and Hesse said he has high hopes for a new clamshell BlackBerry Style. So far the availability of these smartphones has helped the company turn the corner, and for the second quarter in a row add new post-paid subscribers and show a nice bump in revenue, although the company registered losses for the most recent quarter.

When I asked Hesse if smartphones were the key to his company’s turnaround, he pointed out that—in order of importance—customer experience (which includes a great network and support), a simple value proposition, and then the devices themselves are going to be the key to Sprint’s future.

“Smartphones [are] part of a bigger value proposition, because you need to have a network that can support that smartphone,” he said. Sprint is offering WiMAX-based service it calls 4G in 55 cities and will launch in new markets, such as San Francisco, relatively soon.

Hesse told me that in the most recent quarter, nearly 60 percent of devices sold (or upgraded) for use on their CDMA network were smartphones, and as of now, 45 percent of Sprint customers (excluding non-Sprint brands) have a smartphone. By the end of 2010, half of Sprint customers will have smartphones, he added, and quipped: “They are very mainstream.”

Apple Inc. will start selling the iPad through Verizon Wireless stores later this month, establishing a relationship between the two companies and expanding distribution of the tablet computer ahead of the holidays.

The move puts an Apple product in Verizon Wireless’s 2,000 stores for the first time. The iPad will also be the first tablet sold by the largest U.S. wireless carrier when it hits the shelves Oct. 28.

Verizon’s MiFi 2000 device
.Apple is tapping Verizon Wireless’s retail presence as it moves aggressively to capitalize on its lead before a wave of tablet computers from competitors like Motorola Inc. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. hits U.S. stores.

Apple— which originally sold the device in the U.S. only through its own stores and website and some Best Buy Co. locations—has struck a string of deals in the past few weeks to expand the iPad’s distribution to Target Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Sam’s Club and all of Best Buy’s stores.

Apple also said Thursday it would start selling the iPad through AT&T Inc.’s 2,200 stores on Oct. 28. Apple has offered a 3G wireless version of the iPad with service provided by AT&T since the tablet’s launch, but AT&T hadn’t been allowed to sell the device.
.Verizon Wireless won’t sell a 3G version of the iPad. Instead, users will have to buy a separate Wi-Fi device to connect to the carrier’s network. The move, however, gets the iPad into the carrier’s hands before the arrival of a competing tablet produced by Samsung–the Galaxy Tab–which runs on software developed by Apple rival Google Inc.

The distribution deals indicate Apple has significantly ramped up its output of iPads. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy L. Huberty estimates that Apple increased production capacity to two million units a month in August, up from one million a month earlier. Ms. Huberty believes Apple would like to ramp up to three million a month this quarter, but says constrained supply for components could makes that a challenge.
.”I’d be surprised if they get north of 9 million a quarter by end of December,” Ms. Huberty said.

The announcement follows renewed expectation that Verizon Wireless may soon carry the iPhone. Apple is making a version of the iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Although Verizon has yet to announce a deal for the iPhone, the iPad agreement marks a major advance in the relationship between the two companies. Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications Inc., which jointly owns Verizon Wireless with Vodafone Group PLC, has continually demurred on the prospect of getting the iPhone despite expressing interest in the device.

“At some point, Apple will get with the program,” Mr. Seidenberg told investors at a conference last month.

.Spokeswomen for Verizon Wireless and Apple declined to comment on the two companies’ relationship. An AT&T representative declined to comment on Verizon selling the iPad.

Verizon Wireless is making sacrifices to carry the iPad. It will offer customers the option of bundling their iPad with its “MiFi” gadget for about $130, less than half the current cost of the device. The MiFi device, about the size of a business card and roughly 0.4 inches thick, connects to cellular networks and creates a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can support up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices.

Verizon Wireless is also cutting the price of its data plans for the iPad, offering users 1 gigabyte of data for $20 a month, compared with current options of $40 for 250 megabytes and $60 for 5 gigabytes. Users can pay more for bigger plans, including a $50 a month plan for 5 gigabytes.

Over the last year, Verizon Wireless has put its muscle behind devices built on Google’s competing Android operating system. Many analysts believe the carrier’s success has put pressure on Apple to cut a deal with Verizon to help blunt the rise of Android.

The iPad deal will give Apple an inside view of Verizon Wireless’s network capabilities for the first time. “Apple will be in the catbird seat to see how the Verizon network performs,” said Richard Doherty, president of the research firm Envisioneering Group.

Mr. Doherty believes companies and families may prefer Verizon Wireless’s hotspot to AT&T’s built-in 3G, because they could cut their data costs by sharing access. “The Verizon data plan has to got get people at AT&T thinking,” he said.

.Verizon Wireless’s iPad/MiFi bundle is priced the same as iPads with AT&T’s 3G service, ranging from $630 to $830 depending on the size of the devuce’s memory. AT&T offers a cellular data plan with a 250 megabyte limit for $15 a month, and a 2 gigabyte cap for $25 a month.

Despite the fact both handset and notebook vendors are aiming to compete in the tablet PC market, the two are adopting different strategies – most notebook brands will compete head-on against the Apple iPad, while handset brands are going for a different route, launching devices with smaller display or targeting different consumer groups to test the water. If consumer acceptance is high, they will then expand the product line to challenge the iPad.

Samsung Electronics has launched its Galaxy Tab, while RIM released its Playbook, both targeting a tablet PC business opportunity. RIM’s first tablet PC – the Playbook features a 7-inch display and QNX operating system. Sources from Taiwan-based handset makers pointed out that despite these makers apparent willingness to compete with the iPad, the display size and the market positioning of their devices show differently, and that these vendors are avoiding head-on competition. Meanwhile, High Tech Computer (HTC), Motorola and Nokia are all gearing up for the launch of their products.

In fact, Samsung and RIM’s tablet PCs have some advantages over the 9.7-inch iPad, including stronger mobility and power-saving. Samsung Galaxy Tab’s phone function is also another selling point that can compete with the iPad, while RIM’s Playbook can hook up with its Blackberry phone for a 3G connection and the device is expected to be more suitable for enterprise users, as opposed to the iPad, which is mainly seeing demand from consumers.

Although handset brands are using the similar components as their own-brand handset for the tablet PCs, including processor and operating system, they have turned to notebook OEMs for production of their tablet PCs. RIM is cooperating with Quanta Computer for its Playbook, while HTC is working with Pegatron Technology and Nokia is cooperating with several major Taiwan-based notebook makers over Meego-based products, the sources noted.

Based on the current order visibility, sources from component makers pointed out that both Samsung and RIM aim to ship 10 million tablet PCs within the product’s life cycle and are set to launch more tablet PCs with different display sizes and functions, but the sources are conservative about shipments. The sources noted that the iPad already dominates the tablet PC market and its App Store is unbeatable, if the vendors want to grab share from Apple, unless they have an expertise over the device’s functions or price, they are unlikely to perform as expected. The sources believe that if vendors can achieve shipments of 3-5 million units for 2011, it would be considered successful.

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc., which sold more than 3 million iPads in the first 80 days after the tablet’s debut, may introduce a new version in the second quarter of 2011, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The new iPad with a 9.7 inch display may be thinner and lighter, with a built-in camera and mini USB drive, according to the Sept. 27 report by analysts including Hong Kong-based Henry King. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, will likely be the supplier, the analysts wrote.

The iPad touchscreen computer has become one of the Cupertino, California-based company’s top-selling products in its first year on the market. The tablet faces competition from similar products by Hewlett-Packard Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and Research In Motion Ltd., which unveiled a 7-inch device yesterday.

Sales of such tablet computers could reach 16 million units this year and 35 million in 2011, according to Goldman Sachs.

The creation of a smaller 7-inch version of the iPad hasn’t been finalized, the analysts said. Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.

Apple fell $1.16 to $291.16 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday. The shares have risen 38 percent this year.

Last quarter, iPads accounted for $2.17 billion, or 12 percent, of Apple’s overall sales, more than the nine-year-old iPod. The iPad went on sale in April.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. could unveil its new tablet computer—as well as the operating system that will power it—as early as next week at a developers’ conference in San Francisco, said people familiar with RIM’s plans.

.The tablet, which some inside RIM are calling the BlackPad, is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, these people said. It will feature a seven-inch touch screen and one or two built-in cameras, they said.

It will have Bluetooth and broadband connections but will only be able to connect to cellular networks through a BlackBerry smartphone, these people said. Since the tablet won’t be sold with a cellular service, it’s not clear which carriers or retailers will sell the device.

.In a significant development, RIM’s tablet will eschew the recently revamped BlackBerry 6 operating system in favor of a completely new platform built by QNX Software Systems, these people said.

RIM bought QNX, a maker of operating systems used in everything from cars to nuclear reactors, earlier this year, in what industry watchers said was a bid to replace software criticized as slow and buggy.

RIM eventually plans to transition its BlackBerry smartphones to the QNX operating system as well, people familiar with RIM’s strategy said.

The RIM tablet is being manufactured by Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan, and will run on chips from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Marvell Technology Group Inc., according to people familiar with the tablet’s manufacturing.

RIM said it doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.

A Quanta spokeswoman said the company is developing tablets for clients but declined to comment on whether RIM is one of them. Executives at Marvell, which already supplies chips for RIM smartphones, said the company has developed a new series for tablets but declined to say whether they are supplying an upcoming tablet for RIM.

The introduction of a tablet and new operating system come at a critical time for RIM, whose BlackBerry phones are facing increasingly tough competition from Apple Inc.’s iPhone as well as handsets that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimated BlackBerry’s share of world-wide smartphone sales fell one percentage point to 18% in the second quarter of this year versus the previous year—even as the share of Android and Apple devices rose.
.A key challenge for RIM has been convincing software developers to create applications for its phones, and the company will spend much of next week’s conference showing the kinds of things that can be done on its new devices—including the recently released Torch.

RIM is readying announcements and demonstrations, including an update on BlackBerry’s mobile advertising platform and an Amazon.com Inc. music application, said people familiar with the plans.

Still, RIM’s tablet will face stiff competition in an increasingly crowded market. The launch of Apple’s iPad in April sparked a rush to build similar devices by a raft of firms from Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. to Taiwan’s Acer Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. and Dell Inc. of the U.S. Many of those competing tablets will run Android, meaning RIM’s new operating system will go head-to-head with Apple and Google offerings in tablets as well.

People who’ve worked with QNX’s operating system say it’s a worthy competitor to Apple’s and Google’s platforms, and could go a long way toward addressing complaints that RIM’s devices are slow, unstable and hard to program for. “It was architected from the ground up never to go down,” says Alec Saunders, chief executive of Ottawa-based software developer Iotum Corp.