So I succumbed to peer pressure and got an iPad. I reserved it on Saturday and picked it up on Monday. It’s the 32GB 3G model.
Surprisingly, the unlimited data plan from AT&T was still available (even though it was supposed to disappear last week, I think), so I went ahead and signed up for that. I don’t know if I’ll keep the data plan turned on; I may only need it occasionally.
I haven’t found a killer app for the iPad yet. Nothing I’ve played with so far really makes me think, “yeah, I needed one of these.” I’ve been using an app called FrontPocket on my iPod Touch to access my Backpack account. I checked to see if there was an iPad-specific version of FrontPocket out, and was surprised to see that the app appears to be discontinued entirely. It’s no longer in the app store, and there’s no mention of it on the developer’s web site anymore. There is, however, a new app for accessing Backpack from another developer, and they have an iPad-specific version. It’s called Satchel and it’s from Stand Alone Software. If I remember correctly, these guys have been around since the days of the Newton. (I vaguely recall using one of their apps on my Newton, but I don’t remember what it was.) So, I’m probably going to download that and give it a whirl. I don’t know if that’ll be my “killer app”, but maybe it’ll be useful.
Oh, and I ordered an Eco-View case from Marware. As usual with these things, I spent far too much time looking at cases on the web. If they’d had the standard Apple case in stock when I picked up my iPad, I probably would have settled for that. But they had *no* cases in stock at all, so I went nuts on the web, and decided that this one looked good.