If you haven’t lived under a rock for the past week you have probably been unable to avoid reading about Apple’s iPad, the latest mobile device to come out of Cupertino. Since the online and offline media has been writing about it at length, I won’t bore you with the details of what it does or how it will change the world we live in. One interesting revelation has been that Apple’s iPad will be sold completely unlocked, meaning you will be able to use it on virtually any mobile phone network worldwide, as long as they use the GSM standard. That means you will be able to use it on all four mobile phone networks in Ireland, as they all use the GSM standard: Vodafone, O2, Meteor and 3. The same goes for most other countries.

There is one caveat: Apple claims that to save space, they switched to the next generation Micro SIM standard. This is like a regular Mini SIM card, which is used by most mobile phones today, but with the excess plastic around the chip chopped off. But it turns out that the chip itself is not only the same size but electronically identical, as confirmed by the GSM association, so the good news is that even if your mobile phone network only supplies the older Mini SIM cards, you’ll be able to simply cut off the excess plastic yourself and fashion a DIY Mini SIM card. Cheap data roaming here we come, just remember to bring a steak knife! The image below shows a size comparison between the two cards:

We will be posting our review of the iPad as soon as it becomes available. Apple, if you are reading this, please send us a review unit! You can write the author of this article at urban@createvision.ie or please post your comments, questions or feedback below.

Tags: Apple, IPad, Internet, Mobile