Safari Web browser will render any sites that are less than 1024 pixels wide at their intended original size, meaning you see them at their true size, rather than seeing a smaller, more compressed version of the site.

In general though, I tend to prefer browsing the Web in portrait mode, since web pages are almost always taller than they are wide. Still, even in portrait mode, the iPad allows you to see more content at a decent size, Of course, even in portrait orientation, the compressed pages rendered are still easily readable without squinting your eyes, which isn’t often the case for Web browsing on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Plus, you can always zoom into any section by double tapping any region of the active page.

Even zoomed-in regions are displayed with crisp clarity, and working within the Safari browser interface is swift and responsive. However, not all your sites will work desirably on the iPad. Apple is closed-mindedly refusing to support Adobe Flash on the iPad (as it has with the iPhone/iPod Touch). Regardless of whether you like it or not, Flash is being used around the Web, not only for advertising and video but for many other uses from graphs to product comparisons. The same lack of support is true of Java, AIR, Silverlight and others. So expect some of your sites to only be supported to a certain degree, if not entirely in rare cases. This can be a bit of a bummer until Flash starts being replaced with other technologies like HTML5’s canvas technology, which is poised to take on some of Flash’s most familiar capabilities.

===== Email ===== Email on the iPad’s Mail app is best viewed in landscape mode, as it allows you to see both your list of messages on the left as well as the selected message itself on the right. It also makes managing emails easier, such as moving messages to other folders (or to the trash). Another reason for landscape mode is to make typing those lengthy emails easier (using typing-method #2 mentioned above).

You can have multiple email accounts, including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, MobileMe, Microsoft Exchange and other custom POP3 and IMAP accounts. Overall, The Mail app is fairly simple to use. It’s easy and quick to read and answer your emails, but in general it’s not very powerful. For example, there is currently no support for a unified inbox, but support for that will be added in the fall with the iPhone OS 4.0 update. Important Note: With the growing number of portable web connecting devices, there is one concern I want to express on your behalf. When you close the Mail app, it continues running in the background, even after disconnecting from one WiFi hotspot and reconnecting to another. My concern with this is that if haven’t set up your e-mail with a secure connection, and you connect to a public WiFi hotspot that a malicious user is monitoring, then the instant your mail app connects to the hotspot to check your e-mail, your e-mail credentials may be suddenly compromised. To avoid this you definitely want to be using some kind of secure connection for your e-mail if at all possible. Web-based email such as Gmail typically support this out of the box, and Gmail accounts are the easiest to setup on the iPad. ===== Media ===== If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, it’s comforting to know that you audio/video experience will be similar on the iPad. You can watch videos via the YouTube app, which has been updated for the iPad to show YouTube HD videos beautifully.

While the 1024×768 resolution of the iPad is a standard 4:3 ratio, not a widescreen 16:9 ratio, the HD videos as well as other video (including downloads from the iTunes store) display just fine. The Netflix app was also a pleasant and much-welcome surprise, as I’d been waiting over a year for Netflix to put out an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. While it isn’t that, it is indeed just as good. Netflix videos stream quickly and even moving the play position back and forth in the timeline, the movie starts playing very quick without much time rebuffering the video.

===== Photos ===== Two words: No camera! But thinking seriously about this, would you really want to take pictures/video with this device? You might look kind of awkward. I can’t say that I’ve felt the urge to whoop out my iPad and shoot a photo yet. On the other hand though, logically speaking, Apple should have put the camera up front (as a webcam) instead of on the back, to make the iPad more versatile as a video-chat device for use with apps such as Skype. Ultimately, though, I think Apple couldn’t make a decision on exactly where to put a camera. Even on the front, they would have to put it either at the top (optimized for portrait mode) or on the side (optimized for landscape mode). I’ll admit, such a decision would be tough, which might explain why Apple decided to nix it all together. Of course, that left an open market for iPad apps that could help bridge the gap. Now, there are a couple apps that allow you to pair your iPhone to your iPad, take pictures with the iPhone, and then subsequently send them to your iPad. First, download an application called “Camera A” on your iPad. Then on your iPhone and grab the “Camera B” app. One of the apps will be free, the other is 99 cents, but for that 99 cents you will get the ability to take pictures with your iPhone and save them directly to your iPad through the Bluetooth connection.

===== E-Reading ===== Whether it’s books, magazines or news, the iPad isn’t just making history, it’s making an impact on the future of media reading on a whole new level. Apple has been under-emphasizing the e-book and e-publication reading capabilities of the iPad to date, but I feel it’s one of the iPad’s greatest strengths, regardless of how heavy it is. Fact is, the iPad is still a game-changer. After all, it’s lighter than 98% of other laptops with the same sized screen. It is becoming crystal-clear just what the iPad means for the publication industry. This goes far beyond simply reading e-books. Magazine and newspaper publishers have been jumping onboard the iPad bandwagon by creating their own custom apps that take their publications to a whole new level, but interactively and financially. My experiences interacting with some of these new digital representations of magazines and newspapers have been a breath of fresh air. Being able to read them on a screen simply isn’t enough. The ability to still touch them, combined with a rich interactivity on a level that can’t be matched by their printed counterparts has really given new life to what I feared was becomming a dying trade. Of course, another big perk for me has been the ability to save space because now I can keep all my magazines around without ever taking up more than the size of a single magazine (since the iPad is comparable in size to a single magazine). As far as e-books go, you’re not losing out by passing up on the Kindle, because you have full access to Kindle books on the iPad via Amazon’s Kindle app. That’s not to say that the iPad is a Kindle killer by any means, as the two devices are distinctly different, and both offer a very unique experience. If you read a lot of novels, or prefer to read outdoors, and you don’t mind reading in shades of gray rather than in full-color, then the Kindle was indeed made for you, as the Kindle is lighter and the display is easier to read in the sunlight. However, that doesn’t mean the iPad would serve no purpose to you, even as an e-reader, because it can read Magazines, News and even the Web on a level that cannot be matched by the Kindle (at least not yet). Besides, no one said your choice was limited to one device or the other. Get them both, if it tickles your fancy! All physical aspects aside, the iPad is definitely a great e-reader, just on a whole new level. Those touting that the iPad is just a glorified iPod Touch, however, probably don’t realize this important distinction: the apps being put out by publishers are iPad specific and cannot be used on the iPod Touch nor on the iPhone.

===== Gaming ===== If you’re like me, you probably don’t have time for games. Ultimately, I still se the iPad as a productivity device more than as a gaming console. Regardless, it may still be high-time to let the kid within you roam free from time to time, as I do. Alas, it may just be time to Without a doubt, millions of people use their computers for gaming, and with the iPhone and iPod Touch having taken on a clear role as a gaming console that has been as revolutionary for mobile gaming as the Wii was for living-room gaming, it goes without saying that the iPad is, and will continue to be, a decent platform for playing games. I see board games and lap-friendly games being the most popular on the iPad. Meanwhile, I suspect that games heavily dependent on rotation and other accelerometer-based interaction may quickly wear you out do to the weight of the iPad. I got tired of playing EA’s Need For Speed: Shift after about 5 minutes. Resting the iPad on my knee didn’t help much. ===== Productivity ===== Productivity carries numerous definitions. Usually its “getting something done” though some people tend to believe that it’s the ability to focus without being distracted, which I see as one of the iPad’s strengths considering it currently does not support multitasking (yet). In the context of software though, applications that allow you to edit office documents are commonly referred to as productivity software. Apple’s own suite of productivity apps, collectively called “iWork”, has been re-created from the ground up just for the iPad. (Previously it was only available for Macs.) For work-minded individuals, it will probably one of the most popular uses of the iPad. There are three apps in all: Pages is a word processing app that allows you to create and edit word processing documents. Then there’s Numbers, which allows you to create and edit spreadsheets. Finally there’s