When I went on my Parisian adventure, I took the iPad with me, not really knowing whether I'd use it or not. Since the Uiuoweasdfjklasdgoiuw volcano from Iceland doubled the length of my stay, I had a lengthy opportunity to see if – in real life – the iPad actually got used or not.
Well, it did and it didn't. Let's start with the good stuff: since I was without my beloved New York Times, I relied in the iPad to get a basic sense of the news that was going on. For an electronic publication, the New York Times looks great on the iPad; it's really sleek.
Having said that, if a good old fashion newspaper were sitting right next to it, I wouldn't have even bothered reading the very abridged version of the paper available on the iPad. It just isn't the same. I daresay in twenty years, I'll still be flopped on the sofa reading the made-of-paper newspaper (if they're still around). Nothing beats it.
What I didn't use the iPad for was any kind of "input", like doing a blog post. The notion of actually using the iPad for anything creative (writing an email, doing a post, or what have you) never even crossed my mind. It's sort of like driving a car with barbecue tongs; it can be done, but it's stupid. I'd much rather use a real computer.
I would also mention that the gee-I-might-break-it-factor looms pretty large. When I made the trek to Air France to wait in line for tickets, I quickly dismissed the idea of bringing along the iPad, because it's relatively large and fragile. I have no problem having my iPhone with me every waking hour in my pocket, because it's small and tough. But you can't slip in iPad into your pocket, and it's trouble to tote around.
The bottom line is that the iPad got used on the plane for my kids to play some really cool games, but that was pretty much it. For real work, I'm going to keep using a real computer; for reading stuff, I'm going to read it the old fashioned way. It was nice as a make-do since I didn't have a newspaper, but besides that, I hardly touched the thing.
