My wife is the coolest person in the world!

There are a lot of reasons but the biggest one this week is that she worked it out with her work to let me borrow their brand new iPad for a few days to play with. I've been in heaven.

It is one thing to read about this wonderful device and another to actually use it. The unit I have is the WiFi 30Gb model. Pretty much a high priced netbook with touchscreen.

Couple of frustrating things with it so far. The USB cable won't let you charge the device off of the computer you must plug it into the wall with the wall adaptor. But you have to connect it to iTunes to begin with to get the software loaded. It has the same issues as an iPod when it comes to content downloaded from your iStore account. If you switch iStore users the content is not there. I downloaded a free book but when I logged out of the store I went away? I am also not in love with the onscreen keyboard. Not sure what it is exactly but it has been difficult to use for me.

The App store is fantastic. While I don't own a iPhone I am familiar with the number of free and low cost apps on the store from my friends with iPhones. It is similar to the Andriod store I have for my G1 phone. But there are apps just for the iPad and some of the recent ones are even in HD so they graphics are amazing. Lots of free stuff and all kinds of apps.

By far the coolest thing about this type of device is being able to use it while watching TV. You can browse the web and see what you are reading. The news readers for USA today, NPR, and AP are all very nice. I can add Netflix movies/shows to my Instant Que while I am thinking of it instead of going into the office. I can manage my DirecTV recording. A lot of this you can do on your phone these days but on a very small screen with a tiny keyboard. Plus just reading on this device is so much easier. It is a book reader on steroids.

I am not looking forward to giving this back. But when I do I won't go out and buy one. I'll wait for at least a year for the price to come down a bit and for 2nd generation units to show up.