Two Months With The iPad...

A Love Story

Part II.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder..."

Or so the expression goes and in the case of the iPad that expression resonated more and more as the summer wore on and innovation in the tablet market grew more interesting.

There was a ton of talk about this new-ish phone operating system called Android.

And the not-to-be-forgotten iOS continued it's relentless march. Unfortunately Apple's very public decision to hold off on the iOS 4.2.1 deployment on the iPad left me torn.

Those feelings of confusion and doubt evaporated once I realized that Google's Android operating system had very little traction in the tablet space...

For weeks I had been hearing about the tidal wave of tablets that were coming. The mythical iPad killer; the one tablet that could challenge Apple's juggernaut...

***Certainly there would be one tablet to rule them all!***

A friend and I engaged in spirited debates about the coming tablet warz and the veracity of the various hardware manufacturers' claims that their tablet would be the tablet that knocked the iPad from it's lofty perch.

While all of this was going on, my back was crying out for relief. Five pounds of laptop, even a very well balanced laptop is still quite a load to carry back and forth to Starbucks on a semi-regular basis. I know what you're thinking:

"Oh, boo-hoo!"

Yes, I'm a whiner, but that's my right as the author of this blog!

The point that I'm trying to make is that I was missing my iPad. The first stirring of doubt began one day when I bent over one afternoon with my backpack on and felt a dreaded twinge of pain.

"Oh no! Is five pounds really so heavy that it could potentially ruin my back!?" I mused to myself.

A few days later I had my answer in the form of some pretty excruciating lower-back pain. Perhaps I just moved on it wrong? Perhaps I stood up straight too quickly? Hell, perhaps the woman that I sold my iPad to had installed a voodoo doll app on my once-burned iPad and this was that evil (yet oh-so-sexy) piece of hardware's revenge?

And so I wondered to myself if lugging around a five pound block of aluminum, plastic, and glass was really worth it. Eventually my thoughts turned back to the iPad. I began to wonder if my attitude toward the device had been a bit too flippant and premature; after all the device was light, extremely portable and did most of the tasks that I did on my laptop efficiently enough.

In addition, the iPad did not have any moving parts that have earned a notorious reputation for sensitivity and failure over the years... yes, I'm talking about hard drives and optical drives! The iPad also generated very little heat - unlike my notebook, which heated up like an erupting volcano after a dozen minutes of intensive use!

I went back and forth on the subject for a few weeks. Thinking long and hard about a second chance with the device and gaining a new appreciation for it's capabilities and hadn't the market for iPad accessories matured to the point of producing a whole slew of useful cases, sleeves and screen protectors.

It was the impending release of iOS 4.2 that triggered my decision making process...

It was time to reunite with my lost love. I like to imagine that the sunset that evening was purple and pink, but it wasn't. It was just my imagination; my sad, pathetic, nerdy imagination (to further steal a line from the Temptations) playing tricks on me

In conclusion, I'd like to make a few points about the iPad for those of you interested in purchasing this device.

My first bit of advice would be to wait, if you can, until Q1 of next year when the second generation (or G2) version will be introduced by Jobs. Features that should have been on the first incarnation of the iPad will most certainly be on the second iteration. These features will make the device eminently more usable and polished.

If you're ready to take the plunge right away, you should keep in mind one single fact if you decide to forget all others:

The iPad will not replace your laptop or desktop!!

That is not it's purpose and it will break your heart and make you very upset if you labor under that false delusion.

What it will do though is give you a great web browsing experience from virtually anywhere in a highly compact and portable platform. I would say that this device functions as a surrogate for my laptop/desktop about 75% of the time.

That being said, it is not a full-featured computer...

But again, what it does (and it can do a great many things very efficiently), it does very, very well.

If you're on the fence about buying one, you should go down to your local Apple store, Best Buy or even Wal-mart and try one out.

You may fall in love...

(Don't say I didn't warn you!)