When Apple (AAPL) last updated the agreement, in April, the following text was added to section 3.3.2.

No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).?

This text banned cross-compilers like Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash-to-iPhone utility, which would have allowed apps written in Flash to run on the iPhone. But the change also seemed to restrict the use of interpreted languages like Lua, which figure prominently in games like Tap Tap Revenge. Now Apple has tweaked the restriction, adjusting it to permit the use of interpreted code, provided it is used only for minor features and with Apple’s written consent. Here’s the updated text:

Unless otherwise approved by Apple in writing, no interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). Notwithstanding the foregoing, with Apple’s prior written consent, an Application may use embedded interpreted code in a limited way if such use is solely for providing minor features or functionality that are consistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application.??

So, a small change but a significant one. Cross-compilers, Flash and middleware platforms are still forbidden, but–with Apple’s explicit blessing–popular game engines or libraries like Lua and Unity 3D are not.

But don’t tell that to the TweetPhoto team. The San Diego-based photo service, which is indeed built around Twitter, has just raised $2.6 million, led by Canaan Partners, supported by Anthem Venture Partners and Qualcomm (QCOM).

The series A funding certainly seems a bit more fraught than it did about a week ago. Since then, Twitter appears to have decided on a build/buy strategy for some functions it previously allowed third-party developers to handle.

And if you believe that Twitter investor Fred Wilson’s “hole-filling” blog post is a road map, then Twitter is set to run its own photo service sooner than later.

If so, the money TweetPhoto just raised makes it unlikely that Twitter will buy the start-up because it’s now a much more expensive acquisition. And you can say the same thing about YFrog, the Sequoia-backed photo service whose parent company, ImageShack, has raised $11 million.

So if you follow that logic, Twitter will either buy TwitPic, which is the most popular Twitter-centric photo service (and one that hasn’t raised venture funding)–or build its own.

TweetPhoto CEO Sean Callahan says his service will survive whatever Twitter does because it can work well with other social networks, like Foursquare and Facebook. And Deepak Kamra, the Canaan partner leading the investment, says that his team knew Twitter would want to do more of this stuff on its own, and planned accordingly.

“I think there’s a lot of fear uncertainty and doubt for the next 6 months or so. Which also creates opportunity,” Kamra said.

But even if Twitter hadn’t roiled the waters last week, TweetPhoto–and all the other photo uploading services–wouldn’t have smooth sailing. All of the services boast big traffic, but it’s expensive to host all those photos, and it’s hard to sell ads against those pages.

Meanwhile, do you know which photo service you use to push pictures to Twitter? It turns I out I use TweetPhoto, because that’s the default photo service on both TweetDeck and SocialScope, my two primary Twitter platforms. But I had to look it up to find out.

Callahan says he can lure more developers and distribution because his API is more robust than his competitors. And he says his new funding will allow him to experiment with revenue models. One idea: Charge other publishers for the right to use his users’ images as stock photos.

I think that one poses a bunch of problems. For instance, what do you do with the weird images I’ve uploaded?

But Callahan says he now has time to figure it out. “We’re going to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks,” he says. “That was the purpose of doing the series A.”

4.13.2010 — San Diego, CA – TweetPhoto (http://tweetphoto.com), the real-time media sharing platform for the social web, today announced it has secured $2.6 million in a Series A financing led by Canaan Partners, with additional investment from Anthem Venture Partners and angel investors. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate the development of its core offering, a platform of open APIs and mobile SDKs for real-time media sharing across the social web. The round will also allow the company to expand its developer relations program and to introduce new products that further strengthen its position as the preferred way for leading application developers to incorporate real-time media sharing into their applications.

“We are extremely pleased that we have been able to assemble a great syndicate of investors to help us in the next phase of our growth,” said Sean Callahan, CEO of TweetPhoto. “This round of funding will allow us to further attract top engineering and sales talent while we continue to focus on delivering the best platform available to instantly share media anywhere from any device. In the next few months, we will significantly expand our offerings and make it easier for developers to create compelling applications that leverage the social web.”

TweetPhoto allows users to share, discover, and interact with media seamlessly across multiple social networks through its developer platform. TweetPhoto users can link their accounts and publish media instantly to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and other popular social networks, and the TweetPhoto APIs support features such as photo commenting, favoriting and voting, meta-data filters, geo-tagging, location-based search, friend feeds and customizable widgets. These features are exposed through a rich suite of easy-to-implement APIs and software libraries that let application developers easily incorporate these best-in-class media sharing capabilities into their mobile or web applications.

“Consumer demand for intuitive, effective and easy to use media sharing technology continues to increase,” said Deepak Kamra, General Partner at Canaan Partners. “The number of people connecting through social networking sites and the social web is still growing, and sharing rich, personalized content is a key part of the experience. We’re excited to leverage our investment history and experience in the social media industry to help TweetPhoto expand its offerings and achieve a new level of growth.”

“Sean and his team have built a solution that provides a simple and elegant way for developers to create more engaging, connected applications,” said Brian Mesic, General Partner at Anthem Venture Partners. “The company has great traction, and the platform has proven to be scalable and robust through a period of truly impressive growth.”

One year after launching the service, TweetPhoto has attracted a dedicated team of developer-friendly engineers and key sales executives serving nearly 15 million monthly unique visitors from various social networks, 40 million API requests a day and 250 million images each month.

Yesterday Apple released some proposed changes to their SDK license restricting the technologies that developers can use, including Adobe software and others such as Unity and Titanium.

First of all, the ability to package an application for the iPhone or iPad is one feature in one product in Creative Suite. CS5 consists of 15 industry-leading applications, which contain hundreds of new capabilities and a ton of innovation. We intend to still deliver this capability in CS5 and it is up to Apple whether they choose to allow or disallow applications as their rules shift over time.

Secondly, multiscreen is growing beyond Apple’s devices. This year we will see a wide range of excellent smartphones, tablets, smartbooks, televisions and more coming to market and we are continuing to work with partners across this whole range to enable your content and applications to be viewed, interacted with and purchased.

Translation: If Apple won’t work with us, what can we do?

There’s not a lot more Adobe can say at this point, really. The interesting part will come next, when developers start making choices about whether they want to work with Apple (AAPL) or with platforms that support Adobe (ADBE)–or build apps for both ecosystems.

If Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is correct in parsing Apple’s new developer agreement, then Apple (AAPL) is preventing Adobe (ADBE) from using a tool that will port applications created in Flash to Apple’s iPhone and iPad operating systems.

Adobe has been pointing to that workaround as its answer to Apple’s anti-Flash campaign, arguing that developers could create programs that work on most of the Web as well as Apple’s platforms. Now it appears that Steve Jobs and company are forcing developers to choose: Our way or no way.

If true, it’s yet another blow to publisher Condé Nast’s efforts to build tablet magazines with Adobe’s help. Last year, the publisher seemed confident that its effort with Adobe would allow it to create a single digital format that worked on all kinds of iPad-style tablets. But by the end of February, it was rethinking that and began pulling back on plans to work with Adobe.

Caught in the crossfire: Condé’s Wired Magazine, which is supposed to be the first title produced by Adobe that works on the iPad. On the flip side, the other path that Condé has been pursuing–creating less ambitious versions of its titles directly for the iPad, like the GQ app it started selling last weekend–now looks very smart.

I’ve asked Apple and Condé Nast for comment. Here’s Adobe’s response, via spokesman Russell Brady: “Can’t say that much at the moment other than that we are aware of the new SDK language and are looking into it.  We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5.”

“Our sources indicate that a key feature of the forthcoming iPhone 4.0 software will be a full multi-tasking environment where third-party apps will also be able to be run simultaneously and/or in the background along with AAPL’s own apps,” says Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, who notes that such functionality is a necessity now that the iPad has arrived.

“While we believe this is an improvement for all iPhone and iPod touch users,” Wu adds, “we believe this will be particularly important for the iPad, due to its much faster processor and much larger screen where users will more likely want the capability to run multiple applications much like most do with their PCs and Macs.”

The upshot, according to Wu: “We believe this will allow Apple to deliver a fuller and more differentiated experience on the iPad helping drive greater adoption.”

Seems a reasonable prediction. Certainly, multitasking for non-Apple applications has been something iPhone and iPod touch users have wanted for quite some time. With the iPad–Apple’s third iPhone OS device–at market, now may be the time to roll it out.

Beyond this, Wu sees a few other important announcements coming out of the Apple (AAPL) event–one, perhaps, related to more powerful and sophisticated games and another related to a mobile advertising API.

Says Wu: “With its growing focus on mobile devices and the apps platform, we believe Apple will eventually integrate an advertising platform into the iPhone SDK. In Jan-10, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company. With just 4 months to integrate Quattro’s mobile platform into the SDK, there is a chance the service is not completely ready for launch, but we believe it is likely that Apple will announce it at the 4/8 event.”

Looks like Microsoft’s long-rumored “Pink” phone project is about to make the jump from speculation to reality. Gizmodo has managed to get its hands on some marketing materials that appear to confirm Pink’s existence and finger Verizon (VZ) as a launch partner.

Evidently, there are to be two Pink phones–one with a horizontal slider, the other with a vertical one (click on image below to enlarge)–both manufactured by Sharp. Neither, it seems, will run Windows Phone 7, though Gizmodo suggests that whatever the phones do run might share some aesthetic elements with the operating system.

“It’s suggested that the (Pink) platform has apps of some sort,” writes Gizmodo’s John Herrman. “For a phone like this to share apps with Windows Phone 7 is pretty much impossible–the minimum hardware requirement for a Windows Phone look out of reach for this little black lump–so this one’s a big question mark. Is it another SDK? Or closed app development like we’ve seen on the Zune HD? Web apps?”

Interesting questions. Perhaps, Pink is Microsoft’s (MSFT) way of getting into the feature phone business without alienating its Windows Phone 7 hardware partners. According to Gizmodo, we may find out as soon as April when the devices are expected to arrive at market.

[Pink Phone Image credit: Gizmodo]

The mobile analysis firm observed that the number of developers adding the iPhone tracking code to new projects rose from 600 in December to over 1,600 in January (see chart below; click to enlarge). Driving that threefold increase: Enthusiasm generated by Apple’s iPad event.

“Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new device launches, including for the Motorola Droid and iPhone 3GS,” Flurry’s Peter Farago explained.

“As such,” Farago noted, “we hypothesize that excitement generated by Apple’s iPad event in January is driving this growth. For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads.”

A reasonable assumption–with an important caveat: Developers really haven’t had much time to play with the iPad software development kit, yet.

“I think this data has more to do with iPhone application growth after the holiday break than it does developers ramping up for iPad,” Raven Zachary, president of Small Society and an iPhone evangelist, told me.

“We only had access to the iPad SDK for the last five days of January,” Zachary explained. “Generally, developers don’t integrate analytics at the very beginning of a development project. February and March will be far more representative of new iPad development projects. I would expect a bump specific to iPad then.”

That said, Flurry’s metrics are certainly worth noting because they suggest that developer interest in the iPhone platform is far from hitting a plateau. This is particularly true given the prospect of building new iPad-specific applications that take advantage of the device’s increased screen real estate and that speedy little A4 chip it’s running.

[Image credit: Gizmodo/Akis Alekozidis]

It remains to be seen whether Apple (AAPL) has created an entirely new computing category with the iPad. But at the very least, analysts seem to believe the company has created an enduring growth engine.

• Charlie Wolf, Needham & Company
  “Because Apple is defining a new category of devices, sales of the iPad are likely to ramp slowly. But the $500 starting price point is low enough to attract a sizable portion of the early adopter crowd, consisting of iPhone and iPod owners. It’s noteworthy that the iPad’s initial price is below the iPhone’s initial price and not much higher than the price of the first iPod, introduced in 2001. Our best guess at this time is the Apple could sell four million iPads in its initial year on the market, which translates into at least $2 billion of revenue.”
• Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
  “Originally we were estimating sales of 2m units in the first calendar year at a price point of $600-$800. With the actual $499/$629 price point, we believe Apple will sell 3m-4m units in the first 12 months….After using the iPad, we believe it will cannibalize iPod touch sales, but not Mac sales. The gadget is a premium mobile device, not a computer; as such, we see some iPod touch buyers stepping up to the iPad, but consumers looking for an affordable portable computer will likely stick with the MacBook lineup.”
• James McQuivey, Forrester
  “The iPad is a grown up iPod Touch. Apple has taken the safe route of offering its existing customers an option that goes beyond today’s iPod Touch in size and capability, but it has not offered a new category of devices that tackles the 5-6 hours of media we each consume every day. With no integrated social media for sharing photos, recommending books, and sharing home video, the iPad misses a big piece of what makes media so powerful. As it stands, by relying on the App Store as the single most important draw of the device besides its attractiveness, the iPod Touch is a significant step toward making tablets respectable. But making tablets respectable should have been the least of Apple’s ambitions. It had (and still has) the opportunity to create a new media experience in consumers’ lives. As it stands, a quick, well-structured response from Amazon in the next version of Kindle could easily be a contender here. That’s why I say that the iPad is priced lower than expected because it is less revolutionary than expected.”
• Mike Abramsky, RBC
  “Like the first iPod and iPhone, uptake may in time surprise as future versions improve and costs decline. The iPad’s intuitiveness and simplicity at key tasks (browsing, email, media, watching videos, games, reading, working) may appeal to consumers for whom existing PC experiences are intimidating, inadequate, delivering 90%+ of the features of traditional PCs with less complexity than traditional PCs. Uptake however may require in-store demos to truly experience the richness of iPad’s experience.”
• Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan
  “The iPad has been long anticipated so we are not shocked by the lack of stock movement. Given the price point, we suspect initial sales will be strong (this is Apple, and there are many enthusiasts), and then simmer down a bit after a few months. The ultimate success of a new product category will be the unique apps developed for this device, and with the SDK just going out today, it is hard to know how impressive they will be. However, the good news is that aside from maybe modest iPod Touch cannibalization, we doubt that the iPad will cannibalize any revenues from the massive margin pools within the iPhone and Mac product categories.”
• Craig Moffett, Bernstein Research
  “Longer term, the iPad offers the potential to redefine the boundaries between print and video, turning formerly passive media into active ones, and in the process making what are currently low bandwidth applications (say, reading a newspaper) become much more bandwidth intensive (e.g. by embedding video rather than still pictures).”
• Mark Moskowitz, J.P. Morgan
  “iPad is not for everyone, and the first-generation product is sure to have its critics given the prelaunch buzz. In our view, the iPad is a smart, nimble device for heavy content users–Apple’s core customer. iPad is a hybrid of sorts, marrying select benefits of the smartphone and notebook. We expect the market to be small at first, but the gamer and education verticals should construct a meaningful growth ramp longer term.”

Liveblog

9:13 am PT: Quite a scene here this morning; the queue for media credentials is nearly as long as some of the iPhone 3G launch lines I saw a few years back. Moments ago, an Apple PR rep slipped through the doors of the Yerba Buena Center to ask that the press waiting outside take two big steps back. The last time that happened to me, I was at a Jesus Lizard show.

9:54 am: The doors open and the press enters the event hall. Initially, at least, the scene is pretty crazy. “This is like the subway in New York,” an attendee behind me jokes. More like the subway in Tokyo, I think to myself.

A Bob Dylan soundtrack plays as media and guests file in. It’s momentarily interrupted by a “please take your seats, our event is about to begin” announcement.

10:00 am: Interesting stage set-up today: Instead of an empty stage or a simple table, there are a black leather chair and side-table. Lights are dimming….

And Steve Jobs takes the stage to a standing ovation.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product, but first a few updates….A few weeks ago we sold our 250 millionth iPod…I didn’t want to let that moment pass without recognizing it.”

10:05 am: Jobs offers a quick overview of Apple’s retail operations and some of the new stores it has opened recently before moving on to the iTunes App Store. “A few weeks ago we announced that three billion applications had been downloaded from the App Store–that’s in 18 months…amazing.”
He notes, as he did in the company’s earnings release the other day, that Apple is now a $50 billion company.

Apple is a mobile devices company, says Jobs, “the largest mobile devices company in the world now. Larger than Sony’s mobile device business, larger than Samsung’s and, astonishingly, Nokia’s as well.”

10:07 am: A quick historical overview now. Jobs touches on the first PowerBook, introduced in 1991. He moves on to the MacBook and then the iPhone.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones, now. And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle?…We’ve pondered this question as well.”

This “middle” device, says Jobs, must be better at doing certain tasks than either the laptop or smartphone. If there’s going to be a third-device category, it must be better at browsing the Web, video, photos, music, etc.

“Some folks say this device is a netbook…. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

10:10 am: But we have something that is, says Jobs, “and it’s called the iPad.”

Photos of the device appear on the giant screens. Very thin. Very slick. “IPad offers the best Web browsing experience there is–way better than laptops.” There is no camera that I can see. That’s not going to go over well with folks hoping for a device that supports video iChat.

10:13 am: Further details: The “iPad is a dream to type on,” Jobs says, pointing out its life-sized onscreen keyboard. It’s also an awesome way to enjoy media. iTunes, iTunes University and YouTube HD support are built in.

10:14 am: Jobs sits down to demo the device: “Using this thing is remarkable. It’s so much more intimate and capable than the laptop.” He loads Safari and surfs over to the New York Times (NYT). The iPad loads quickly and Jobs is able to easily navigate the page, loading stories and zooming in on articles.

10:15 am: Demonstrating landscape and portrait now. “This device adapts to the way I want to use it.”

Definitely an impressive browsing experience. Fast and elegant.

Now, an overview of Mail. Also elegant. Nice split-screen presentation. Hit compose, and a nice onscreen keyboard pops up. Jobs types out a message to his colleagues at Apple. Seems relatively easy.

10:19 am: Moving on to iPad’s photo capabilities. It supports iPhoto’s Events, Faces and Places features. It also offers built-in slideshows complete with soundtracks and transitions.

Running a slideshow demo, Jobs pauses and looks out at the audience with a Chesire Cat-wide grin. He’s clearly relishing this moment.

10:22 am:: The iTunes experience on iPad is much as you would expect. Similar, if not identical, to what the software currently offers. Calendar and Contacts apps are also nice and, again, similar to what you’d find on a MacBook or iPhone.

10:24 am: Demoing Google Maps now. The iPad supports Google Street View and the implementation is very slick.

10:25 am: Moving on to video. Jobs calls up an HD clip from Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and displays it in both portrait and landscape. That finished, he fires up iTunes and loads “Star Trek” to demo the device’s video features, scrubbing, etc. Then he shows us a clip from Pixar’s “Up.” Tap to go full-screen. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

10:27 am: Watching that is nothing like actually having one in your hands, says Jobs.

• iPad is one-half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and comes with 9.7 inch IPS display–“very high-quality display”
• Full capacitive multitouch
• 16GB-64GB flash storage
• iPad is powered by our Apple’s custom silicon–“We did it inhouse and it just screams,” says Jobs.
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass.
• Battery life: 10 hours.

“And in addition to 10 hours of battery life, iPad offers a full month of standby time,” Jobs notes. “It’s also a good environmental citizen,” he adds, noting that it’s a very green device.

10:31 am: Jobs invites Scott Forestall to the stage to talk about apps on the device.

“We built the iPad to run virtually every app in the App Store right out of the box,” Forestall says.

Evidently, a built-in pixel-doubling feature automatically scales iPhone apps to full-screen iPad apps.

10:35 am: Forestall runs an unmodified racing game from the App Store. He first demos it in the screen size of an iPhone. Then, using the pixel-doubling feature, he blows it out to full screen. Very slick.

“So you can buy the iPad, take it home, hook it up and download all your iPhone apps and run them with no problem at all,” he says.

Forestall announces a new iPhone software development kit specifically geared to the iPad. He notes that iPad-specific applications will be featured “front and center” in the App Store.
He then invites Gameloft’s Mark Hickey to the stage to demo some new games the company has developed using the new SDK.

Hickey notes that the iPad’s additional screen space is a boon for developers, particularly those building games. He demos a first-person shooter that showcases this. “We’re now able to interact with the game world in ways that we weren’t able to before.”

10:40 am: Next up, the New York Times. Martin Nisenholtz takes the stage to talk about its iPad effort.

After talking up the Times iPhone app, Nisenholtz segues to the the paper’s new iPad app: “We think we’ve captured the experience and essence of reading the newspaper.”

The app is largely what you’d expect. Tap to resize text, zoom, breaking news updates, video. “This is everything you love about the paper and everything you love about the Web.”

10:44 am: Now, a painting application called Brushes that was famously used to create a New Yorker cover.
The app is impressive enough on iPhone; it’s even more so on the iPad. It supports “playback” of paintings, and as the presenter notes, brings us one step closer to a real virtual painting studio.

10:46 am: EA’s Travis Boatman take’s the stage. The topic of his presentation: Need For Speed.

“Building for the iPad is a little bit like holding a high-def TV screen a few inches from your face,” he says.

The iPad version of Need for Speed boasts a number of touch-activated enhancements: Tap on the car to view its interior, tap on the rear-view mirror to look behind you.

10:52 am: Up next: MLB.com’s Chad Evans. He demos the outfit’s iPad-optimized app, which uses the device’s additional screen space to display video excerpts and MLB TV.

MLB TV can be streamed like and enhanced with onscreen stats and data. “This big display really allows us to create a much more immersive experience,” Evans says.

10:52 am: Forestall returns to the stage to make another brief plug for the SDK before Jobs takes over for him.
“Let me show you another one of our apps that we’re very excited about,” Jobs says. “An e-book reader.”

Behind him a photo of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle appears. “Amazon did a great job with their reader and we’re standing on their shoulders here….Today we’re announcing the iBooks store,” says Jobs, adding that it will be supported initially by Penguin, Simon & Schuster and a number of other big publishers.

The iBooks Store interface begins with a simple bookshelf view. Tap the screen and it loads a more iTunes-like view. Purchase a book and it’s added to your bookshelf with a slick little animation.

The reading experience seems very appealing. Much more book-like. From where I sit, the pages look like they’re written on paper.

“We use the e-pub format, the most popular open-book format in the world,” says Jobs. “We think iPad is going to be a very popular e-reader not just for bestsellers, but for textbooks as well.”

10:58 am: And here’s another new product announcement: A new version of iWork tweaked for use on the iPad. Jobs invites Phil Schiller on stage to demo it.

“We have a completely new version of Keynote, a completely new version of Pages and a completely new version of Numbers–all optimized for multitouch.

Schiller demos Keynote first. Creating presentations appears intuitive and simple–a slide navigator on the left, tap to load individual slides in the main window, drag to rearrange.

Nice use of multitouch gestures to enhance the app. Pinch to resize photos, tap to insert animations and transitions. These are all fairly advanced techniques and the device seems to handle them well.

11:05 am: Moving on to Pages now. Also impressive, though creating a written document on a tablet device like the iPad seems like it might be a drag. A nice tool for editing, though. Simple controls.

11:07 am: Moving on to Numbers. This application also makes good use of multitouch gestures and boasts a data-entry keyboard along with some 250 built-in functions. The software’s gesture capabilities makes Excel look antediluvian.
Powerful and fast.

So what’s Apple going to charge for iWork? $9.99 each, says Schiller, who notes that all three applications are compatible with their Mac versions.

Jobs returns to the stage, grinning. “Isn’t that great?” he asks for what’s easily the 10th time. iPad, he says, will synch to Mac or PC via USB.

11:14 am: Evidently, there will be two iPad models–one with Wi-Fi-only and one with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 3G device will come with two plans: 250 MB per month for $14.99, unlimited data for $29.99.

And who’s the carrier? AT&T.

A small groan ripples through the audience.

Jobs allows that AT&T is also throwing in free Wi-Fi at its hotspots. He follows that up by noting that there are no contracts for the iPad. You can cancel at anytime.

All iPad 3G models are unlocked and they use new GSM micro SIMS, so chances are they will just work, Jobs says, after noting that Apple hasn’t yet worked out international carrier deals.

11:16 am: Now a quick overview as a wrap-up. Jobs touts the overall tablet experience along with the new iBook app and iBook Store. “This is an amazing product with tremendous breadth. What should we charge for it?…When we set out to develop the iPad we not only had aggressive UI goals, we had aggressive price goals, because we wanted to put this in the hands of as many people as possible….IPad pricing starts not at $999, but $499,” Jobs says to a huge round of applause.

$499 for 16GB base model.
32GB for $599.
64GB for $699.
Adding 3G requires an additional fee.

Apple will ship Wi-Fi models in 60 days and 3G models in 90.

11:20 am: Apple has created new accessories for the iPad: A standard dock and a second dock with a keyboard attached to it. “Keep one of these in your den and you can write the next “War and Peace” on it.” The final accessory, a new case that doubles as a stand.

Running a video now. It features a number of Apple execs enthusiastically talking up the iPad.

11:25 am: Let me circle back here for a moment to pricing. Adding 3G to iPad requires an additional $130. So we’re talking $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB version.

Designer Jon Ives on the iPad: “In many ways iPad defines our vision, our sense of what’s next.”

11:32 am: Jobs returns to the stage and recalls the “middle device” scenario he mentioned earlier today. “Can we create this new category? The bar is set pretty high, but we think we’ve got the goods.”

“This is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” he adds. “The reason the iPad is going to be so great is because Apple has always strived to be at the junction of technology and liberal arts.”

And with that he concludes. Lights go up and Dylan begins playing over the speakers again.

View the slideshow

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple’s Tablet: A $2.8 Billion Business?
• Apple’s Tablet: MacBook Airbus?
• Apple Announces Jan. 27 Special Event: “Come See Our Latest Creation”
• Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27
• Apple Pitching Tablet to Publishing Industry; Spring Launch Expected
• Time (Finally) for the Tablet? Apple Developers Supersizing Their Apps for January Event.
• The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?
• $1.9 Billion in Capex? What’s Apple Planning?
• Apple’s Tablet: Read Different?
• Imaginary Demand for Mythical Apple Tablet Exceeds All Estimates
• Apple Tablet Coming to AT&T?
• New From Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster: The Apple iPad
• Rumored Apple Netbook Actually an E-Book?
• iTablet: Apple’s Killer App for Higher Ed
• iFugly

• Some totally unverified gossip from my fellow scribes here at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas: Expect an AT&T (T) announcement as well. [UPDATE: Make that "sort of verified"--AT&T already indicated it would support the Palm operating system yesterday, as Business Insider's Dan Frommer notes.]
• Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein takes the stage: Our platform is a deliberate bet on the Web, he tells us. It’s at “the heart of everything we do at Palm.”
• Rubinstein notes that there have been 85,000 downloads of the webOS software development kit since launch in July and 20,000 registrations for the new online developer program, adding that these are clear indicators of interest in the Palm platform. [Translation: We're going to start catching up to Apple (AAPL) and its gazillions of apps. Promise.]
• Rubinstein: Pixi is the “perfect choice for consumers looking to purchase their first smartphone.” That’s why we have these supercool back covers available. Check ’em out! And now a video of people talking about our stuff. [In the video, a talking head mentions "the death of the PC." Ominous!]
• Palm announces a new partner: French carrier SFR, co-owned by Vivendi and Vodafone (VOD). Vivendi SVP Jean-Marc Tassetto says his company reaches half of the country’s population, simultaneously taking a dig at Apple and offering praise for Palm: “We started negotiating in Cupertino, we ended up in Sunnyvale.”
• Palm SVP of Product Marketing Katie Mitic updates Palm’s developer program. After six months in closed beta, it is formally opening up. Any developer can submit a webOS app. Why work with Palm, Mitic asks? Her answer includes more coded Apple digs: The company promises a “fast and easy development” cycle and “freedom and choice” in how developers take apps to market. There are now 1,000 apps and Palm expects much faster growth.
• Palm promises a “new approach to app distribution,” i.e., you won’t have to get Palm apps exclusively through Palm’s equivalent of iTunes. You can get them anywhere on the Web or via mobile. Mitic shows off Projectappetite.com as an example.
• Coming this spring: A “Hot Apps” bonus program–$1,000 to developers with the best distribution (both free and paid), measured by downloads.
• Also coming: A new “Plug-in development kit” for webOS.
• We’re shown some new games from the likes of Gameloft and Electronic Arts (ERTS), including Need for Speed and Sims, etc. These are available today in the U.S.
• Here’s Travis Boatman, VP of EA Mobile’s Worldwide Studios. Palm came to us a few months ago, he notes, before offering praise for Palm (duh): “Within a few weeks, we realized how great this SDK is….It’s really easy to use,” etc.
• Some demos: Sims3, Need for Speed Undercover (which does indeed look “gorgeous,” as Boatman says).
• More from Katie Mitic, who introduces Paul Cousineau, product marketing director, who is going to demo something involving Pre’s camera.
• New feature: Video recording. Cousineau demos an editing feature with footage he just took onstage. It can be shared to Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, Facebook, etc., and will be available to all customers in February via software update. “No new hardware required.”
• Cousineau demonstrates integration of various webOS features, moving data/elements from one app to another–sharing a YouTube clip that was just shot, for example.
• Back to Mitic: More on over-the-air software updates. There have been nine updates since June, she says, covering battery performance, email, search, etc., adding that Palm is “bringing the pace of Web development to the mobile environment.” The February update will have a battery performance boost, too.
• Back to Rubinstein, who focuses on two new products. He pulls the first, “Pre Plus,” from his pocket, describing it as a “more elegant, easy-to-use experience.” Button goes away, memory increases. It comes with 16 gigabytes of flash. The second new product,”Pixi Plus,” comes with built-in Wi-Fi. More color choices for back cover.
• Carrier announcements: Both new phones are available exclusively on Verizon Wireless.
• There’s a new 3G “mobile hotspot” app for both new phones that allows users to tether with the “appropriate data plan.” They can connect up to five devices.
• Next: A taped message from Verizon Wireless CMO John Stratton, who is snowed in at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, apparently. Phones will be avail starting Jan. 25, he says.
• How much will the new Palm phones cost? We won’t tell you! Ho ho ho.
• Rubinstein recaps, promising to allow CES visitors to actually hold the new phones this time. (Last year Palm had a “look but don’t touch” policy when it showed off the Pre).

There’s no mention of AT&T, even though the carrier has been talking about Palm options in public. Interesting. Maybe there’s a “one carrier per press event” rule.

UPDATE (sort of): After the event, I asked Rubinstein about the phantom announcement from AT&T. Here’s the entire exchange.

Rubinstein: “We don’t have anything to announce.”

Me: “Really? Because AT&T executives are saying they’ll have two phones running the webOS later this year.”

Rubinstein: “We don’t have anything to announce.”

He was smiling a bit, though. Certainly cheerier than when I asked former Palm CEO Ed Colligan about Pre pricing last year.