UPDATE – The wifi version of the iPad is out and for sale online or at an Apple Store or Best Buy near you!

I have yet to see one or touch one at a store, but plan to soon!  I will give my readers any further impressions I have once I get the chance to do just that.

In the meantime, here are two nice round-ups of the media coverage as well as reviews from the major media outletsNew York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today): (

• http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/apple-ipad-launch-weekend-roundup/
• http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/31/early-ipad-reviews-appear/

Incidentally, if you happen to have one, let me know what you think …and when you’ll let me borrow it 😉

Original Post
I gotta use the word iPad right in the title, it’s required for all tech blogs the day after Apple’s BIG announcement …and I finished this just before lunch.  Here’s my take on the iPad thus far, after I was OK with the name of it …until I started hearing all the jokes…
Helpful must-see links on all things iPad are below.

Steve Jobs is a master at presenting,
if only I could learn his presentation secrets …

It’s one heck of an e-reader!

• That color touch screen.
• The elegant page turning for ebooks.
• That faux wooden bookshelf for all your digital editions, this ain’t no Nook.
• And that New York Times that looks like a real paper newspaper with the columns, nice.
• Oh, and it uses a real browser and email and maps and games and everything app-wise an iPod Touch/ iPhone uses.
• And yes, yes, yes, probably another incompatible ebook format with the new iBookstore and more DRM. It’s a pain in the neck for consumer and libraries and readers in general.  Not that I like it one bit, but it’s to be expected for some time to come until publishers and big media figure out how to make sense of the new digital world (who woulda seen this comin’!?).

It’s a big beautiful iPod Touch

• iPad has a much bigger touch screen (9.7″) than an iPod Touch (3.5″).
• iPad has same memory specs as Touch (16GB – 64GB).
• iPad can use almost all the 140,000+ apps in iTunes available to iPod Touch & iPhone users.  Facebook to games and games and games, Apple demoed a lot of games for this the iPad…
• And interesting price points as low-end iPad is $499 and high-end Touch model is $399.

It’s not-quite-a-netbook

• no hard drive bigger than 64GB
• no physical keyboard (which I’m use to on my iPhone as are millions of kids (and grown-ups) on their iPod Touch & iPhones).
• iPad doesn’t have a built-in camera, a mic yes, but no camera … that camera would be real handy for Skype or video-conferencing or taunting friends when playing games or scanning in barcodes for LibraryThing (saw this on LT Twitter feed!) or even just taking pictures!
• But it does have access to Google Docs online and Apple iWork and other productivity apps thru iTunes.
• So you could kinda use it as a laptop replacement. But you can do the same thing with an iPod Touch & iPhone, albeit on a smaller screen, but those devices you can take anywhere in your pocket, and the later also makes phone calls … I’m not ready to give up my iPhone.

It goes on sale in March, I’ll see you at the Apple Store
… I’ll  just be browsing …

The Must-See Links!!!

• Apple’s iPad promo site & video
• PaidContent: How Do E-Readers Stack Up With iPad In The Mix?
  • Use Our Chart As A Guide
• New York Times: E-Readers Point in New Directions
• LibraryThing: “The obligatory discussion of the iPad”

First Impression Hands-on Reviews

• Engadget
• iLounge
• David Pogue, New York Times
• Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
• Wall Street Journal’s round-up of analysts’ first impressions
• ReadWriteWeb blog: Analysts on the iPad: It’s a Winner

BTW

I “watched” the Apple news conference at home with a sick child (Me, excitedly “It’s for Daddy’s work and it’s historic!”  Child’s response … “Can I play Nintendo?”).
So I “watched” on my laptop using the decades old technique of reading updates / viewing photos on various tech blogs (lots of tabs open) from reporters at the conference (found Engadget had the best feed).  And then a Twitter post led me to a link on Ustream of another tech blog reporter (Leo Laporte, TWiT) using an iPhone 3G S with built-in video to broadcast the event live … with tinny sound and choppy video … which in turn I watched on my iPhone (even over 3G), until I couldn’t stand it anymore and went back to reading on Engadget … a mash-up, if you will, of the old and the new …

iPad = and another word to add to my custom dictionary so it stops underlining it in red! 😉