April 3rd, 2010 - A Date Which Will Live In (Tech) Infamy

Yes, it was a Saturday to remember, full of technological history in the making, but one which I could only watch from the sidelines :-(

As I mentioned in a previous Blog post a couple of weeks ago, I ordered Apple's iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G back in March and now I'm patiently waiting for it to arrive sometime in late April.

AND IT'S KILLING ME!!!!

Like most tech enthusiasts, I'd been following every bit of news I could about the April 3rd release of the iPad from any source I could devour. I confess, I couldn't get enough.

I was glad that gadget reviewers like David Pogue of the New York Times, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, and Ed Baig of USAToday gave the iPad good marks overall.

It was fun to read people's enthusiastic tweets like these by a few folks I follow:
@petermeyers - UPS just called: my iPad is about an hour away!
@pablod - Ok, looking at photos is every bit as amazing as advertised
@ranajune - My iPad is synched and ready to face the world. I couldn't be more excited.
@maureengg - Mesmerizing for media consumption. Fab and fun as novel work tool. Can real-life experiences be as compelling as this?

There were also a couple of Blog posts that really stood out for me and I'd like to share them here:
iPad Review: It Only Had One Flaw by Craig Kanalley, The Huffington Post
iPad: The First Real Family Computer by Sarah Perez, ReadWriteWeb

Plus these two videos featuring Dylan Tweney from Wired do a terrific job of demonstrating the striking difference between using an eInk device like the SonyReader VS. the iPad with its color display and functionality:
Sony Reader Demo
iPad Demo

(The Sony Daily Edition currently sells for $399, so it's hard for me to imagine NOT spending the extra $100 for the iPad to experience all it can do.)

So after all this you might appreciate how excited I was when a colleague of mine brought his new iPad to the office and generously let me play around with it for a while. I'm definitely planning to post a full review later this month, but for now here are my immediate impressions:
1. It has a little bit more heft then I expected.
2. Just like my iPhone, I wouldn't want to drop the iPad 'cos it feels like it would easily get damaged.
3. Reading a book was simply wonderful and it felt great to sit back to enjoy a good book.
4. The virtual typing initially feels a bit strange, just as it did on the iPhone, but in short order I was doing just fine.
5. I can see myself bringing it to every meeting, on every plane trip, and reading newspapers, magazines, and email on the train with a dumb-ass grin on my face ;-)

There's so much more to say and I'm looking forward to doing so in a few weeks after I've really had the chance to dive deeply into this amazing device.

Whether you love it, hate it, or can't make up your mind, one thing for sure is April 3rd, 2010, will be the day in personal computing when everything changed - And for the better!

Don't believe that? Then check this out.

If you've got an opinion about the iPad, I'd love to hear it.