Hardware there, software not quite there yet

I LOVE my iPad. I have found that it is great for short business trips, vacations and the like. What I didn't expect, but love is that it's also great for the kitchen! (family calendar, recipe file, weather, listening to NPR while I cook, etc, etc). I've taken to putting it in a dock in the kitchen while I'm not using it on a trip or in the evening. It's a great 'appliance' in my kitchen. And the battery life is nothing short of amazing. I got stuck in Denver last week on a business trip due to weather. My chargers were in my check in luggage. I was in Denver (enroute to DC) for 24 hours, the iPad lasted through three 2-hour movies, two 2hr TV shows, tons and tons of emails and even a couple hours of editing business documents. I estimate a solid 12 hours of actual use one charge.. and it still had 20% charge left. But why Good and not Excellent. The hard ware is there, it's excellent for travel and home use, maybe even business. It could replace my laptop. But the software isn't "there" yet. The OS NEEDS multitasking and a few other tweaks and features to make it useful for business travel or even just to make it a good family kitchen appliance. It needs this and some other things to make it 'there'. And the iPad-specific apps are seriously lacking to date. Yes, you can use iPhone apps. but why? they are small and built for that tiny screen. They feel pretty useless on an iPad. Yet, there are SO many apps that COULD be done on the iPad that don't exist yet, or are on the iPhone but would be much much better on the iPad.. and they aren't there yet. For example, there are some decent recipe apps, but all just not really 'there'. They have keynote and pages, but they aren't 'there' yet either. So much potential.. and not quite there. The good news is that the OS is supposed to upgrade this fall, and the apps are coming and getting better. My advice is GET AN iPad.. you'll find it's much much more useful than you ever thought, and will be finding uses you didn't know you had. BUT.. wait till fall when the software (OS and apps) catches up to the hardware's potential.Read full review