Apple unveils new tablet computer, the iPad after iPhone

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has unveiled the iPad, a tablet-style computer that resembles the iPhone,but larger.

"It's so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone," Jobs said on Wednesday at the device's highly anticipated debut in San Francisco.

Jobs demonstrated how the iPad is used for surfing the web with Apple's Safari browser. He typed an e-mail using an on-screen keyboard and flipped through photo albums by flicking his finger across the screen.

The CEO says the iPad will also be better for reading books, playing games and watching video than either a laptop or a smart phone.

Dressed in his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck, Jobs demonstrated some of the features of the iPad, which he said include browsing the Internet, playing games, listening to music and watching high-definition video.

"We've got movies, videos, TV shows," Jobs said.

Jobs also showed off the virtual keyboard on the machine and said the iTunes music store is built into the iPad.

The iPad is half an inch thick (1.3-cm) and weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7 kilograms), he said, and will come with 16- 32- or 64-gigabytes of flash memory.

"We have been able to achieve 10 hours of battery life," he said. "I can take a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way on one charge."

No price or information on availability was immediately announced.

Now Apple will have to convince consumers, many of whom already have Internet-connected phones, computers and TVs, that that's the case. Tablet computers have existed for a decade, with little success.

Shares in Apple fell $4.65, or 2.3 percent, to $201.29 in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company's shares have more than doubled over the past year, partly on anticipation of the tablet computer.