A multi-touch sporting, e-book reading, App Store loving slice of computing goodness Few companies attract such a storm of hype and anticipation as Apple manages with each product launch. Despite the company itself remaining tight-lipped, the last few months have seen the entire global online community spin unfounded rumour and gossip into a tightly wound ball of conjecture that Apple would, at some point this year, launch a tablet computer. Now, after all that speculation, it’s here: The Apple iPad. Jobs said that there would be no point in creating a device that sits between a smartphone and a laptop unless it handled certain tasks better than both. He says it does. What is it? Essentially a mix between a giant iPhone and a shrunken MacBook, the iPad - announced by Steve Jobs himself at the Apple event in San Francisco this evening - is a 9.7-inch, 0.5-inch thin tablet rocking a full HD (incredibly hi-res) touchscreen interface with multi-touch, a Wi-Fi and 3G connected, a bespoke OS comparable to the iPhone and a penchant for gaming and apps. Inside, there's a super slick 1Ghz Apple A4 processor, but there doesn't appear to be support for multi-tasking with different apps.