So there you have it. After several billion years, stars have formed, life has evolved and finally we have a blummin’ iPhone Tablet. Yes, the iPad is here. You can see all the spec for yourself here – and you can win one for free here!

It has a 9.7 inch screen and is half an inch thin – there’s just the one screen size, rather than a range of different sized devices. It’s powered by an 1GHz Apple A4 chip with 16GB to 64GB of flash storage, as well as all the features of the iPhone – compass, accelerometer, Bluetooth, speaker, microphone. It also has a 10 hour battery life – so halve that and knock an hour off.

The basic device has wifi capabilities, although there is another version with wifi capability; the deal struck with AT&T in the US means unlimited use for $29.99 a month (£18.53) with no contract – plus the 3G version is also unlocked. One note on the 3g – the iPad takes a “GSM micro SIM” – which UK operators currently offers them, then? None at all, we think. Apps currently found in the App Store will run on the iPad, although changes to the developer SDK will allow apps to be specifically built for it.

How much? Despite the doomsayers predicting near $1,000, the basic iPad is $499 in the US – that’s £309 in proper money, so expect a £350/£399 price tag. There are six models in total: 16GB / 32GB / 64GB, each available as wifi or 3G – $499 gets you the basic version, it’s $599 for 32GB and $699 for the wifi iPad. If you fancy 3G then 16GB is $629, 32GB is $729 and a 64GB iPad with 3G is $829. There’s also a standalone keyboard available too, and the whole kit and kaboodle ships in March.

Sweet muscular Jesus, it’s true! There’s a new Apple product on the way later today and in our typically ramshackle fashion, without having a clue what Steve Jobs is going to announce, Bitterwallet is going to give it away to you – the avid reader of this mighty organ.

We’ll point you to some very specific terms and conditions below – essentially what we’re saying is, assuming it’s the mythical Apple Tablet that is unveiled shortly, then you can win an Apple Tablet from Bitterwallet! But how?

You need to do any or all of the following – there are three ways to enter, each counting as one entry:

- if you haven’t already, subscribe to our email alerts; you can do this by entering your email address in the top right hand corner of the page where it say ‘Subscribe To Email Alerts!’ and completing the registration process. This counts as one entry.

- using your powers of cognitive thought and imagination, complete the following quote in 12 words or less:

“I would lose my virginity all over again to Bitterwallet if I won an Apple tablet, because…”

Post your completed quote in the comments below; we’re not judging them on grounds of content (and if you win, you don’t have to hand over your virginity), so don’t take too long to compose it. Remember to include a valid email address in the appropriate field when you leave your comment – don’t worry, other readers can’t see it. This counts as one entry.

- If you’re on Twitter, tweet a link to this post (or simply retweet this one) and include the hashtag #bitterwallet. Don’t spam folk with multiple tweets as we’ll only be counting eligible accounts once. This counts as one entry.

You have until 5pm next Wednesday to enter, so off you go and best of luck! And fans of official small print – here you go, you beasts:

* The competition ends on Wednesday 3rd February 2010 at 5pm GMT
* Open to UK residents only
* One person per household may enter
* Only one entry per person for each of the three means of entry will be valid
* You must complete the email address verification to be eligible
* You must include a valid email address if commenting below
* The prize will be dispatched to the winner within fourteen working days of Bitterwallet receiving it from Apple
* Bitterwallet cannot determine nor guarantee delivery time of prize, nor its compatibility or available features in any given country
* the exact model and specification of the prize will be determined at after the closing date
* Bitterwallet’s decision regarding the winner is final and no correspondence will be entered into

We didn’t post anything about the iPhone yesterday. Or that may have been the day before. Anyway, to make up for our obvious lapse, there’ll be at least two Apple related stories today. Yes, you’re very welcome.

If there’s been a recession over the past year, nobody told Steve Jobs. Last night Apple announced their most profitable quarter ever – profits were up 46 per cent in the three months to the end of September, compared to the same period last year. Revenue also increased 25 per cent year on year.

Apple sold over 3 million Macs in the three months, a 17 per cent unit increase. And nobody has tired of the Jesus Phone, despite the letdown surrounding the 3GS release – sales of the iPhone rose 7 per cent to 7.4 million units. Sales of the iPod fell 8 per cent, but sales of the iPod Touch increased 100 per cent, meaning customers must be deserting the likes of the Classic and Shuffle in droves.

“We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010,” said Jobs, though some analysts think they’ll be updates for the MacBook and iMac announced before Christmas. More iPhonesque news later. You love it, you do.

If you thought the last Apple keynote lacked substance, you were right. Not just because of the limited improvements to existing product lines and the failure to launch market-leading hardware, but because it seems not one of the stage presenters had a vocabulary developed beyond that of a seven year-old girl from Kansas:

[YouTube]

You’ve been asking for more Apple-related posts on Bitterwallet and we’re always happy to oblige you, the kind reader. So here’s the motherlode; if you missed this evening’s keynote event which saw the return of liver-rich Steve Jobs, here are the highlights:

- new firmware; OS 3.1 for the iPod Touch with new features, including Genius for apps – Genius will suggest apps based on the apps you own

- 30,000 ringtones from major labels will be available for the iPhone, priced at $1.29 (UK price – probably 99p, we’d guess)

- iTunes 9, which should be available this evening and includes:

• Genius mixes
• improved syncing
• the ability to share songs between authorised computers
• app management (drag, drop and delete apps, move between pages)
• iTunes LP (known previous as Cocktail) – interactive photos, videos,  memorabilia, chronology, liner notes and all that old stuff that the elderly will remember getting with LPs when music was still music and had a tune you could hum, etc
• iTunes Extras, which are DVD-style bonus features for films
• arrows next to the buy buttons which let you gift items, add them to a wishlist or share on Facebook or Twitter

- a 64GB iPod Touch for $399 (£279, perhaps) as well as a 32GB for $299 and a new entry level price for the 8GB Touch at $199 (probably £149 in the UK, we reckon)

- the iPod Classic gets a memory upgrade – 160GB for $249

- the iPod Shuffle is available in new colours at a new price – $59 for 2GB, $79 for 4GB and a stainless steel 4GB special edition for $99

- Apple takes on the Flip, by adding a video camera to the iPod Nano, with one-click send to YouTube; it’ll also have a voice recorder app, a pedometer, external speaker and an FM radio. The 8GB will be $149, the 16GB is $179.

Photos from CrunchGear - thanks to MacFormat for the live blog!

For true Apple fanboys, this’ll be like a Penthouse swimwear calendar. The chart below “documents the ever changing form factor and industrial design of Apple’s products, not every single model number or slight change to a previous model”. Or maybe the person responsible for compiling it was so thoroughly bored with the process by the end, he couldn’t face adding another bleeding iPod Shuffle:

Click on the image to enlarge for a real good look at those beauties, including mice and monitors. Even after a brief glance, three points become immediately clear:

- Apple have had more product lines than you may have previously thought

- it took a loooong time for Apple to get sexy (there’s an obvious change in direction from the lumbering grey office machines after Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997)

- despite all their billions, despite employing the smartest minds on the planet, Apple still haven’t developed a decent mouse. What are the odds that every developer at Apple even has a Mighty Mouse on their desk? The thing is one of the worst pieces of kit available, over-priced and mostly unusable, unless you happen to have severe arthritis. Or be Davros.

[Edwin Tofslie]

You love Apple. You love iPhones. You love iPhone apps. You love them so much you bought the I’m Rich application for $999 and still have realised what a prize twat that makes you. You have hundreds of the little bastards in your phones, to the point you’ve no more screens to display them on. Yet you keep buying iPhone applications, deleting the old ones as you go.

But you’re not the only one. There are thousands of you. Millions of you. So how does all that stupidity look from Apple’s point of view? When 50 million iPhone users are pissing money up the wall on virtual fart machines and animated Chuck Norris kung-fu video games, what do they see?

Unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco on Monday, the television that Steve Jobs has fitted to his bedroom ceiling. The 20 cinema displays display the 20,000 best selling apps – when one is purchased, it oscillates in a highly pleasurable manner. It’s the sight of a metric fuckton of money raining into Apple’s bank account every second:

For videos of this pleasure-pumping technology at work, check out Apple Insider.

[Apple Insider]

Because the world of the uber-serious Apple fanboy isn’t quite fucked up enough, and because if you could you’d give Steve Jobs a cuddle right now:

Hurry though, Plush Jobs is limited to just 500 frighteningly menacing dolls. Order yours now!

[PodBrix]

Steve Jobs. Thief. It’s official, we’ve seen the proof. You may think the iPhone was some fancy gadget dreamed up by Apple, but in fact they merely plundered the history books and cherry-picked the design from one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind. It’s only Leonardo bloody Da Vinci, innit?

Artist Kevin Tong made the discovery, but rather than report Jobs and his light-fingered exploits, he decided to profit from it himself. Outrageous. The limited edition poster is gone, but you can still bag yourself a rather fine t-shirt. And watch for Apple’s iHelicopter at their Summer keynote. Apparently it’s some crazy flying machine that doesn’t have wings. Witchcraft, I tells ya.

[iSteamPhone] via [Likecool]

After months of speculation, Apple has finally acknowledged the elephant in the room. CEO Steve Jobs is suffering from “complex” health issues and is taking a leave of absence until June:

What will this mean for Apple in 2009? It may be a gentle blessing in disguise; timetables for the launch of new product lines (of which the iPhone Nano rumour is one that’s becoming increasingly prevalent) will have been set long in advance; with Jobs and his medical concerns taking a backseat, his teams can focus on accomplishing their milestones. It also allows some fresh blood to circulate through the hierachy, which is not neccessarily a bad thing. They could sneak a cut and paste function into iPhones, for starters.