At a special event held today in San Francisco, Apple unveiled its new iPad, a mobile tablet device that CEO Steve Jobs describes as "something that’s between a laptop and smartphone.”

The iPad boasts a 9.7-inch IPS display, and is powered by a 1GHz Apple A4 chip. Different models will feature between 16 to 16GB of flash storage.

The device is half an inch in depth, and weighs 1.5 pounds. Jobs claims that the iPad can have up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge.

Featuring an interface very similar to the iPhone's, the iPad includes many of the same features found in Apple's mobile phone and iPod Touch, with several key upgrades. The iPad will include a built-in accelerometer, full capacitive multi-touch functionality, an on-screen keyboard with larger keys, and a music browser that is more consistent with the iTunes interface.

The device additionally includes Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a microphone, and a built-in compass, mirroring the hardware capabilities of the iPhone 3GS. Despite speculation, the iPad does not include a camera.

In terms of gaming, the iPad will be able to play almost every title currently available in the iTunes App Store, either at its original resolution in a small 1:1 window, or at full screen with pixel doubling.

Apple notes that application developers will be able to take advantage of the iPad's bigger screen size with an SDK update, released today. The updated development toolkit includes an iPad simulator program, allowing developers to gauge how their applications will look and perform on Apple's new device.

Judging from the applications showcased at Apple's event, games will control in much the same way as they do on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Gameloft demonstrated a modified version of its first-person shooter N.O.V.A. that offered a familiar dual-analog control scheme, but with added functionality -- players are able to swipe three fingers across the screen to open doors, and can target enemies by drawing boxes around them while firing.

EA showed off an enhanced version of Need for Speed: Shift, featuring improved textures and performance. In the same way that 3GS devices differ from previous non-3GS hardware revisions in technical specifications, it appears as though developers will need to keep in mind the hardware limitations of the iPhone and iPod Touch when designing enhanced versions of existing games for the iPad.

In addition to allowing users to connect with Wi-Fi hotspots for free, AT&T will offer contract-free data plans for the iPad. iPad owners may pay $14.99 a month for up to 250 MB of data transfer, or $29.99 per month for unlimited data.

iPad pricing starts at $499 for a 16GB device without 3G support. Additional non-3G models will retail for $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB). 3G-enabled iPad devices will cost $629 (16GB), $729 (32GB), and $829 (64GB).

Non-3G iPad devices will begin to ship worldwide in 60 days. 3G models will start shipping in 90 days.