NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc appears to have fended off Verizon Wireless for now and retained its status as the preferred U.S. carrier for Apple Inc with a deal to support the new iPad tablet computer.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off a sleek tablet that it called the iPad, pitching the new gadget at a surprisingly low price to bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops.
Apple's A4 chip, being used in the iPad, could ultimately provide a speed boost to future versions of the company's iPhone, analysts said on Thursday.
Apple introduced on Wednesday the iPad handheld device, which has a 9.7-inch diagonal screen and is designed for browsing the Internet, playing games, reading e-books and viewing video content. The product fits somewhere between the iPhone and MacBook laptop, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a press event.
View a video demonstration, and read my thoughts on why I wouldn't buy Apple's latest must-have device if it were available today. 
The recent flurry of rumors predicting the end of AT&T's arrangement as exclusive provider of the Apple iPhone were apparently false.