By Brenna Phillips

Daily Titan Staff Writer

Just when you think they can’t possibly come up with another expensive, high-tech gadget you don’t really need (but find yourself becoming slowly dependent on), Steve Jobs does it again. Come March, in addition to your iPod, cell phone, laptop and GPS navigator, you may find yourself toting around the iPad.

Last month, Jobs happily announced the newest addition to the Apple family, describing the iPad as a conglomerate between “a smart phone and a laptop.” With a 9.7-inch display screen and 1.5 pounds in weight, many are wondering if the iPad is just a glorified iPod Touch.

Just like the iPod Touch and iPhone, the iPad is capable of viewing e-mail and photos, streaming YouTube videos and accessing iTunes. However, there are some features that are specific to the iPad, including a more accurate multi-touch screen, up to 10 hours of battery life, access to over 140,000 apps, and the ability to plug it into an external keyboard and camera connection kit.

“The most interesting thing on the industrial side is who made the chip,” said Michael Shafae, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science. “On the iPad, they used a chip of their own design. Apple hasn’t done their own chip design since they got rid of the PowerPC.”

According to Apple’s Web site, the processor contains a 1 GHz Apple A4 custom-designed chip. The 3G version of the iPad will also make it capable of connecting to the Internet even if there aren’t any Wi-Fi signals nearby. In layman’s terms, the iPad should be “really fast.”

“Last year Apple purchased a startup whose expertise was in making chips that can process a lot of data using little power,” said Shafae. “It’s rumored that they used a Samsung core and modifications were done by Apple’s engineers.”

Jobs has also tried his hand at the ebook phenomena with the introduction of the free iBook app, which will allow the user to purchase and read novels from the iBookstore. However, don’t throw out your Kindle or e-reader just yet; the iPad’s high-resolution LCD screen may not be entirely conducive to reading small text.

“You have to draw a bright white line between the display technology of the iPad and the Kindle,” said Shafae. “The Kindle uses e-ink, which is a completely different technology that is very similar to paper and reflects the light around you. The LCD screen gets a glare when you take it in the sunlight.”

Further speculation throughout the technology community has everyone wondering if the will be the “the magical and revolutionary device” that Jobs has promised.

One of the main issues users are going to have with the iPad: it does not have a picture or video camera, like the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple is hoping that the Camera Connection Kit accessory, which imports photos from a camera, will help that flaw go unnoticed. But it will cost you extra.

The iPad starts at $499, with the Wi-Fi model coming to stores in March and the 3G model in April.

Of course, nobody can really know what to expect from the iPad until it actually hits the shelves. Here are some words of advice before you jump online and pre-order an iPad at the Apple store: “Wait until there has been three versions of it,” said Shafae. “There are always problems at first and eventually they will get cheaper.”