So Apple has done it again, revolutionizing the tech industry by creating a super cool toy with a myriad of uses . . . or is that a super cool tool with a myriad of toys?  The first generation iPAD has been put through its paces, and the announcement for the second generation is likely to come this holiday season.  So, you've heard the reviews and seen the commercials.  Maybe your thinking about getting one, or maybe you're thinking about getting the second release next year.  Either way, its time you got a good overview of the thing.

Use this article as a way to get a sense of the iPAD, one that you can't necessarily get by playing with one in a store display.  Not even a year old, it's considered to be a breakthrough, but is it worth the money?  With other tablet consoles slated for release in the next eight months, now's the time to take stock and familiarize yourself with the nuts and bolts of Apple's cash cow.

Specs:

Screen: 9.7-inch high-res screen
Weight: 1.5 pounds
Thickness (Thinness): 0.5 inches
Battery Life: 1  0 hours
Memory: 16 GB or 64 GB

Features

Where do we begin? There’s no doubt that the iPad is a neat piece of technology that has definite possibilities in changing us into a tablet computing society. Here are some of our favorite features of the iPad:

The Basics:

Internet Browsing: Safari
Word Processor: Pages
Spreadsheet App: Numbers
Presentation App: Keynote

The Bells and Whistles:

Apps, apps, apps. Nearly all of the 185,000 iPhone apps are compatible with the iPad. That’s not to mention the apps that Apple developed just for the iPad. Just a few cool ones? Elements, the periodic chart never looked so interesting. View the elements in 3D (glasses purchased separately) and read about their history and classifications. Marvel Comics offers a free app for comic book lovers. Comics are $2 apiece.

iBooks

The iPad offers a free book app call iBooks that gives customers access to 40,000  titles including thousands of free classics and more for a fee.

Internet

Don't let the different iPAD species confuse you, all iPads come with the ability to detect wireless networks and log on.  So if you have a home network, or a business network or even a wireless hotspot in a coffeehouse, you're good to go.  Of course, for some more $, you can be wrangled into a contracted phone plan (and/or append extended iPAD support onto an existing plan.)  This will allow you to get cellular broadband anywhere you get signal from AT&T, i.e. your iPad is now a big iPhone.   Of course, you can send, receive, and write e-mails from your iPad with much more ease than an iPhone thanks to the bigger hi-res screen.  There's no doubt here, surfing the web on it is a pleasure.

Photos

Display and organize your pics on the iPad with a few taps of a finger. The screen displays your personal memories in fun albums that are easy to browse.

Maps

Google maps is the iPad’s in-house geographical choice. An with Wi-Fi, you can just type in “restaurants” and the Maps app will show you the ones closest to you.

Music

iPod and iTunes users can access their music easily on the iPad. The large display is a great addition to your listening experience.

BlueTooth

Yes, it has it.  That means that anyone who's familiar with this popular infra-red communication channel can probably interface their phones, bluetooth keyboards and BlueTooth cameras.  That being said, not every BlueTooth device is compatible and for most of us, the primary channel for plugging things into a computer isn't BlueTooth, but USB, a feature that is conspicuously lacking.  (See below.)

Failings

Cost: The price is pretty high with the 16 GB, Wi-Fi only base model starting at $499 and going up to $899 for a 64 GB version with Wi-Fi and 3G, but that doesn’t count the monthly data access fees customers will need to pay. Right now the fees stand at $14.99 for 250 MB or $29.99 for unlimited data. Fortunately there are no contracts so customers can switch back and forth between the limited or unlimited plans, or cancel them all together.

Flash

Well, there's not doubt that Youtube works, but all in all, getting every video on the web to work may take a couple of steps.  That is, it's important to remember that this tablet PC isn't a PC.  There's no Windows interface or Apple interface for that matter, it's just the iPhone interface.  So getting videos that rely on Silverlight (i.e. Netflix) will take downloading an intermediary app.  It's free and easy, but it's something to note:  the interactivity of the iPAD on the web is dependent upon Apple's discretion, not yours.

Multi-tasking

Another interesting shortcoming to note, the iPad is currently unable to run multiple programs at the same time. Apple is working on fixing this with the 4.0 version and claims to be able to accomplish multitasking without draining battery life.

Scaled Down

There are other functions that were sacrificed in the name of keeping the iPad thin and cool. No camera and no stereo speakers. Both of these features are slated for the next generation, but for now, there'll be no video chats just yet.

USB Port

This is possibly the biggest drawback.  Apple controls all external interfacing for the iPAD by having it use the propriatery iPod dock.  You can't use any normal USB interfacing device to move data in and out, so no camera hookup, no monitor hookup, no phone hookup, no thumb-drive hookup.  Needless to say, Apple wasn't going to ignore the want for these things, so you can get converters, keyboards and the like in spades … as long as they have that branded port.  Can anyone say price hike?

The Bottom Line

It's not a work horse, but it's certainly fun – perhaps a work pony.  More integration, more apps and more functions are being developed as you read this.  There's no doubt the next gen iPAD will have even more bells and whistles, but for now, what makes this device beloved is by far its novelty.  That's nothing to be sneezed at, of course.  It's new, it's beautiful and it works, but it may be worth holding out on for just a little bit longer.