SAN FRANCISCO – Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company’s much-anticipated iPad tablet computer Wednesday, calling it a new third category of mobile device: neither smart phone nor laptop, but something in between.

Jobs said the device would be useful for reading books, playing games or watching video, describing it as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.” But the gadget’s most unique capability, says Jobs, one which will set it apart from the pack, is the computer’s ability to double as a sanitary napkin.

The tampon part of the operation “was the biggest surprise,” says Vice President of Design Operations, Bill Zachary. “Most tampons are relatively inexpensive masses of cotton or rayon,” whereas the half-inch-thick iPad comes with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage, and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built in.

“We knew Apple was set on creating a dock with a built-in keyboard,” said Zachary, “which would also easily display pictures and video files. What we didn’t count on was using the iPad as a dam for a hemorrhaging pussy.”

When stuffed up a bleeding vagina, the multi-purpose mobile device will absorb some of the coppery liquid via its LCD screen, admittedly blurring the 1024-by-768 pixel screen resolution with rust-colored pussy juice, Zachary says.

“It functions the way any large piece of blunt metal, stuffed into a bloody human vagina, would.”

But can women be convinced to walk around with lithium-polymer batteries, not to mention fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating, wrenched between their legs?  Jobs says yes.

“Because it uses a display technology called IPS (in-plane switching), the iPad has a wide, 178° viewing angle. So you can hold it almost any way you want and still get a brilliant picture, with excellent color and contrast.”

“Plus,” remarked Jobs, sitting on stage in a cozy leather chair and playing showman as only he knows how, “We’re going to coat a few of our experimental models with cardboard applicator tubes.”

How soon small pieces of string will be available for the iPad is not yet known.