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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fast Learner" data-source="post: 5348437" data-attributes="member: 649">I have an iPad and I love it. I was excited about the idea from day one, but admit that I wasn't sure how it would fit into our lives. I had theories -- read books, watch video, surf the internet -- but I love my laptop and love paper books, so I was a bit concerned that I'd spend a big chunk of money on something that would sit around and rarely be used.Turns out that I wasn't entirely right about how I'd use it, but we (my girlfriend and I) use it at least 2 or 3 hours per day, between us, and often 4 or 5 hours a day. I do read with it, but it's usually my RSS feeds (Reeder is an excellent reader app) and pdfs. We play games on it, including two-player games like Small World. Twitterific changed my perspective about Twitter, from something that I knew people used sometimes into a great way to catch up with both my friends and stay on top of my profession. Etc. etc.Point is, I think it's a device that, for many, it's hard to see how it would fit in your life because you have other ways of doing those things, but once you own it the thing grows on you like crazy and you learn that it puts computing in your hand in a way you'd never even considered. It's not unlike cell phones -- when I got my first one I could see that being able to make calls anywhere I was would be great, but it had no idea how much it would actually change my life and my whole concept of communicating.Lastly, on the 4.5 million that have been selling each quarter, it's the fastest-selling new consumer electronic to date. If the iPad continues to sell 4.5 million a quarter (and there's no reason at all to think it won't, up until last month Apple couldn't even make them fast enough, creating a sales constraint with many more people wanting them than could get them), at the end of next year the iPad -- just the iPad, not pads or tablets in general -- will be the 4th largest selling consumer electronic. This would be the list, based on current trends:1. Advanced Televisions2. Smart Phones3. Notebook PCs4. iPads5. Cell Phones6. Gaming Hardware7. Digital Cameras8. Desktop PCs9. MP3 PlayersTablets in general could well beat out laptops/notebooks. Alternatives to the iPad are almost entirely vaporware/promises at this point. Apple spent years refining the hardware and the user experience, including getting the price down to where it is, so it's no surprise that it's taking other manufacturers a while to get quality products to market. Add to that the fact that Windows, Windows Phone 7, PalmOS, Blackberry, Symbian, and Android are currently poor tablet operating systems (design for smartphone screens and larger tablet screens requires more differences than it would seem at first glance), and it'll be a while before there's another big success in this space.</blockquote>

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