I waited to buy an iPad until the second version was released as I’ve had issues before with buggy software as an early adopter of technology.  It won’t replace your PC nor your mobile phone, but occupies a very sweet niche in between.  It has certainly modified the media consumption landscape in my household, so let me explain.

Boot-up time is not an issue, so it lives with us in the living room and is available at any time.  I can check e-mail or the web while watching TV or show videos to my son in the screen.  Paired with services such as Skimm.tv I know exactly what I want to watch and when I want to watch it.  My morning routine now includes watching the football highlights from the device with my son while having breakfast, in a win-win situation for us all.

Everybody talks about apps and games for the iPad (and yes, whatever you’re thinking about doing, there’s an app for that) but the other use it really has helped me with is with reading books, magazines and comics.  If you travel and read as much as me you hate the weight of that 900-page book you can’t finish at home or carrying all those back issues of the Economist you haven’t had time to read and with a pretty decent catalog of Marvel and DC comics I have something to do besides work when on the road.  Even better, if I’m traveling with family we can watch TED talks together in the train or plane and the journey becomes that bit shorter.

A person I met in Argentina was trying to understand what is the use for it as it’s too big for a smartphone and too small for a computer.  Writing a blog post or working on a presentation on an iPad, while possible, is not particularly easy.  However, consumption of information is a breeze (as long as it’s not in Flash :P).

Just make sure you leave home with a full charge. 🙂