iPad pre-order fever is currently gripping the US and we’ve told you how to get a UK iPad early. Now we’ve discovered that delving into the newly available iPad support page reveals some hitherto unannounced iPad features like more information on its Kindle battling iBook reading skills and a data limit warning. Read on for the results of our iPad fine print scouring…
iPad 3G models aren’t appearing in the US until late-April but Apple has slung up its iPad 3G support page to feed folk hungry to pre-order their iPad with important info. It seems iPad 3G owners who opt for the limited 250MB data plan will get a data limit warning prior to going over it.
When your iPad 3G nears the 250MB limit, you’ll get an onscreen warning. The warning will pop up when your iPad 3G has 20%, 10% and no data remaining, warning just like it does when the battery runs down. The iPad data alerts will give you the option of topping up your data allowance too.
The iPad 3G will also let you sign up or cancel your data plan via a dedicated iPad data plan window, which will let you switch from the limited to the unlimited plan or add another 250MB chunk of data. There’s also a reference to an international data plan which Apple has yet to reveal any details about.
iPad carriers for the UK haven’t been announced yet and we’re also still waiting to find out whether AT&T’s data plan will be converted into a similar package by one of the UK networks. We still don’t know the UK iPad price either, although Play.com may have leaked it.
The iBooks app won’t come pre-installed on the iPad even in the US but instead be offered as a download from the iTunes App Store. Apple already told us poor UK folk that iBooks won’t be available here at launch.
Apple has revealed that the iPad VoiceOver text-to-speech function will integrate with the iBooks app though. That raises the prospect of problems with publishers however, as Amazon was forced to allow them to disable that feature in its Kindle ebook reader last year.
Has Apple done a deal to avoid this, and will the Amazon Kindle iPad app also be able to make use of the VoiceOver function? Somehow, we suspect not.
Another neat feature that will help when using the iPad for reading is the addition of a physical screen rotation lock switch. Positioned on the side of the iPad with the volume rocker, it will stop the screen from automatically rotating and make it much easier to read the iPad while lying down.
Eagled-eyed readers: if you spot something interesting or surprising in the iPad specs and features pages on the Apple Store, let us know.
Out late-April | £TBC | Apple
