Hardware

Screen and input
The iPad's touchscreen display is a 25 cm (9.7 in) liquid crystal display (1024 × 768 pixels) with fingerprint-resistant and scratch-resistant glass. Like the iPhone, the iPad is designed to be controlled by bare fingers; normal gloves and styli that prevent electrical conductivity may not be used, although there are special gloves and styli designed for this use.

The display responds to two other sensors: an ambient light sensor to adjust screen brightness and a 3-axis accelerometer to sense iPad orientation and switch between portrait and landscape modes. Unlike the iPhone and iPod touch built-in applications, which work in three orientations (portrait, landscape-left and landscape-right), the iPad built-in applications support screen rotation in all four orientations (the three aforementioned ones along with upside-down),[31] meaning that the device has no intrinsic "native" orientation; only the position of the home button changes.

The iPad has a switch to lock out this screen rotation function (reportedly to prevent unintended rotation when the user is lying down).[32] There are a total of four physical switches, including a home button below the display that returns the user to the main menu, and three plastic physical switches on the sides: wake/sleep and volume up/down, along with the screen rotation lock.

Connectivity
The iPad can use Wi-Fi network trilateration from Skyhook Wireless to provide location information to applications such as Google Maps. The 3G model contains A-GPS to allow its position to be calculated with GPS or relative to nearby cellphone towers; it also has a black plastic accent on the back side to improve 3G radio sensitivity.

For wired connectivity, the iPad has has a dock connector; it lacks the Ethernet and USB ports of larger computers.

Audio and output
The iPad has two internal speakers that push mono sound through two small sealed channels to the three audio ports carved into the bottom-right of the unit. A volume switch is on the right side of the unit.

A 3.5-mm TRS connector audio-out jack on the top-left corner of the device provides stereo sound for headphones with or without microphones and/or volume controls.

The iPad also contains a microphone that can be used for voice recording.

The built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR interface allows wireless headphones and keyboards to be used with the iPad. However, the iOS does not currently support file transfer via Bluetooth. iPad also features 1024 x 768 VGA video output for connecting an external display or television.