One of my favorite away from work activities is playing with technology. I inherited this bizarre geeky love from my father and know that I’m passing it along to my kids.

My wife was in shock but I laughed out loud (LOL to you texters) when my 9-year old son said last week, “Mom – I’ve decided to skip on an iPod Touch and hold out for an iPad.”

And that is the point of this post. Almost everyone has seen the iPad. 1,000,000 have been purchased. But if you haven’t played with one, you haven’t seen the future of computers, gaming, entertainment and information sharing. You are missing out. Really.

For those of you out there looking at one for either work or home, here are 8 things that made me excited about the potential of the iPad:

• Its size. At less than two pounds and about the width of a magazine, it can’t be beat
• The screen. The screen is crisp and clear making it great for everything from reading a paper, spreadsheet, presentation or watching a game and playing a movie
• Ability to work like a computer. With many of the apps available, you can do everything from word processing and spreadsheets to presentations (i.e. PowerPoint) right from an iPad
• Social media. Every major social media tool has an iPad app, and most if not all others are in the works to provide one. You can do everything in social media including managing a blog from an iPad to instant messaging and chat
• E-mail. The e-mail app has a great interface and makes reading documents and replying on the run very easy
• News. All of those mobile news sites that were just too big to easily browse on a Smartphone are easily read on the iPad
• Gaming. The games on the iPad are outstanding and utilize the motion controls familiar to those with an iPhone or iPod Touch
• App Store. The App Store has long been considered a key part of Apple’s strength in the mobile device market. If you’ve heard that or experienced it, think of the App Store for the iPad as everything that was there on steroids. The iPad screen and processing speed have created a market for incredible programs that can do almost anything that you’d want

My son may not have known it, but I would have said the same thing. The iPad is truly revolutionary and has already made many of the things that I want and need to do both personally and professionally easier and more fun along the way. And for him and others, it is one heck of a cool toy.

Anyone out there care to share their own thoughts? Want my list of best iPad apps?

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