UPS finally delivered my iPad today around 2pm. My unboxing process took all of about 30 seconds. I've been using it pretty much non-stop since, almost 8 hours or so of usage.  I am writing this in bed, actually, with about 20% battery left. These are my impressions from a day of usage:

The iPad came fully charged out of the box, which was very nice. It must be synced with iTunes to get started but after that, you are ready to go.

I am actually able to type this article out on the landscape keyboard. Typing is much faster than on the iPhone and not far off my typing speed on a regular keyboard. However, I've found that the best approach is to write my drafts quickly without punctuation other than comma and period to minimize switching to the alternate keyboard. I thought I would prefer portrait mode. Turns out, I like landscape better.

I am usually laying down or reclining with the iPad so landscape is easier for me to hold. When sitting at a table, I find myself tending towards portrait probably because I prefer that for reading web pages, etc.

The App Store for iPad has a lot to be desired. Right now there is no way to search for specific types of games like on the iPhone, i.e. subcategories. Our initial educational game is buried somewhere and is only reachable by searching directly for it. In fact, only New and Noteworthy apps and What's Hot apps and Staff Favorites are even viewable.

I haven't used my iPhone all day except for about ten minutes to look up something in the iPhone app store. When I did use it, the phone felt puny. What was twelve hours ago my favorite device in the world has utterly been surpassed by the iPad. Viewing apps on the iPhone now feels like looking through a porthole, which is strange since i never felt that way before about it despite the larger screens of my desktop and laptop Mac.

I was able to make a phone call via Skype on the iPad earlier and the quality was good so one more nice use of the iPad. No SMS on this device. I wonder if it works on the 3G model. Apparently 3G models have shipped. My brother's pre-order is supposed to arrive on Thursday.

Using iPhone apps on the iPad is a bit subpar. Some of our apps scale up acceptably, some not so much. I find myself actually enjoying quite a few iPhone apps in their 2x pixel-doubled sizes simply because the app is so much larger and more readable and the teensy iPhone keyboard is blown up so much that everything is easier to type. The backspace key on the iPad is in a different place than on the iPhone. I keep hitting the shift key to backspace.

I bought or otherwise downloaded a bunch of apps for the iPad. The big splurge was Things for iPad at $19.99, primarily because I literally need that app as I practically live in it. The iPhone version is $9.99 and the Mac version is $39.99 or $49.99. The thing is, they all do exactly the same thing with zero difference other than minor look and feel differences related to the device. Price differences due to screen size or device type with no functional changes at all is not the way to price your ap

Once you get used to touching the screen for everything, using a mouse again is kind of lame. A real physical keyboard is not the same, though. I am probably going to pick up a wireless keyboard tomorrow just for mass typing on this thing. I don't think most people are aware of it but when the iPad home screen is locked it can be put into a mode that has the device act as a digital picture frame.

The really big surprise for me has been iBooks versus the Kindle app. Kindle for iPad was approved just in time and it is awesome. iBooks is nice also but their bookstore only has a handful of novels, etc. Kindle has 450,000 books available. The reading experience of Kindle books on iPad is great. So far I have purchased no iBooks books but I did buy yet another Kindle book to read on my iPad.

Mail on iPad is great. The Contacts app is weak. Maps is awesome. Watching video on iPad is fantastic. YouTube is good. Dragon Dictation is free and worth getting. Articles for iPad is the coolest way ever to read Wikipedia. The AP app and the USA Today app are awesome for news. Web browsing is really great. All of the big sites are making content for iPad. CNN is particularly good. I got Men's Fitness magazine on iPad. Very cool. Close to the printed version but with embedded video and other unique content through out. I'm really anxious to see the new Wired magazine on the iPad. Evenote for iPad is a killer app. Can't imagine not having that and the iPad version is as good or better than the Mac version. Bought Pages and Numbers but not Keynote. Haven't used them yet other than to show my mom how to sum a column of numbers, which was really intuitiv

I can see a lot of people understanding software on the iPad who don't function well in the same software on desktop computer

That's it for now. All of this was written on the iPad, landscape orientation, sitting in bed, using the WordPress app for iPad. Could just as easily have been a beach in Mexico if we weren't having a baby in another week...

=================== UPDATE: I did end up hooking up a wireless Apple keyboard to the iPad this morning. I can now feverishly type away on this thing as I would on any other computer. I did go back and edit the punctuation, etc. using this keyboard. The keyboard is pretty slick - the brightness keys work as do the volume keys and the Play/Pause button that starts iPod playback. Cut, copy, and paste keystrokes work as expected. I suspect there are other keystroke combos to be learned. Anyway, that's it.

I recently purchased a series of workout videos. They are just like any other workout video - you play the video and workout along with the people in the video. The catch is, I don't buy DVDs or video tapes these days - my videos are all downloaded from iTunes. That means I can play them on my computer, my iPhone, or Apple TV. Apple TV is perfect, but my Apple TV is upstairs in the living room attached to our television and is not able to be moved to the workout room. And I'm not going to do my sweat-inducing workout moves in the living. Carrying my laptop into the workout area and setting it on a bench is an option. However, I really need my laptop for work and it cost me almost $3,000. I prefer not to take it into areas where a stray weight can ruin my technology investment. The iPhone is perfect except for one thing: the screen is too small to watch the video while jumping up and down and actually doing the workout. Enter the iPad. With its accessory case, it can stand up on its own on a bench or table. If I drop a dumbbell on it, it's an unfortunate idiot move, but I'm only out $500 instead of $3,000. The screen is nice and large and easily viewable during the workout. This is, obviously, a home use scenario. I don't really see myself carrying an iPad into Gold's Gym, etc. Well, actually I do, but that's another article. The iPad is a great way to watch workout videos in your home gym.

I was watching the news while running on the treadmill this morning and saw a piece about how the last bookstore in Laredo, Texas is closing. I'm not surprised. Bookstores are going the way of the dodo. Don't get me wrong - I love books and I love bookstores. I grew up spending hours in bookstores as a kid. I own literally thousands of books. But the reality is that it is a lot easier to get a new book from Amazon than it is to take a drive off to a bookstore. I can read the reviews on Amazon and see what others think about a book. I can usually peruse the Table of Contents online and sometimes read an excerpt. With Amazon Prime shipping I can get 2-day delivery for free or overnight delivery for $3.99 per item. That's cheap. As a consultant used to billable time, it's really cheap compared to how long it would take to get into the car, drive to the bookstore, find the book, stand in line at the counter, check out, get back into the car, and drive home. No comparison, really. And this all becomes moot when it comes to digital media. Other than a couple of technical reference books, I haven't bought a real paper book in months. I've bought lots of books, but I've purchased them all in the Kindle digital format and I download them to the Kindle app on my iPhone. The small screen is kind of a nuisance but the reading is about the same and I can now carry thousands of books with me on a single device. Assuming the new table device from Apple is oriented towards books and reading, I suspect I'll never buy another paper book. And, thus, I would never need to set foot in a bookstore again.

I just added more AMZN and AAPL to my portfolio. Pretty sure Amazon had a huge holiday season. I'm also confident in that little "tablet" device Apple is probably showing off on Wednesday. Steve Jobs is reportedly quoted as saying the tablet is the most important thing he's ever done and that's he's extremely happy with it. If Jobs is really happy, that means the device is going to be something special. Both of these stock purchases are a 6-month to 1-year hold for me.

Well, the big news outlets haven't picked up on it yet but new (and existing) phone activations are completely and totally hosed up.  Every store in every country and every user at home is getting the same experience: no go on activation.  Apple maybe should have consulted with the guys who put on the Victoria's Secret Superbowl half time runway show about how to handle massive spikes in traffic.  Too late...gonna be a lot of unhappy people.

The iPhone 3G has launched!!!  There are lines of people everywhere waiting to buy their new iPhone.  Unfortunately, this time around things are going more slowly.  Activation of the phone must occur in the store before leaving so it is taking 10 minutes on the low end and 30 minutes on the high end to get a new phone. That's bad news in Chicago where humidity is over 60% now and temperatures are expected to top 93 degrees yielding a heat index of almost 105 degrees by this afternoon. Meanwhile, I downloaded and installed the new iPhone 2.0 OS on my existing iPhone this morning and immediately proceeded to lost all phone capabilities due to the iTunes Store being swamped with activations.  I have now been out of service for almost 2 hours.  And we're still a little over an hour away from launch in California! More as the day goes on.

I have been resisting the urge to spend any time using Twitter.  However, I have recently conceived of a few areas of my life where it might be interesting to do some real-time micro-posting.  So I'll be testing out the service over the next couple of weeks.  In particular, I am aiming to do some real-time posting from the WWDC next week.  I'll be arriving in San Fran on Sunday, leaving on Friday.  With all of the recent performance and scalability issues Twitter has been having lately, it will be telling whether or not they can handle what I expect to be significant load during the Jobs keynote on the 9th.  Anyway, more details inbound...

AT&T Purportedly Nixes Retail Employee Vacations Between June 15 and July 12: " Leaked memo states they wish to ensure sufficient staffing for ‘an exciting Summer Promotional Launch.’ They did the same thing last year for the original iPhone debut. So, question: Will there be tens of thousands of people across the country lined up all day waiting to buy the new iPhones, just like last year? I say yes. " (Via Daring Fireball.)

Vodafone to Offer Apple’s iPhone in Ten Markets: " On the newswire today:

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

Best press release I’ve seen in years. 56 words, short and to the point. No mention of exclusivity, so there’s speculation that other carriers will have the iPhone in these markets, too. " (Via Daring Fireball.)

I was talking to Primeaux today and was curious about how many CPU cores he has running in his household.  I believe he counted to 20.  Now, that's not surprising, considering he's a parallel and distributed kind of guy.  My own count, though, isn't far off.  2 cores for my MacBook Pro and 2 core for Ahu's MacBook Pro.  8 cores for the new Mac Pro.  2 more cores for the iMac in the kitchen.  1 core for the Windows box I still have hooked up in the basement in case my Mac isn't cooperating and I have a World of Warcraft raid to be in.  Right there, that's a total of 15 cores.  We haven't come to a conclusion yet with regard to whether the 9 cores in my Playstation 3 count or not.  Heh.