Ipad, feminine hygene product? or manly slate of awesomeness?

We all snickered when we heard the name of Apple's newest device...the Ipad. The association with feminine hygene products was oh-so-easy to make. It made all the headlines along with bloggers heralding the device's failure.

Then, after some months, we saw someone using one on the train or at a bus-stop. Our fingers felt cramped on our tiny Iphone and Blackberry screens. We watched in awe as the Ipad-sters made magnificent gestures to navigate pages and apps. The screens on these were so large, that we couldn't help but watch whatever movie they are watching. Finally... a few days later, we got to play with one in the store... the snickering was over... we wanted one.

But is an Ipad practical compared to a netbook or tablet pc?

I have a tablet PC and netbook. I found them just a little too slow to fire up when I had a few minutes to do computing tasks in between errands (which turns out to be 90% of my free time between a wife, work, and two children). By the time I pulled the laptop out and fired it up, I had either forgotten what I was going to do, ran out of time to do it in, or the laptop just seemed like overkill to bring out to kill a few minutes.

Then, I got a 3g Ipad for my birthday from my beautiful wife.

The whole family fights over it now. I almost look forward to buying more Ipads just so I have some more time with my own...almost. The TV, computers, and consoles in the house lie relatively dormant as everyone waits for their turn with the Ipad. It's amazing the things I can get the kids to do in return for Ipad-time.

The Ipad is a great device if you don't need the full computing power of a desktop or laptop. It's instant-on capabilities and long battery life are a boon to the commuter or the soccer-dad (or mom) alike.

There are a few problems with the Ipad. True multi-tasking is something that is still missing from the Ipad, but for those type of tasks I end up working with my iphone in one hand while doing something else on the ipad (talk about overkill). Flash is not supported, but many of the most popular programs on flash are being turned into Iphone apps. Also, many websites are converting their sites to html 5 BECAUSE of the Ipad. People who touchtype will either have to lug around a bluetooth keyboard, or just bring their clunky old laptops with them instead.

The Ipad is definitely a device for someone with Digital-Attention-Deficit-Disorder (DADD for short). Fire it up in a a few seconds, play a game one minute, surf the web the next, plan your retirement, read a chapter of a book, and then finish up with a downloaded TV show. Sure this is all stuff you can do on your phone, but the larger screen makes things so much better.