The current generation of the iPad is a great device for doing many things.  In fact, I’ve noticed that it made me a lot more productive at several tasks I do regularly and after a couple of weeks using it I discovered that going back to the way I did them before was quite a bit of a pain.

I use the iPad for going through emails and tweets much faster than what I was able to do on a notebook or desktop computer.  The interface is just a lot more productive and the low cost of the of the applications have let me experiment and find the ones that are better suited to my own way of working.  I certainly like to read on the iPad.  In fact, the iPad is a great solution for reading all those PDFs you want to read, but don’t feel like sitting in front of a computer to read.

Through the months I have been following the iPad and how people use it,  I came to the conclusion that the iPad is a personal device.  It is not something you would want to share with other people.  That being the case, once you have one in your household, it will be just a matter of time before you start thinking about getting another, for someone else in the family.  With this in mind I feel comfortable in saying that if you see the possibility of using an iPad to become more productive now, to reduce the weight you carry around daily, you should definitely get one now.  If you can find a store that has the model you want, as supply is still having trouble with keeping up with the demand.

The second generation of the iPad, or iPad 2.0 as I have began calling it will most probably have a lot more memory and at least a front facing camera for FaceTime calls.  It will probably have one or two features you and I can’t even begin to think about, as Apple is always looking for new ways to cause an impact.

Just think that when it comes out, if you feel the irresistible urge to get a new model there will always be someone that will be happy to get your iPad 1.0.

The gestures that are implemented in the touchpad of Apple’s notebooks are already very close to what you have in an iPhone or iPad.  This makes it easy for users to use the same gestures to accomplish  similar results.

Apple put out a driver for the Trackpad through its software update today, and it adds some new functionality to the latest generations of MacBooks, allowing the user to have inertial scrolling, for example, on the notebook.  Inertial scrolling is one of the great features of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad lines.  Flicking your fingers up or down with different velocities you cause the target surface to move faster or slower.

If you look closely at the picture above you will notice that the design of the Magic Trackpad closely matches that of the Apple Wireless keyboard and the new device also works through a bluetooth interface and is powered by a pair of AA batteries, just like the current generation of the Apple Wireless Keyboard.

This is one more step that Apple is taking to help get its users into the habit of using touch controls and get more and more developers used to the idea that they should attempt to take advantage of multi-touch based gestures in the creation of their OS X applications.

This is one more small step on the road to the future unification of iOS 4 and OS X.

It the seems that the regulation indicates that copyright considerations cannot be used to prevent users from installing non-approved applications on their own devices.  This regulation just begs the question if it can be extended to include the iPod Touch and the iPad.  After all, an iPod is just an iPhone without the phone and the iPad is just a big iPod.

According to LG the supply of iPad displays will continue to be tight until early 2011.  Back in March news came out that Apple had contracted with Samsung for 3 million LCD panels for the iPad in addition to 10 million that had been ordered from LG.  It is possible that Apple might again turn to Samsung in order to get additional displays if LG can’t increase production to meet current demand levels.

One has to wonder, however, from where will come displays for possible competing tablet devices is Apple is busy buying all that can be made by some of the industry’s largest manufacturers.  It is quite possible that the iPad’s success will hurt its competition indirectly as much as by its huge user approval rates.

Supply of small LCD displays might end up being a critical bottleneck for other companies looking to bring new products to market in order to compete with the iPad.

In Hong Kong many people coming into stores to try to get a shiny new iPad were disappointed in finding that the best they could do was to put their names into multi-page waiting lists.  It seems that Apple’s Hong Kong resellers have no issues with people who want to buy large quantities of iPads, as they don’t seem to have problems in dispatching batches of iPads to neighboring countries in which the iPad isn’t yet available.

As described in a post on one of the Wall Street Journal’s blogs, a Hong Kong reseller is shipping large batches of iPads for sale in other regions of mainland China and Vietnam, where the device hasn’t yet been made officially available.  This has left no iPads for the locals coming into the stores to purchase them just as they were released. Those who leave their names in waiting lists will have to wait quite a bit for the chance to get an iPad as that same store, for example, doesn’t expect to have any more iPads available for several weeks.

In New Zealand there was some confusion as to where the iPad would be available as it seems that the local Apple office didn’t make any information available.  It seems that it wasn’t clear even in what cities there would be resellers carrying the iPad and in the end it turned out that it was available only the following cities: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown, despite the general expectation that it would be available nationwide.

This general lack of information made for small lines in the shops that were carrying the iPad.  From the descriptions I have been able to find so far, New Zealand might have had the slowest iPad launch to date.

This problem should give you an indication of just how interesting a concept Flipboard really is.  In short, Flipboard collects information from your Twitter and Facebook (other Social Networks may be supported) feeds and uses it to bring all the links your friends are sharing into your iPad in a Magazine-like layout.   When you think about it, it sounds pretty interesting as you get a much more enticing presentation of the shared information than you do with pretty much any other application or interface I’ve seen before.

The App collects the articles, posts and photos your friends have shared allowing you to see them in a magazine-like interface that provides the social features you expect on the web such as “liking” a specific item or sharing it with your own followers.

I’ve embedded the demo video to give you an idea of how the application works and what it looks like.  I think that most will agree that is worth getting the free application to try it out in person, when they manage to overcome the capacity issue.

It seems obvious that the folks at Flipboard underestimated the interest their application would draw. I hope they can iron out the capability issues soon as the concept is nothing short of brilliant, and they are going to have people coming in from all sides to try out the application.

Apple has been making efforts to increase the production of iPads, but as the device becomes available in new markets the general availability remains constraint.  At most locations, it is very difficult to find the exact model you are looking for, as the lower cost models sell just as soon as they arrive, with stores making lists of interested customers to be notified on availability.

Apple’s results also showed that iPad sales are not having a negative effect on Mac sales.  Sales of both desktop and notebook Macs was significantly up from the same quarter of 2009 and were also up from the previous quarter.  At the same time general sales of netb0oks has significantly decelerated which would seem to indicate they are being significantly affected by the iPad.

I suspect that the iPad’s huge sales success may be impacting the sales of netbooks indirectly, in addition to the sales which were not realized because the consumer purchased an iPad.  As more companies move to announce their intention of releasing tablets, the certainty that there will be more choice in this market in the near future, might be causing some to wait until those options are available and can be compared to the iPad and existing netbook options.

The tasks that people generally accomplish with an iPad, such as using email, doing Web browsing and consuming media can generally be done with the low-end notebooks and desktops and the sales of these models is certain to take a beating over the next quarters.  This, however, will probably have little effect on Apple as Macs tend to be high-end computers and as such are less likely to be replaced by an iPad or competing tablets.

During the conference call there was mention that Apple still had  amazing products to release during this year.  In general, from the regular pattern of release that Apple has adhered to over the past three years we should expect a refresh of the iPod line soon, probably with a new iPod Touch based on the current iPhone 4 design and feature set and a additional updates to the Mac Pro and iMac product lines.

Of course, if sales do as well as in these areas as elsewhere you might have to be alert to catch an iPad on the store shelves.  At many locations it is still hard to just walk into an Apple store and find the exact model you are looking for.  At several locations only the most expensive 64GB 3g model can be found.

The iPad update includes updates to wireless connectivity, a fix for a problem that could cause video playback to freeze and other small fixes.  This update also adds Bing as a search option in Safari.

It is not recent news that Apple has experimented with adding a camera to the iPod Touch in the past.  A couple of prototypes of a third generation iPod Touch with a camera have surfaced in the past several months.

Steve Jobs himself, in his keynote at WWDC 2010,  mentioned that Apple expected to sell tens of millions of FaceTime devices.  We must therefore assume either the iPod Touch, the iPad or both will get FaceTime support in the not too distant future.  As I don’t really expect to see a new iPad announced before January it seems likely that 2010 is really the year in which the iPod Touch will finally get a camera.

While the Boy Genius suggests that FaceTime will use an Apple ID for user identification, the screenshots show only mention an email so it might be possible that it accept an email that is not tied to an Apple ID as your FaceTime “number”.  On the iPhone FaceTime makes use of the actual phone number of the person you want to call, but on the iPad and iPod Touch there is no phone number so another solution for identifying the person you want to call.

Using email addresses is a good idea as just about anyone with an iPod, iPad will have an email account and anyone tha doesn’t can always get one free.  This identification method could also be used to allow users with Macs to share in all the FaceTime video calling network as all iMacs and MacBooks are equipped with cameras.