Apple’s very own Steve Jobs would want to make a joke out of it, but according to his statements in the Apple Event today, the new Apple iPad will cost only $499.

Well, at least for the 16GB models with WiFi capability. Of course, with greater data storage comes greater cost. So the iPad will cost $599 and $699 at 32GB and 64GB respectively. If you’d like 3G with your iPad as well, the price will bump up some more to $629, $729 and $829 for the three data size varieties.

Provided, all iPads will be released under AT&T, but will not be contract-bound. You read that right people – any user will be able to opt out of an AT&T data plan anytime they want. Or at least, that what Apple says. Only time will tell how effective that system will actually be.

For the data plans of the iPad, Apple is reporting that iPads will run on 250MB data plans with AT&T at $14.99 a month. Jump that up to an unlimited data plan, and you’ll be running at $29.99 a month.

Additionally, while the iPad can run Apple’s proprietary office suite of tools, iWork, each of the iWork applications will run you about $9.99 each. No word yet whether there’s a separate price for the whole bundle.

Check out the live updates on the event here.

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