There are already lots of reviews talking about the iPad’s features, so I want to start mine by addressing the most common criticism: that the iPad is just a great big iPhone. Even if that were all it is, I think detractors have forgotten how radically the iPhone changed the world of mobile computing. Many tasks are easier to accomplish on the iPhone than on a desktop or laptop computer. For example, perusing music is quicker—and more fun, really—using my iPhone as a remote control for iTunes or just listening in iPod mode. (It’s like using a jukebox; remember how much fun that was?)

Sites like Facebook offer much cleaner interfaces on the iPhone. Web browsing in general is made richer and more intuitive by the Multi-Touch™ capability of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. You can double-tap to zoom in on a column or use pinching movements to open and close or zoom in and out.

Many iPhone apps, such as Yelp and AroundMe, are location-aware, which means that the iPhone can not only tell you where you are, but it can supply information tailored to your location. The Safari browser, for example, in combination with Google’s location awareness, customizes your Google searches to your location.

The iPhone’s touch screen and accelerometers created entirely new ways of interacting with a mobile device. Among other innovations, these features have led to some ingenious new games. One of my favorites is Spider. Check it out.

New devices and new features often lead to entirely new ways to interact. I, for one, want to see more!

Now back to the iPad itself. At $499, I think it’s a game-changer. It’s an e‑book reader, a web browser, a photo frame, a jukebox, a movie player, and a remote control. And that’s just at launch time. Wait until developers get hold of it! Imagine it as an interface for your security system, your home theater, your new car. Imagine new features for magazines, newspapers, or textbooks. Apple has a track record of creating beautiful, elegant devices and giving developers great tools, which they then use to innovate all sorts of wonderful things that the rest of us haven’t even dreamed of yet.

Compare the Amazon’s Kindle: it sells for $489, and all that gets you is e‑books on a black-and-white screen. The iPad offers full color on a great screen with terrific off-axis viewing, plus audio, video, and more interaction. Imagine downloading updated content for your e‑book in the form of an interview with the author! Don’t get me wrong, the Kindle is a nice device that will have a place in the market—after they cut the price. But the iPad is going to offer a lot more function.

The interface is a version of the iPhone OS, a sort of hybrid between the iPhone and Mac OS X. Like an iPhone, there’s no file structure or navigating. If you’re familiar with the iPhone or iPod Touch, you’ll already know how to use the iPad. And nearly all of your current iPhone apps will work on the iPad—just super-sized, if you like. (That’s a real plus for older eyes who find the iPhone screen too small—and you know who you are.)

But as vendors update their apps to accommodate the larger screen, they’ll add more functions to the main screens. And new apps. And entirely new ways of putting this exciting device to work. We’ll have to wait and see.

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Customers can pre-order now for delivery on Friday, or visit an Apple retail store or Apple Authorized Reseller on Friday. As soon as we get a chance to test-drive Snow Leopard, we’ll post a review here.

Read the full story at Ars Technica.

Check out posts in the Mac 101 category, which are especially geared toward “new and novice” Mac users.

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