Apple unfortunately announced their new, appallingly-named “tablet” computer today. Sadly many geeks out there’s hopes were crushed as they found out that the horribly-named iPad was merely a stretched, disfigured and more costly iPod Touch in a bigger less pocket-friendly shell.

The unfortunately feminine hygiene named product, iPad starts out at $499 (16Gb). The iPad sports a 9.7″ diagonal display with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. If you’re familiar with that terribly low resolution size, you should be as it was first introduced 20 years ago! (XGA)

It doesn’t multi-task, runs the iPhone OS and with a slow-as-molasses 1Ghz Apple processor, the iPad (aka Apple Etch-A-Sketch) is even more underpowered than those stupid first generation netbooks with Atom Processors (like the slug-like Asus Eee PC). *shudder*

There are three sizes of the Apple iPad: the MicroPad, the MiniPad and the MaxiPad.

And here are the unbelievable prices:

Wifi Only…………………/ Wifi + 3G (ack, AT&T is the carrier!)
16Gb MicroPad: $499/$629
32Gb MiniPad: $599/$729
64Gb MaxiPad: $699/$829

There’s no optical or hard drives and though the iPad supports 720p resolution and can output to a TV with special cables, neither the screen nor the cables support 720p resolutions! WTF?! Want a USB port or connect a SD card to it? Get a special dongle! Brilliant! No USB ports, media card slots or keyboard/keypad here either!

And just in case you thought the iPad name itself was a joke (women are apple-d or appalled at this name for obvious reasons) let me show you that this whole disgusting name problem could have been avoided. See, MADTV came up with the iPad name on one of their shows and if you click the video below you’ll see the skit they did FIVE YEARS AGO in all it’s gorey.

Here are some interesting articles flooding the Net about Apple’s (still can’t believe the name or horrid “capabilities") iPad: