The iPad 2 Pocket Guide

Introduction

Given Apple’s advertising budget and ubiquitous ads, plus an enormous amount of media attention, it’s still difficult to determine just what an iPad is. Is it a media player or a business machine? Does it replace a laptop? There are other tablet computers on the market, as well as “netbooks” that act like small laptops, and yet the iPad has captured people’s imaginations (and pocketbooks) like few other devices I’ve seen. It took only 28 days for Apple to sell 1 million iPads, and that was just in the United States alone; over the first nine months, the company sold 15 million iPads worldwide.

I’ve owned an iPad since the first day it was available, and I still have trouble explaining it to people in just a few words. But I think ...