Although AT&T and Verizon both offer comparable plans for the new iPad, there's one feature that AT&T is still lacking: tethering.
Verizon today touted its support for the Personal Hotspot application that lets iPad owners use their tablet as a hub to connect up to five other devices to Verizon's LTE network through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. AT&T, however, has not announced such functionality yet and is only saying that it is "working with Apple to enable this feature in the future."
MORE IPAD-MANIA: iPad demand surges in enterprise
SLIDESHOW: 10 terrific apps for the new iPad
The new iPad will be the first Apple device to have LTE connectivity and will be available Friday on both Verizon and AT&T. AT&T offers three LTE data plans for the new device: a 250MB data plan that will cost $15 a month, a 3GB plan that costs $30 a month and a 5GB plan that costs $50 per month. Verizon's three LTE data plans for the iPad, meanwhile, are a 2GB plan that costs $30 a month, a 5GB plan that costs $50 a month and a 10GB plan that costs $80 a month. All of the plans charge $10 per extra GB of data consumed, except for AT&T's 250MB data plan that charges an additional $15 per additional 250MB of data used.
The new iPad, announced by Apple last week, features a Retina Display screen that has a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels and the new A5X chipset that has a dual-core CPU processor and a quad-core GPU processor. Apple has said that demand for the new tablet has been "off the charts" and that it has already sold out of its entire preorder stock. The LTE version of the new device will cost $629.99 for 16GB of storage, $729.99 for 32GB of storage and $829.99 for 64GB of storage.
Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.