Stories By Steve Palley

The first thing most of us ask ourselves when considering a new technology purchase involves the value proposition: how much will I enjoy using this thing, for how long, and for how much? A small fraction of consumers have unlimited resources, and they buy the newest and best because there's no reason not to. A larger fraction have a burning love for technology -- or a good use for it professionally -- and are more willing to sacrifice for it (Apple's target market). Everybody else might think that a new gadget is cool and can visualize how it might improve their lives…but they'd rather make rent this month. Amazon's Kindle Fire delivers the tablet computing revolution to "everybody else" and it does so with more style than you'd expect for a $199 tablet.

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Apple's Wireless Keyboard wasn't designed with the iPad in mind, but it readily teams up with the tablet to offer comfortable typing at maximum convenience. While we wish that it integrated into the iPad OS more thoroughly, it is a worthy buy for road warriors who want to use their iPads for serious correspondence and word processing.

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We have our winners!

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After sobering news of delays for the international iPad and the domestic 3G iPad, the still-padless have good reason to wonder what's going on. BusinessWeek thinks that it's found the answer: Apple may have hit a nasty production bottleneck on the iPad's trademark 9.7 inch touchscreen, which is apparently very difficult to manufacture.

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We associate the iPad with all kinds of neato capabilities like playing games, streaming Netflix, and reading magazines--all things that are fun, but not strictly necessary, to do on a new class of device. For some disabled people, however, the iPad is turning out to be a boon for more fundamental reasons.

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After several hours of hard judging--including multiple fistfights, an extended filibuster, and some choice schoolyard name-calling--we've got our winners for Padvance's iPad Case Design Contest! Inquire within to see which entry won the Grand Prize of a new iPad!

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And that is TIME! Thanks to everyone for your positively genius entries! Our judges will now deliberate to select the winning cases, which will be posted tomorrow.

Of the many sectors of society the iPad is supposed to revolutionize, print media has been the most loudly discussed. Newspapers, magazines, and journalism in general are all supposedly going the way of the Dodo; can the iPad do anything to staunch the bleed-out?

Time Magazine is one of the most prominent print institutions to throw its hat into the iPad ring so far. It's distributing its content a little differently than its competitors, too, by wrapping each weekly issue in its own $4.99 app (equivalent to the newsstand price). There is much to recommend Time's customized, high-quality approach--and it's certainly convenient to be able to download particular issues at a whim--but Time needs to offer a subscription service at a discount before it will really make sense for regular readers.

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Word on the street is that the iPad Keyboard Dock is in the Apple Store. Grant has picked up one of these babies and will have a review ready tomorrow; meanwhile, I'm going to see how the Apple Wireless Keyboard works when paired with the iPad.

Now that some sales data for the iPad is in the can, we can start to recognize some patterns in the new device's sales and use profile. According to a Toronto-based duo of iPad watchers--in an analysis that isn't likely to surprise many--the iPad has thus far enjoyed its greatest commercial successes in California and along the Eastern corridor centered around NYC. But there are a few major "bright spots" elsewhere in the U.S., too.

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One of the iPad's major selling points is its big, beautiful touchscreen. With the power of that screen, the most skillful iPad developers can put a window to another world in your hands, establishing a magical sort of connection that feels like so much more than a piece of software. That's exactly what Star Walk does--it opens up the doors to the universe, taking you on a very impressive astronomical tour of the night sky.

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One buzz-phrase that has often been applied to Apple, with no small amount of justification, is "disruptive change." This is a company that has made a business of turning entire industries upside down with a single big announcement. Whether it's wiping out feature phones, getting AT&T in a headlock, or backing the recording industry into a corner, Apple is the technology world's greatest iconoclast.

But the firm's principles of creative destruction apply internally as well as externally. Sometimes, as was the case today, we suddenly realize that Steve Jobs and Co. have been paying attention to the goings-on in their proprietary ecosystems after all.

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Hey, how'd you like to start training from age four to be a world-class concert pianist? It'll only take, say, an average of six hours of practice a day, 365 days a year, for your entire life. Doesn't appeal? No worries. Developer Smule's got your back with Magic Piano, a new app that'll turn your iPad into a somewhat psychedelic simulated Steinway.

Smule specializes in bringing music performance to the masses via clever software for the iDevice. While Ocarina, Leaf Trombone and I Am T-Pain were all smash hits, we don't think that Magic Piano's quite in the same class. But it is certainly a creative showcase of the iPad's touchscreen and audiovisual capabilities.

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We've got quick hands-on videos of five big iPad launch games after the jump: Tap Tap Radiation, Zen Bound 2, Flight Control HD, Real Racing HD, and Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies!

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Well, what do you know-- the UPS man finally came! In true tech nerd fashion, here's a quick video showing off the iPad's rather minimalist packaging.

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My iPad hasn't actually arrived yet. I just checked UPS Tracking, and apparently its last known location is Ontario, CA--50 miles east of my current location... quite a bit further away than my local Apple store. Such are the wages of sloth.

While I wait, I wonder--not for the first time--what am I actually going to do with this thing?

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