The reviews are starting to trickle in. The big boys, Pogue, Mossberg, my beloved Stephen Fry, and the like dove head-first into their iPads, and now here they emerge, sopping wet with touchable kisses. The general verdict seems to be that this thing is going to change the world, albeit with a few easily surmountable limitations given the overall experience.

While Fry’s Time Magazine review, or preview, or whatever you want to call it, was easily my favorite, Pogue’s is especially interesting because he addresses his thoughts toward two audiences: the techies, and the rest of us. The techies, he says, seem bent on hating the thing. No flash? No multitasking? A manufacturing slot perfect for a camera, yet no camera? On the other hand, the rest of us seem to love it.

Now I consider myself as techie as it gets, and I think the main issue from this perspective is the focus on the bells and whistles as opposed to how we actually consume information, be it via laptop, desktop, or the printed page. For me, Flash is not a big deal. I don’t watch much TV, don’t play any Flash-based games for more than the initial oh, that’s cute (which typically lasts five minutes), and, however rude, I pretty much never click on those forwarded things people send me.

Occasionally, however, there will be something really neat that pops up in Google Reader via iPhone, and when I tap through, I get that obnoxious blue Lego. And when that happens, maybe twice per month, I just wait until I get in front of the computer, if I haven’t forgotten about it yet — which is precisely how I feel about most Flash content. No offense.

At the same time, I realize my consumption of Flash content is kind of atypical for a supposed techie. The streaming stuff, Hulu, Netflix, and so on, does seem important, and indeed I enjoy a bit of it now and then as well. But with the recent news that both Hulu and Netflix, as well as CBS and ABC, either converting [some of] their streams to HTML 5, or creating full-blown iPad-compatible apps, it seems like less of an issue. The same goes for the major news outlets: the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others, are all creating compatible content. With the possible exception of Google helping Flash along with its deep integration into the Chrome OS and browser, and even with Adobe’s ironic decision to feature the near-automatic generation of iPhone OS-compatible apps from Flash CS5 content, I can’t help but think that the plug-in is becoming unnecessary for the majority — unless you’re in online education, where Flash-based courses would be AWESOME on the iPad.

On the other hand, the lack of third-party multitasking — something supposedly addressed via an Exposé-like interface in OS 4.0 — has been a pain in the ass. Obvious ones include Pandora and Meebo. Less obvious is having to exit Safari to complete a task, only to return and have to sit there while it inexplicably reloads its bloody content (more a memory issue, but often made apparent by the need to exit Safari). In those instances, I’d love to have multitasking. But, if the trade-off is stability, major reduction in performance, and/or a less seamless experience, well, for the most part notifications will do.

The one thing that really bothers me, though, is the lack of a camera. When iPad was announced, it was my first comment, and the first thing that made me say, oh, I’ll definitely wait until the second generation. I like videoconferencing quite a bit, and use it when the other end is equally comfortable with it. For some reason, being able to hold the conference in my hands seemed like such a cool thing, like carrying around a talking head in a jar from Futurama, like the people I speak with on a regular basis are so important that the world would have them preserved, forever, in this touchable interface.

Then I realized not many other people care, and Chatroulette (which isn’t compatible anyway) notwithstanding, video chatting is at least a two-way street. So, I’m willing to wait — but not long enough not to very, very much want a first-gen unit.

Indeed, over the last two months I’ve rationalized these apparent limitations and deeply observed the way I consume content in general. Do I really need this device? was the question. And while the answer is an obvious no in that none of us really need any of these things, I came to the following humble conclusion: this device is pretty much perfect for me, where the “pretty much” concerns itself mainly with the ability to type quickly and comfortably on it.

What I do on the computer, despite my perpetual wish for the latest, greatest beast of a blazing fast monster of a compact, lightweight, ceaseless battery of a device, is pared down to the following (in order of frequency):

• Reading. I read incessantly and consume information like Toyota consumes NASA’s free time. I subscribe to nearly 200 feeds from all categories amounting thousands of posts per day, have the Kindle app on both my iPhone and now my MacBook, and love books with all my heart.
• Music. Listening via Lala (please, Apple, integrate it into 4.0!!!), Pandora, and my iTunes collection. I’m a music nut and always, always have it playing in the background. It’s playing now.
• Writing. This one is obvious to those who know me, and probably makes perfect sense to those who don’t. I love to write as much as I love to read, to the point of spending as much unpaid free time on it as possible. Would that money could be had, ladies and gents, would that it could; but for now, I’ll keep on trucking.
• Email, chatting, iWork, photo transferring, viewing and light editing, and generic web surfing. Lots of email, limited surfing of the web outside the Reading category, and I take tons of photos. When I’m not writing (usually via Scrivener or Final Draft, sometimes via Pages), I use iWork for projects like editing, tracking, etc. Some of these are even paid!
• Photo and video editing. Though these are more 1%-type situations, they’re a misnomer because I’d do a lot more of them were my MacBook (and finances) a bit more capable. Well, for the photo part, it’s not so much of an issue. I run Aperture and Photoshop marginally well on my late-2006 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo model, but heaven forbid I run the latest iMovie, let alone FCP (which technically can’t even run off of native Intel graphics). Some renders I’ve done have taken entire days, and I pretty much want to kill myself every time I need to use iDVD. Were I being paid for dealing with these issues, that would be one thing — not to mention that I’d probably have the gear to suit — but I’m not, so I put those creative pursuits on the back burner, which sucks.
• Recording music. GarageBand, as it’s obviously less graphics-intensive, runs much better on my computer than do Aperture or iMovie. Still, this is a 1% type thing because, well, I’m not so good at coming up with music. I can play the guitar and drums just fine, but I’m really just a robot designed, it seems, for reading tabs or sort of keeping a beat. In the future, I’d like to do more podcasting, too. Plans are always had, but rarely moved forward for whatever reason, namely laziness.
• The occasional game. I do most of my gaming on a PS3, Wii, and my iPhone. On the MacBook, it’s generally Chess that I play.

Looking at this list, I have come to the pretty solid conclusion about how the iPad will fit into my lifestyle, and it involves possibly getting rid of two things I never thought I’d part with, my MacBook and iPhone, in lieu of two other things I never thought, or until recently even knew, I wanted, a desktop, and an iPad.

The way I look at it is this. The majority of what I do on the computer, which is consume, is catered to perfectly by the iPad. For those instances where I need more horsepower, or even just a more opportune place to write, an iMac would suit me perfectly (Core i5 or above, preferably with 8GB of RAM). It also relieves me of the awkwardness of carrying around a comparatively bulky MacBook in lieu of the svelte iPad, which I wouldn’t mind having with me.

The question then becomes, well, if I’m going to have an iPad with me all the time, do I need an iPhone? In truth, the answer is no, but in practice it’s hard to say. The beauty of the iPhone is a combination true portability, meaning it always fits in my pocket, and the fact that it’s constantly connected in a useful way (e.g. – Safari actually works for viewing most web content, completing on-the-go research tasks, and the like). Oh, it’s also a phone.

Do I really see myself whipping out an iPad for every conceivable reason I would an iPhone? Probably not, probably due to its relative unwieldiness. Still, this presents a bit of a pickle with the new iPhone rumored for July, and the fact that dollars are relatively sparse, especially when it comes to fancy shit that I, again, truly don’t need at the core.

So here’s the plan. I’m not going to get an iPad just yet (not being able to afford one helps too). I’m going to be patient and wait until the new iPhone releases to see just how mind-blowing it is, if it is. Will it really have a front-facing camera? Will it really be an A4-based screamer? More memory? A nicer screen? HD video? 802.11N? Longer battery life? A new design? More touchable? Well, if it’s all those things, plus a slew of OS 4.0 improvements as well, then maybe I won’t get an iPad after all. I’ll just upgrade from my 3G (skipped the 3GS).

However, if the new iPhone doesn’t blow my mind, I’ll likely do the unthinkable and get rid of my iPhone in lieu of a genericdumbphone and justify the purchase of an iPad by the phone bill savings. In the meantime, I’ll also be saving up for an iMac and prepping my MacBook for resale, while hoping for the perfect circumstances (lotto, published book?) that instead allow me to keep all my beloved toys while being able to afford them.

Update: The Netflix app is indeed live! (iPad-only)