iPad

I caved into global peer pressure and purchasedan iPad last month. Actually, I was dragging someone from Apple Store to Apple Store in New York City only to learn that Apple had sold out of their lower-priced models. I gave up the search in the US and pre-ordered one from the Canadian Apple Store in early May.

Having used the device for the past 10 days, am I pleased with the purchase? If it lives up to its potential, then I would be thrilled.

The positives:

+It has great utility as an e-book reader: rather than lug around ten pounds of books with me whenever I travel, I thought it would be much easier to have them on a half-pound device.

+It facilitates access to email, websites, maps, etc.

+It has great apps: the games are fun and the access to various media is superb

The negatives:

-It lacks a standardized format for e-books. While Amazon made a Kindle app for the iPad, the iPad doesn't manage the Kindle's format well.

-Academic presses have yet to embrace the e-book potential. I assume this relates to the high price of scholarly tomes, but I'm not sure.

-There will be iPad 2.0, 3.0 somewhere down the line, outmoding my new purchase.

So, again, the potential is great. It's just a matter of how print literature adapts to the iPad and vice versa that could make it a true innovation at least in my field of work.