A co-worker came by my cubicle today and saw my iPad. He asked about it, naturally curious. This afternoon he came back to point out an MSN article about how much one author hates the iPad. He thought the picture of a Mac user using his Mac laptop as a stand for his iPad very ironic.

If you don’t have a laptop, this fills the bill. If you have a laptop, don’t bother with one of these. There is a lot of crossover between a laptop and an iPad, so you don’t need both, except if you’re in a place where the laptop doesn’t fit.

When the Newton came out in 1994, it took a while to get everything straight, all the bugs worked out and find a niche for the PDA. Same thing here, the iPad has to find it’s place in the computer pecking order. I haven’t discovered any design flaws (yet), whereas the Newton had two major design flaws. The bugs weren’t worked out of the handwriting recognition, and it was a battery hog, going through 8-12 AAA batteries a week.

Like all Apple products, it creates and then fills a niche in its own style. I have a company laptop that I carry with me most times, but I’m uncomfortable using it for personal use, even away from the office. This let’s me go wherever I want to go on the internet without worry. And except for work, wherever the laptop works, so does the iPad.

In 6 months to a year, someone else will have their version of the iPad. Apple will also be working on the iPad 3.0, faster, better and cheaper than the one I have. That is what progress is all about.

My name is Mark, and I’m an iPad user.

This thing rocks! I am having a ton of fun with it. As you can see, my posting is more this week than I have in months! The curser control could be better and it’s a little difficult to cut and paste, but I am sure this will get better over time. I just need to figure it out. I still haven’t had to recharge it, the battery at this moment is 45%. So, I should be able to run this for another day or even two before I need to recharge it. I need to put my web links in, I will do that tonight when I’m at Gamerz Depot.

It has earned its’ keep so far.

I am typing this from work, and I will hit a hot spot later on today to actually post it.

I can see this is going to get expensive. I downloaded an iBook reader, as well as a Kindle reader. With this, I will be able to read books anywhere, carrying my entire library. A lot of the apps aren’t cheap either. I am buying apps left and right for this, because the interface is a lot easier than my Blackberry.

I will know tomorrow how well this works with a MiFi hot spot when I go down to the store. I am also noticing that this has a lot in common with the BlackBerry by the way I can type with it. The iPad has auto fill, auto capitalization and hitting the space bar twice leaves a period.

After a bit of difficulty, I connected to a Mickey’s Wi-Fi hotspot. I’m typing this in Office HD, a Word and Excel only iPad version of MS Office. It works good so far.

Let’s see how well I can cut and paste into a webpage to post.

I had to fool around with it a bit, I couldn’t work in the onboard word processor. I had to go to the HTML editor. But I got it to work, and that’s all that counts.

I received an email this morning saying that my new iPad was in. That was fast, I was expecting a week, since it says “7-10 days” to ship it from Apple itself.

Anyway, I used my lunch hour to go and get it. They must have hid the box or something, because it took them like 15+ minutes to bring it out. After that, the process was simple, the guy scanned my card with his iPhone, and I signed it. The Apple rep then had to connect the iPad to a machine to activate it, don’t ask me why.

I brought back, and it’s neat. I can’t do a thing with it at the moment because there’s nothing on it, and I’m not going to install a copy of iTunes on my company system to use it. I am going to find a McDonalds while I’m out tonight and see what I can’t do with it.

I’ll keep y’all informed as to my progress with it.

No, don’t worry, it’s not what you think.

I’ve bought an Apple product.

Specifically, I went out this evening and placed an order for a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad. Of course, they are not in stock, and it could take up to a week or so in order to get it.

You see, my history with Apple is long and storied.

It started in 1982 or so. I bought an Apple ][e, then an Apple ][c for my nephews and sister, then during the 1984 Super Bowl, I saw the Macintosh ad. I n 1985, I bought a used Fat Mac from a friend. I was amazed. I went out and bought a 20MB (yes, that's MEGABYTE) hard drive. That damn thing cost me $1,995. But for the file size at the time, that was cavernous. I was a loyal Apple user for years. I went through several systems, like the Macintosh IICX, (my favorite) the Macintosh LC, and even a Performa 6360.

In 1992, when I got out of the Navy and into civilian life, I started working at one of Memphis' two Apple dealers. In 1993, Apple introduced the Newton. The very first PDA. Man, that was sh*t hot. I couldn't afford the Newton, but I did buy the Sharp Expert Pad, which had a Newton's guts, but it had a hard cover that wrapped around the back of the machine so you could write on it. I still have that thing somewhere in all of my things, lost for years to come.

After I left that job, I left Macintoshes and got into Windows machines, and have stayed here to this day. I am typing this entry on my Acer PC running Windows 7.

There is a lot more to the story, but that's the bare bones.

Let me tell you think about the Apple Store. It is all white and chrome. With young, enthusiastic staff running all over the place, helping customers. I was struck by the distinct image of the scene in This Perfect Day where the Family members were “running” the false Uni-Comp.

I don’t think a staff member there was over 30 years old. I guess it’s easier to indoctrinate them when they’re still young.

With all of that said, the iPad offers a lot of potential, so I can’t wait until it comes in. I’ll give you running reports once I get it and set up to my liking.