The iPad has been released with all the fanfare of a king arriving home from a great battle. iTunes has been updated to support the new applications. New applications specifically designed to support the iPad are well underway. Now all of us skeptics can be silenced, or not.
I realized the cleaver plan of Apple a few hours after the release. I have thought hard why anyone would want a larger iPhone other than it’s a gadget of bigger proportions. The reason became clear when a read a blog post of an eBook reader that was very pleased with the iPad and it’s screen, form factor and overall size and weight. Weeks ago I read that school books were to be available for the iPad. Then I put it together, the iPad is the perfect medium for a student to carry a single lightweight device rather than a bunch of heavy books. The school system doesn’t have to carry as many books (maybe none in the future) and the students only have to carry a gadget to their classes, brilliant.
I am sure there are people out there that are saying “Why does it have to a tablet, why not a netbook or Macbook or the like.” The problem with a PC, Mac or Linux machine is the potential for data loss. The iPad only has the data that has been synced with a computer so if it gets fried, dropped, drowned or just fails, the data is still on the computer.
I officially rescind my previous skeptical post and say the iPad is a gadget worth getting.
Harry Lord's Blog 
I broke down and bought an iPad and the small Bluetooth keyboard last Monday, to take with me instead of my laptop when I travel. I can use it to read/answer email, manage my Facebook pages, update my blog, and to write. True, I have to follow a bit of a circuitous route to move documents in and out of the Pages app — upload my document from my desktop to my iDisk account, highlight and copy text at iDisk, paste the text into Pages, work, email the Pages file back to my iDesk account, then open the attachment onto my desktop —- but the iPad weighs a fraction of what my laptop weighs. That’s the big issue for me, the weight. It’s amazing!
Additionally, I won’t be making any more late night runs to the store for a novel to read in bed; iTunes has a pretty good selection of Ebooks. And the iPad screen is bigger than on my iPhone for when I play Rock Band and Oregon Trail. I’m loving it!
I would love to have one but it would be more of a toy than a device to empower my life. The kinds of things I want to do on the road are too computationally intensive for the iPad. I am in the market for a new laptop, mine is working okay but I am finding the low-res screen a little annoying these days.
I hope you are enjoying your new iPad.