Apple Roundup: iPad Cost, App Store Launch

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Today's top Apple (AAPL) stories include the cost of charging an iPad, and the App Store's ongoing international rollout.

The new iPad has plenty of new features that consumers appear to be clamoring for, but one feature may be better than all the apps and features combined: the miniscule cost of recharging.

According to a study from the Electric Power Research Institute, it costs less to recharge a fully drained iPad than it does to run a 60-watt compact fluorescent light bulb over a full year. It costs $1.36 per year to charge an iPad, while it costs $1.61 per year to charge the light bulb. The study also found that it costs just $0.25 per year to charge an iPhone 3G. A laptop costs $8.31 per year to charge.

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Apple launched the App Store in an additional 32 countries around the world, totaling 155 countries.

Here is the list of countries which gained App Store access: Albania, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Fiji, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Palau, Papua New Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Zimbabwe.

Apple could not be reached for comment on this story.

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Shares of Apple are flat in Friday trading, trading at $577.66.

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--Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York

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