Dual booting Mac OS X on iPad... April Fool's!

Some can't wait to get their hands on the device, while others could care less. The device, the Apple iPad, is set to launch on Saturday, April 3, 2010. Earlier today, TUAW unearthed a hidden feature on the iPad (via an envelope slipped under the door of our headquarters in Roswell, NM) that may even force many iPad naysayers to consider purchasing it.

We've discovered a way to dual-boot into Mac OS X and the iPad's operating system (which is a modified iPhone OS). And here, we'll show you how to execute this unpublished hack.

First, reset your iPad. You can do this by holding down the iPad's power and home button at the same time. Like the iPhone, the iPad boots up to an Apple logo. Pay attention here, because it's the most important part. Right when you see the logo appear, switch on the "screen rotation lock" button. This button, situated just above the volume button, deactivates the iPad's accelerometer.

Now, the following should appear on your iPad's screen. That's right, it's Konami's Contra. Konami has recently announced that it will be bringing over some of its classics to the iPad. And the first of these classics is Contra.

At the Contra start screen, press this sequence of buttons on the on-screen controller: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, select, start. If successful, you'll hear the Mac OS X startup chime, and the iPad's screen will then go into diagnostic boot and display the following binary values before booting into Mac OS X.

01000001 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101100 00100000 01000110 01101111 01101111 01101100 01110011