11:35 am -- Jobs invites attendees to try out the iPad in an hands-on area. Wraps up. "Thank you so much for coming this morning, and we hope you like the iPad as much as we do." Thats it. Shows over. 

11:31 am -- Jobs back in world domination model. Apple has 125 million credit cards, via iTunes, etc. "We are at scale, and ready for the iPad... the iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelieveable price." Puts it up on the screen and repeats it... 

11:29 am - Steve Jobs is back on stage: "We think we've got the goods." What do you think? Weigh in below. 

11:26 am - market reaction? Apple shares up less than 1%. 

11:25 am - Now showing video with Apple execs touting the device. 

11:21 am - there's a  keyboard dock. okay, it's official the humongous iPod touch/iPad is meant to be a netbook killer. 

11:19 am - $499 for 16 GB model. 599 for 32 GB. 699 for 64 GB. 3G models cost an extra $130.  

11:17 am - Here comes the price. "When we set out to develop the iPad we not only had very ambitious technical goals and user interface goals, but we had a very aggressive price goal, because we want to put this in the hands of lots of people, and just like we were able to meet or exceed our technical goals we have met our cost goals." 

11: am - AT&T is the carrier, includes access to AT&T's WiFi hotspots. No contract, can cancel anytime. 

11:15 - Steve Jobs is back on stage. Every iPad will have WiFi. Some models will have 3G. What will it cost? Two plans. First plan includes up to 250 MB of data per month, $14.99. Unlimited plan: $29.99. 

11:10 am - Finally some pricing information, but not for iPad. iWork apps will cost $9.99 each. Available on the App Store on the iPad. 

11:10 am - A spreadsheet, without a keyboard? This is the Evil Kneivel moment. Can Schiller work these columns without a real keyboard or mouse? Schiller taps a cell and brings up a compact, onscreen data entry keyboard. This might. just. work. Any quants/data geeks out there want to weigh in in the comment section, below?

11:02 am - So Schiller, how are you going to do a productivity suite without a keyboard? Gestures, lots of gestures. Schiller makes them look natural. The acid test: will it feel natural when consumers pick this up and start trying to do presos on their iPad. 

11 am- Apple is putting its productivity suite, iWork, on the iPad. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller demos. So what's the user-interface on this like? 

10:55 am- Shows off reading a book. To flip the page just tap on the right. Can go to the table of contents, pick a chapter, and go there. Can include photos, video. Reader can change the font size and the font. Jobs: "And that is iBooks." 

10:52 am- Demo time over. Steve Jobs back on stage. "Let me show you another app that we're very proud of, that we've developed..." shows picture of the Kindle... "we like what Amazon has  done, we're going to stand on their shoulders and go further... it's called iBooks." Allows readers to buy books. Five publishers: Penguin, HaperCollins, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, Hachette. 

10:50 am - The parade continues. Next up Steve Sprang shows of his app, Brushes. Travis Boatman with Electronic Arts. Shows off "Need For Speed." "It's a little like holding a high definition television just inches from your face..." There goes my eyesight. 

10:45 am - Next up, Martin Nisenholtz and a developer from The New York Times. Yes, you can read the paper. You can save articles to a reading list, resize text, flip through slide shows... video is embedded in relevant stories. 

10:30 10:40am- Forstall invites developers on stage to show what they've been able to do with the iPad. First up, Mark Hickey, with Gameloft. Shows of first-person shooter, "Nova." You can slide two fingers across the screen to throw a grenade, apply fingers to an in game control on the screen... Well, this is interesting. 

10:36 am- Forstall: "all of those iPhone apps that you know and love run on the iPad." However, developers can rewrite their app for the iPad. Announces new iPhone SDK to support the iPad, released today. Includes iPad simulator. 

10:33 am- Apple's Scott Forstall take the stage to talk apps. Can run iPhone Apps as either a really tiny window, or scaled up to full-screen size. Hmmmmm.... 

10:30 am -Now some technical deets. 10 hours of battery life. 9.7-inch display. Weighs 1.5 pounds. 1/2-inch thin. Runs Apple A4 Chip at 1 Ghz (so that's what the PA Semi dudes have been doing since the acquisition.)

10:27 am- YouTube. Shows off video called "web and woofy" featuring a surfing Jack Russell Terrier. Nice. Shows off movies, featuring a clip from "Star Trek" and a sequence from "Up." BTW here's the Youtube clip-->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKK7H6MIEjc.. 

10:25 am-Demo continues... iTunes store. "I can sample songs, buy them.. .and of course in addition to music I've got movies, music, podcats, audio books..." Calendar.. "I can just drag my finger over events and get a little more detail on them." Contacts application.  

10:20 am: Email: Jobs shows off pop up keyboard. Photos: can turn photos from portrait to landscape, flick through photos. 

10:17 am: Jobs is cruising through Time magazine, National Geographic. "I can zip around this web site touching on pictures of animals, what I want to see." 

10:13 am: It's demo time. Jobs take a seat in a leather chair, casually, and gets to it. Starts with The New York Times. "Anywhere i want to go, anything I want ot make bigger I can make bigger. If I want to go into a story I can just touch it..." It's like a humongous iPod touch! 

10:12 am. "It's like holding the Internet in your hand." Shows off Internet, calendar, email, address books, maps application. "And of course we have the iTunes store built right into it." The reality distortion field is kicking in big time now. Commenters, help! 

10:10 am. The reveal "We call it the iPad. I happen to have it right here." Jobs removes a cloth from a top a nearby chair. 

10:10 am- Jobs begins his pitch. It needs to be better at some things than a phone, or a laptop. Browsing, email, photos, ,video, music, games, eBooks. "It's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartbook, or it will have no reason for being." Netbook? "The problem is netbooks aren't ready for anything... .they're slow they have low quality displays... they're not better at laptops than anything, they're just cheaper."

10:07 am- Jobs: "Now let's get to the main event." Shows an image of Moses with a tablet with the quote, from the WSJ "last time there was this much excitment over a tablet, there were some commandments written on it."... 

10:05 am-More on the state of the business. Jobs: "Apple is a mobile devices company... by revenue Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world now... bigger than Sony... Samsung... and by revenue its even bigger than Nokia... Apple is the number one mobile devices company in the world." 

10:02 am-Jobs: "We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and innovative product today, but first a few updates." ... 250 million iPods sold... 50 million visitors to Apple's stores in one quarter.. 

10:01 am- He's here. Steve Jobs takes the stage. Applause. 

9:53 am- Time to grab a seat. And to make absolutely sure my mobile phone doesn't ring. Bless you Blackberry, and your little removeable battery.  

8:50 am - Apple shares down $3.38, or 1.64%, to $202.56 this morning. 

8:48- In other news, Oracle will be discussing its plans for newly acquired Sun Microsystems this morning. Don't think it's going to get much coverage. 

8:40 am - The mob grows. Media. Analysts. Some VIPs. Lots of iPhone developers, such as Social Gaming Network's Shervin Pishevar. Will Steve Jobs show up? Almost certainly. Jobs has reportedly been working on the project since his return from a six month medical leave at the end of June after receiving a liver transplant in Memphis, Tennessee. There are, however, no guarantees. Also: I have Pishevar's mobile phone number. Anyone dare me to call it during the event?  

7:52 am - Black clad Apple security types at every entrance. Too bad I left my grappling hook at home. Caterers have brought out bagels, juice, coffee. 

6:58 am - The media mob assembles. Television trucks line the streets. Apple, meanwhile, has transformed San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with an enormous Apple logo.

5: am- Apple will announce a new tablet computer in San Francisco Wednesday. There, said it. We've got the word of everyone short of Bothan spies on that.  

7.25pm: A quick look at some accessories before we finish. There's a keyboard dock that, strangely, isn't wireless. You sit the iPad on the back of a little keyboard stand and type away. They've made "a really nice case" too.

7.20pm: Predictions that the iPad would be $1,000 have turned out to be way off. Steve says: “I’m thrilled to announce to you that the iPad pricing starts not at $999, but at $499.” Wifi-only versions of the iPad will cost $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB). With 3G they will cost $629, $729 and $829. The wifi models will be shipping worldwide "within 60 days" and 3G versions in the US "within 90 days".

7.15pm: We're getting into pricing now. Each iWork app will costs $9.99, making the full package about the same price as the Mac version. The iPad is 3G enabled too and Apple has partnered with AT&T to deliver some data plans. iPad users can get 250MB of data per month for $14.99 or unlimited date for $29.99. They're working on international carrier deals. Steve Jobs says: “We think it’s a phenomenal offering. So what about internationally? We hope to have our international deals in the June-July timeframe. We think we can do a lot in June, we’ll start on that tomorrow. However all models are unlocked and use GSM micro-SIMS.” Looks like those of us in the UK will have to wait.

7.05pm: Claudine says: "iWork looks great -- Keynote very slick. Makes iPad more than just a plaything."

7.00pm: Steve has handed over to Phil Schiller who's introducing a new version of iWork, Apple's productivity suite. Pages, Numbers and Keynote, Apple's word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software respectively, have been rebuilt for the iPad interface.

6.50pm: More games and a baseball app bringing us to e-books. Steve returns to announce a new app, iBooks, saying: “Amazon’s done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle. We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further.” I think that's called a backhanded compliment.

6.40pm: Now some app developers have come along. Gameloft are showing off a game they made in just two weeks, called Nova, while the New York Times have a newspaper app that they've made. Looks very nice. Still looks like a big iPhone.

6.35pm: Steve has handed over to Scott Forstall, who is demonstrating apps. The iPad can run iPhone apps, which it will either run at iPhone size (not sure why you'd want to do that) or scale up to fit the screen. Claudine adds: "It really is just a big iPhone. Even runs same games/apps and scales to fit screen. It does look great, though. Not sure how they've managed it."

6.30pm: Jobs is giving some stats now: “It’s 0.5-inches thin, weighs just 1.5 pounds. Thinner and lighter than any netbook. 9.7-inch IPS display.” It comes in three hard-drive sizes - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB - and has 10 hours of battery life. It also has a speaker and a microphone - sounding more and more like a giant iPhone.

6.25pm: The iPad also does HD video playback.

6.20pm: After demonstrating email ("If I want to reply to a message, up pops this gorgeous keyboard"), Jobs has shown off picture galleries and is now onto iTunes. Naturally, the device works well with iTunes LP artwork.

6.15pm: Jobs is showing off the device browsing the web. "The best browsing experience you've ever had," he says. I have to admit, from the pictures I can see, it looks like a big iPhone and I haven't seen anything surprising about the interface. Let's see what else Steve has got.

6.10pm: It's called the iPad, Claudine tells us. Steve Jobs is holding one up and it does appear to be the device pictured by Engadget earlier.

6.06pm: This is the overview of Apple's success before we get to the new product. Jobs: “That means Apple is over a 50 billion dollar company — I like to forget that, because that’s not how we think of Apple, but it’s pretty amazing.”

6.03pm: Jobs: "50m visitors to Apple stores in last quarter, 250m iPods sold since 2001."

6.00pm: Steve Jobs takes the stage to a standing ovation, Claudine writes.

5.50pm: According to CNBC, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of Disney, is at the event. Is he there to announce a content deal? Steve Jobs just happens to be Disney's largest single shareholder.

5.45pm: Ryan Block's GDGT blog has a picture of the stage. Dark background with a white Apple logo and onstage is a comfy looking chair and a table. It's an odd setup since Steve Jobs is usually bounding around the stage. Perhaps he's going to deliver this one seated.

5.25pm: Almost there now. Claudine is in the queue outside the Yerba Buena.

5.10pm: Less than an hour to go now. Time for a few brief replies to commenters.
Sye: I think you're right. Calacanis is almost certainly winding everyone up. Why is anyone's guess.
Jack: Point taken about portability. I've heard that Apple sees this as a device for the living room, rather than for on the move. How that would work and where it leaves Apple TV remains to be seen.
Jonny: There was a rumour that we'd hear about the fourth version of the iPhone - or at least the new version of the software - at today's event. However, we've been told that this event is expected to run for just an hour. I can't see how that's long enough to properly cover the tablet and talk about the next version of the iPhone software.
Gary: I've got a Windows 7-powered tablet computer sitting on my desk. It's so bad as to be almost unusable. I'm not sure Apple's tablet will be an enormous hit but I'm pretty sure that it will at least work.

4.50pm: Not long until Steve Jobs pulls back the curtain but if you want a reminder of just how pathological Apple's obsession with secrecy is, read this New York Times article from last year. One great quote: "Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said." (h/t MacRumors)

4.35pm: Gizmodo has photos of what they say could be the back of the tablet. They show an aluminium back with an Apple logo cut out of it. Genuine? We're about 90 minutes away from finding out for sure.

4.05pm: For those too lazy/stupid to click a link, I should point out that the pictures mentioned at 1.50pm and 2.40pm are different. However, ITPro Portal casts doubt on the genuine-looking one (see 1.50pm), pointing out that it appears to show a 4:3 ratio screen, rather than the iPhone's 16:9.

3.55pm: One thing I omitted from my list of key questions (see 12.00pm, below) is the interface for the tablet. Rumour has it that the interface will take everyone by surprise and one source even claims that there's a "learning curve" involved in getting to grips with the tablet. What could it be? The iPhone has taught most people multi-touch, will the tablet teach them to use a 3D interface? On another topic, has Jason Calacanis really had a tablet to play with for the last 10 days or is he just winding up his Twitter followers?

3.25pm: For those, such as Gary, below, who are losing interest in the Apple obsession that's descended upon us, I've written this blogpost: Five reasons why the Apple launch matters.

2.40pm: Pocket Lint has debunked one of the tablet photos doing the rounds yesterday. That picture always looked a little too good to be true but the blog has a Photoshop expert explaining why it's probably fake. Meanwhile, if you're getting fed up with fakes, try some iSlate spoofs and satires.

1.50pm: Pictures leaked to Engadget overnight appear to show the tablet in some kind of case or perhaps bolted to a table. As always, it's impossible to know whether these are clever fakes or genuine leaks. However, something about these pictures rings true. The amount of information that's blacked out, the half-covered tablet and the general graininess of the pictures make these look convincing. We'll know for sure in a little more than four hours.

12.00pm: After months of speculation, the day has finally arrived. Nothing is confirmed officially but we can say with some confidence that, at 6pm this evening (UK time) Steve Jobs will take to the stage and announce the Apple tablet, the device some are calling the "iSlate". It's also a good bet to say that it will have a 10" screen, will look something like a large iPhone and will run e-book apps, games and media. The things that will still don't know are the important ones: how much will it cost? when will it be released? and will it be released in the UK at the same time as the US?

We're just a few hours away from knowing the answers and I'll be live-blogging the Apple event right here. Claudine Beaumont, our technology editor, is in California and she'll be reporting the event as it happens. I'll add reaction from tech blogs, twitter and around the web. Check back through the afternoon to find out exactly what Apple has in store and to get the answers to those last few questions.

7.30pm: Mixed reception via Twitter.

DCapTwit: "sounds like a 'sofa surfer' something for Reading the news over a coffee, something to kill time with at the airport"

benmorse: "Apple have made a horse with wheels. Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD."

maximbarrault: "so the iPad is actually cheaper than an off-contract iPhone and still @bobbiejohnson is being an ass. It's all about the software Bobbie."

Nice! I'm trying to do the sums while listening to Steve Jobs, but is it actually cheaper than an iPhone?

7.26pm: We've been told there should be some time to get our hands on the device after this is finished (which should be in a couple of minutes). I'll be interested to see whether using it, rather than seeing it or hearing about it, makes it more exciting.

In the comments, FabiusMaximus is leading the pro-iPad charge by suggesting that "This is astounding to those who get it. You old people can stick with windows mobile."

7.22pm: My Boom-o-meter remains firmly stuck on zero. But what's your verdict? The overwhelming sentiment is that people still can't understand why they should want one.

They're currently playing a video featuring designer Jonathan Ive explaining how UTTERLY AWESOME it is. Given that he's the head of design for Apple, I'm taking that with a pinch of salt.

7.22pm: Availability?

The WiFi only models will go on sale in 60 days, the 3G models around 90 days because they require approval from carriers.

7.20pm: Now one of the other big questions: price.

He starts by pointing out that lots of pundits have said it would be in the $1000 price range. He's working expectations, so that he can say it comes it lower.

The iPad pricing starts at just $499.

That's for a 16GB, non-3G model.

32GB $599 for and 64GB for $699 - and if you want a 3G model, it will cost an extra $130 - $629, $729, $829.

7.16pm: "What about international? We hope to have our deals in place by June, July. So we're going to start on that tomorrow. However, all the iPad 3G models are unlocked, and they use new GSM micro SIMs, so there's a very high likelihood that they'll just work - and then we'll be back in the summer with some very good deals for our customers internationally."

Meh.

7.15pm: The iWork apps, which look competent enough, cost $9.99 each.

The iPad has WiFi, but "we're also going to have models of iPad with 3G". How much will those plans cost?

Bear in mind that these are American only, but you can get a pre-pay - no contract - deal for 250MB of data per month for $14.99, and an unlimited plan for $29.99, on AT&T (the network that is still America's exclusive iPhone provider). What that will be like in the UK is unclear.

7.10pm: We're an hour in, and I remain to be convinced that this is a revolution that I need to join in. The iPad is basically Apple's entry into the netbook market, using the stuff it's learned from the iPhone.

But I haven't heard yet a really strong reason for why it makes concrete the gap that Steve Jobs talked about earlier. It's a lot of things, but I'm not sure any of them are problems that need to be solved.

The real question is price, and we haven't heard that yet. If it's cheap enough to be competitive with netbooks, then there might be something here.

I enjoyed this comment from ChrisButterworth on Twitter, who invoked Dom Joly when he said "the ipad looks completely pointless, its looks like a dom joly (trigger happy tv) sized iphone. utterly disappointed".

7.05pm: We're adding pictures to our iPad gallery as we get them, so just click there if you want even more imagey goodness.

7.02pm: Scratch my previous comments about productivity apps - they're showing off a version of iWork that is built specifically for the iPad, which uses a new user interface to let you create documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Whether this succeeds or not will really be about using it - I don't think any demo will convince anybody (even if Phil Schiller, who's Apple's warmest presenter is showing us how to use it).

6.59pm: Plenty of questions still flooding in, as he talks through the ebook functions. What's the connectivity? No mention yet of 3G access, just Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (though they may be saving that up for later). No mention of price. No mention of a camera or videoconferencing.

Hopefully these will all be answered in short order.

6.55pm: This one answers a question from Jaynormous on Twitter: it's also being positioned as an ebook reader.

"Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle, and we're going to stand on their shoulders," says Jobs, introducing something called iBooks - no revolutions in naming strategy, it seems - that basically offers you the chance to buy books and read them on your device.

It's not e-ink, but they are trying to go for the reading market that Amazon has tapped - already made deals with Harper Collins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and others.

6.52pm: Forstall's wrapping up now, and Steve Jobs is ready to get back on the stage. They're talking about baseball (snooze) so I'll try and answer a couple of questions from Twitter.

davidwaddington Seeing it in action, who is going to use this? Is it for the casual surfer infront of the TV or existing iMac/iPhoners?

Answer? Not sure. I think it's certainly more of an entertainment/organiser device than a full-powered laptop replacement (note they haven't really talked about productivity applications like word processors etc). It's definitely an easier sell to people who already have bought into the Mac family.

6.49pm: We've heard from the guy behind painting application Brushes, and now Electronic Arts is explaining how you can play games on it. The graphics are reminiscent of the last generation of consoles (PlayStation 2, for example).

"It's a little bit like holding a high definition TV screen inches from your face," he says. Ooh, I'm not sure I'd be up for that.

6.45pm: Just reading through your comments and thoughts - thanks everyone. I'm also following Twitter messages sent to @bobbiejohnson, so ping me if you've got any questions.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs launches the new iPad tablet computer Photograph: KIMBERLY WHITE/REUTERS

6.44pm: Want pictures? Here are pictures!

6.43pm: Martin Nisenholtz from the New York Times is on stage now, talking about an application developed over the last three weeks (!) that he thinks might be the future of news delivery. This will be interesting to see, since a lot of print media types hope that the iPad can really help move the ebook concept on a stage and help them start making money.

The NYT app is a rough facsimile of the paper itself, navigable in ways more familiar from a website. Video can play inline (that means video ads, too - no word yet on whether these are being delivered in Flash or not).

6.38pm: While Forstall gives his talk - which has now moved on to running through some of the early apps developed for the iPad - Jobs has taken his seat down in front of me. He's watching intensely, not a word to Schiller, who is sitting next to him.

6.36pm: When you buy your new iPad, you can synchronise your existing iPhone apps.

"If a developer spends some time modifying their application, they can take advantage of the large touchscreen display," he says. That means programmers will want to produce two version of their apps - but an enhanced version of the development kit (SDK) is being made available today.

"We think it's going to be a whole other gold rush for developers."

6.33pm: Steve Jobs comes off stage and is replaced by Scott Forstall, who runs Apple's iPhone apps division, to talk through the stuff you can put on your iPad. This looks familiar: in fact, you are actually running iPhone apps, but you can scale them up to fit the 9.7 inch screen. That feels a little undercooked to me... isn't all that screen effectively wasted?

Some things - like games - might work better than the cramped environs of the iPhone, however. You're not breaking your fingers and thumbs just to poke at the screen.

6.30pm: And battery life? "We've been able to achieve 10 hours of battery life - I could fly from San Francisco to Tokyo and what video the whole way on one charge." He also says it will last a month on standby.

How well with the battery perform over time, I wonder? As somebody who went and bought a new battery for my Mac yesterday because battery performance had plummeted, I'm interested in the longevity of this little number.

6.29pm: Now the stats:
- 0.5 inches thick
- weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7kilos)
- 9.7 inch multitouch display
- 1GHz Apple A4 chip (built in house)
- between 16GB and 64GB of flash memory

6.27pm: Looks like I lost a couple of updates in there somewhere. Apologies!

6.25pm: There's a constant snapping of cameras around me, as we're talked through the way you can play music, movies and TV shows on the iPad - though interestingly, he hasn't demonstrate any of the video. All of this is extremely familiar to anyone who has used an iPhone, just imagine that you'd need pockets the size of Big Daddy to carry this puppy around with you.

Ah, now comes the video bit - first with YouTube, then with TV shows (he picks Modern Family, produced by ABC, which is owned by Disney, in which he is the major shareholder... that's cross-promotion for you).

6.17pm: Here's the pic: ... oh, it was from Twitpic which seems to have blocked us. Damn.

6.13pm: There are plenty of other apps; photos, calendar, Google maps, music and the iTunes store. You can watch YouTube, TV shows and movies. In sideways orientation, he says, the on-screen keyboard is almost life-size.

"But there's nothing like seeing it," he says, sitting down on the chair to give an idea of what it's like. "It's so much more intimate than a laptop."

6.11pm: OK, he's got one out from behind a chair - it's smaller and more square than most of the mockups, but otherwise pretty much what we expected: a big iPhone.

The web browser, he says, is "way better than a laptop, way better than a smartphone".

6.10pm: I'm cranking up my BOOM-O-METER (TM) to measure the exclamations coming from the stage, but right now he's talking about the things that a tablet has to do really well to .work Browsing, email, phoptos, video, music, ebooks, games.

"The problem is, netbooks aren't better at anything," he quips, drawing a chuckle from the cloud. "They're slow, they're clunky. They're just cheap laptops."

Here it is: the iPad.

6.08pm: He cracks a joke by showing a slide of Moses, avec tablet, on the big screen. Pacing backwards and forwards on stage - and yes, he's wearing a black turtle neck, blue jeans and trainers - he begins a quick history lesson of some of Apple's mobile systems... laptops, smartphones.

"Everybody uses a laptop and/or a smartphone. And the question has arisen, lately, is there room for a device in the middle? We've questioned this for years ourselves, but the bar is pretty high."

6.03pm: Here he is, just in time for my internet connection to start playing up. The audience stands to welcome him into the room. He starts off by teasing what's coming up - "We want to begin 2010 by introducing a revolutionary and magical new product, but first..." - but then delves into some stats to prove that Apple is the "biggest mobile devices company in the world".

5.58pm: The place is buzzing in a way that I haven't seen at an Apple event for some time: they've really managed to catch the imagination of the crowd without even announcing anything. Often these things have the air of a religious event, but this is slightly different in tone - more of a party than a Moonie ceremony. It's astonishing, really, the way everybody groups behind an idea that's basically speculative.

Anyway, the build-up continues. Apple's chief operating officer, Tim Cook - the man widely tipped to take over the company if and when Steve Jobs steps down - is talking to a sequence of high flying Silicon Valley veterans.

Now the Apple executives are starting to take their seats, but there's still no sign of Jobs himself - though there's a place reserved for him just in front of me.

5.48pm: Annnnd, we're in. I've taken up a seat near the front as a way of scanning the audience to see who's here - always a good indication of precisely what might be announced. The usual Apple crowd are in the room - senior executives including Phil Schiller and Greg Joswiak are gladhanding it at the front, but it's hard to see who else is here as the crowd filters in.

Oh, there's Al Gore (he's an Apple board member), but my eye keeps being drawn to an Antipodean TV presenter in an extremely bright Hawaiian shirt who is standing a few seats away from me talking to an unseen camera.

5.31pm: Bobbie writes: So we've seen what you think Apple are about to unveil. But what am I anticipating? Well, I've been loathe to speculate (as I said in the latest episode of Tech Weekly) but with the event in just a few minutes (we're still outside), I suppose I should throw my hat in the ring.

These are just inferences and hunches, but I'm keeping my expectations low: a tablet computer that's well-built and uses an interface very similar to the iPhone's. I think it will be promoted as a way to download and watch movies, read books and magazines and surf the web. I reckon it will cost at least $600 (probably £450 in Britain) and go on sale in a couple of months. Steve Jobs will claim this is a more important step forward for the way we use computers than the Mac or the iPhone - anf if that pans out, it could end up being because of the content deals Apple has forged.

5.15pm: Bobbie writes: Right, I've arrived at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, where today's event is being held. It's a stone's throw from the city's Moscone convention centre - the usual venue for Apple's January launches. But this is the same place that Steve Jobs made his first public appearance in a year back in September, and a more intimate venue that can hold a few hundred industry insiders, analysts and members of the press.

Not that we're being let in right now, of course: the gaggle is waiting outside as the company carefully controls what's happening.

4.41pm: Time's up! OK, those crowdsourcing predictions are in.
The iGadget will, according to the 10,488 people who voted on it
-weigh 0.9-1.1kg;
-be available only in a single model;
-have a screen of up to 10.3" (diagonally)
-include GSM/GPRS/3G connectivity
-only be on AT&T in the US
-be on O2... or all of O2, Orange and Vodafone in the UK
-use OLED technology for the screen
-be black, like a black iPhone or MacBook
-have USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and headphones (others, such as Ethernet, don't get above 10% of votes)
-support Flash playback [I think you're wrong on this, folks]
-introduce a new DRM format for ebooks/newspapers/magazines
-cost £701-£800 in the UK
-be called the iPad, or iSlate [think you're wrong again - my vote is Canvas]

Thanks to everyone who voted. How did it work? We'll see! Not long to go now...

4.20pm: OK, even The Onion - America's finest, and in some senses most accurate - news source has had to bow to the will of tablet frenzy. (Once Doonesbury had gone, it was inevitable.) Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Tablet it reports that

"Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple's new tablet computer. ....Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer."

Reliable enough for me - at least as good as Jason Calacanis. Who is still insisting on his Twitter feed that he really is a beta tester, with all sorts of "new" details - wireless charging, facial recognition, Farmville where you shake the tablet to plant seeds. Oh, Jason. You're either so right, in which case nobody with a secret will ever trust you again, or so lying, in which case nobody hearing you will ever trust you again.

3.58pm: OK, it can't sensibly be called the iPad - that's already been taken and it's on Apple's site. Don't all rush to look. (CA)

3.51pm: Bobbie writes (again): Morning all, or I suppose I should say good afternoon to those reading in the UK. Whatever time zone you're in, the one thing I do know is that it's early here in San Francisco, and I've just had my cornflakes.

If Apple launches are among the most hyped in the world, then this is the zenith of the company's hype curve: years in the making, it has built up an insane head of steam in the last couple of months. Various reports suggest it's going to revolutionise the newspaper and publishing industries, become a major gaming platform and even sport a 3D display. By this point, frankly, even if Steve Jobs gets on stage and announces that the tablet is able to communicate with alien life forms, I'm not sure it will be enough.

3.48pm: ZOMG APPLE HAS A PATENT. Something like that: according to Patently Apple, the fruitily-named company has a new patent on a tablet. Which comes with a helpful illustration that looks like this:

What do we think? Is that a tablet or what?

3.38pm: Our very own Jemima Kiss, presently occupied mothering, adds: "Anticipating that 'magazines & newspapers' tab being added to the iTunes Store..." Score 5: insightful.

3.26pm: Just to reiterate, once Bobbie Johnson gets to the fabulous Yerba Buena centre in San Francisco he'll begin liveblogging all the colour. In the meantime, there's this picture by John Gruber of its exterior yesterday.

3.09pm: Bets! Paddypower is offering you odds on various names. It's almost painful. Here we go: iTablet 1/2; iPad 3/1; iSlate 3/1; iBook 12/1; iPage 33/1; iPaper 33/1; iCan 33/1; tons of other daft ones including EtchaSketch 40/1 or worse.

Now, remember the rule: bookies make money. So what's the chance that any of those is the name? Pretty much close to zero. (Mine isn't there, though it is in our crowdsourcing contest for the iGadget's details - which is still open for another 50 minutes. Pile in!)

2.08pm: Now, the publisher Condé Nast is going to have some ebook/magazine content on the iGadget (our holding name for this half hour - we'll work through others later). Among its publications is Wired. And hey, whaddyaknow, Wired.com has some interesting angles on what's coming up - which is presented as stuff they know, rather than "comment", which is itself very unusual for an American publication:

"HTML5 and iTunes will form the centerpieces of Apple's new content strategy. The new iTunes content will not be packaged as apps sold through the App Store, though Apple will likely provide a tablet app for displaying new content created with this new platform, and developers will still be free to create apps. Instead, HTML content will be presented similar to the way iTunes currently presents enhanced music and video content."

"The focus is going to be on content creation and participation," a technologist with close ties to Apple told Wired.com. "If the tablet is going to be an answer to things like the Kindle, which are purely about consumption, what you're going to see is Apple is going to be full-blown about creation."

Then again, that might mean it's just the introduction of iLife '10. Shudder.

1.30pm: The Wall Street Journal has claimed that book publishers are in 11th-hour negotiations about the business model for books - that it's pushing prices up, rather than down, and that there will be a 30-70 Apple-publisher split.

That could mess things up for Amazon - it's been pushing prices on ebooks down, but publishers haven't liked that at all. Is the Kindle going to become the Diamond Rio of ebook readers?

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...

1.00pm: Remember the old days, when the FA Cup final simply began on the TV screen when the referee's whistle blew? Not any longer - these days you follow the teams pretty much from the moment they awake (or pour out of last night's bars). And so it is with technology: Apple's expected announcement today of its iSlate/iPad/iBook/iTablet/Canvas/Palette is the sort of event which generates more news than can be consumed locally.

So, let's get underway. First, there's the oopsie moment by Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill, who let slip on CNBC that the iX will be like the iPhone. That's interesting - to me that says NO FLASH SUPPORT. How, then, is it going to support the rest of the web?

If you want to explore the reasons why Apple doesn't like Flash, look no further than John Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball:

"Apple isn't trying to replace Flash with its own proprietary thing. They're replacing it with H.264 and HTML5. This is good for everyone but Adobe."

Next, we have (apparently separately) Sarah Lacy, freelance and Techcruncher, who claimed on Twitter to have "a free advance tablet", and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who in a stream of tweets claimed to have had an advance one because he'll subsequently be doing publicity for it, and that the "apple tablet is OLED [organic light emitting diode], has two cameras, Wi-Fi, thumbpads for mouse gestures and a fingerprint reader. Which one can take with as large a pinch of salt as you like. One detail rings true, though: he claims a battery life of "2-3hrs". Hmm, that latter bit sounds realistic, anyway. Intriguingly, he also claimed it's running the iPhone OS - but able to run multiple tasks at once.

Two possibilities: he's tweaking the noses of his 92,000-odd followers (in which case he'll have many thousands fewer tomorrow) or he really has it, in which case Apple will Hate him. You choose...