Inside the iPad - The Apple A4 & TFT LCD (Updated - News Flash - inSL Coming Soon)

image from:http://www.ifixit.com/blog/?p=2258

With the iPad, Apple I believe has succeeded in cementing it's lead in the consumer electronics business taking a commanding lead in the computer 4.0 era (or whatever you want to call this new stage in computing). The 1.0 era was Big Iron w IBM, DEC & Sun the big guns. Computer 2.0 was the PC with Intel, & Microsoft the winners. The Internet era saw Google, Amazon & Cisco come out on top. Now it appears to be Apple's turn. Apple has not reinvented itself, but unlike Xerox and Kodak who failed to capitalize on their R&D, Apple has leapfrogged the competition again following up the iPhone.

I noticed Jobs "filling in the product line gap between the phone and the PC", but also immediately wondered about the missing 4th form factor, the TV. Will the large screen HDTV be next for Apple? Dominating in3 out of 4 of the form factors would put Microsoft, Intel & Google & Amazon back in their respective places.

I just hope they will soon put AT&T in its place as well, but that is another story.

What is inside the iPad?

• Chip: Apple A4 (Jobs said the A4 system-on-chip includes processor, graphics, I/O, and memory controller in one package.)

• Display: TFT LCD

• OS: iPhone OS

• Browser: Safari

The Competition: Intel, Microsoft, Google & Amazon

• Chips: Intel's Moorestown technology is coming soon, Nvidia Tigra, Freescale and others

• Displays: E Ink, TFT LCD, ?

• OSs: Chrome?? Moblin, Symbian OS, iPhone OS, RIM's BlackBerry, Windows Mobile , Linux, Palm WebOS, Android and Maemo.

• Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Blackberry, etc etc

Now Imagine it's April 1, 2010!

Imagine Linden Lab has been secretly working on a Second Life 2.0 port to the iPhone OS and with AT&T to solve both their lag problems. The iPad ships and LL goes live with inSL, a free app on the Apple app store, Just $6.95/m from AT&T, house, stipend & avatar included.

A sneak peek at inSL

Seriously I doubt it will or can happen but the timing would be perfect even without a cam.
(Can anyone say Coming Soon! inSL 2.0)