I finally caved, a victim of really good marketing by Apple, and I decided that I desperately needed an iPad. Honestly? It was pure lust and greed. My husband has the iPod Touch, several colleagues have iPhones and iPads, and I just couldn't help myself. I bought it for the entertainment factor, with hopes that I could actually get some work on it while waiting for my kids at their various after-school activities. The entertainment factor works, as far as I've tried it. So far it's just been music (by the way, you play your music on the iPad with the "iPod" icon, not the "iTunes" icon) and books. You can read any standard epub book format in iBooks, and you'll find a good variety of free e-books at openlibrary.org and manybooks.net. I also installed the free ABC Player and can successfully watch tv episodes on it - the iPad has impressive clarity!

Something to understand about the iPad is it's not your typical mobile computer. It's more of a consumption toy, not a producing tool. The key is really in the apps you can get for it from the Apple App Store. While iPhone and iPod have tons of applications, really the iPad doesn't have the selection I expected or hoped for.

What has really disappointed me is the reliability and accuracy of the third-party apps. So far I've only downloaded 6 free apps and bought 3. I've done a lot of research on these apps, and read a lot of reviews. Again, the problem is the user base isn't out there, so there aren't always a lot of reviews or ratings available on these apps. The 6 free ones have been exactly what I expected, and I've been pleased with them. 2 of the 3 I paid for blatantly lied and misled me in what they have written on their App Store description. Why they haven't been pulled "off the shelves" I do not know. More on these in days to come, but heed the warning, Buyer Beware. They lie, and they get away with it, making money off the buyer's ignorance and trust.