Here's your iPath to the iPad...iHope

AFTER DAYS OF hearing about it, and seeing pictures of frantic people lined up to buy it, I did what any curious postmodern human being would do and decided to find out what IT was. I'm talking about the iPad, or course, which has dominated our sensibilities like no other scientific breakthrough since we were told by astronomers that there is a mysterious substance (?) in the universe that nobody has been able to see so we'll just have to call whatever it is dark matter.

The science of electronics has always baffled me and it has gotten much worse since we started identifying every new gadget with a lower case i in front of an upper case consonant, which makes no sense at all to someone who took spelling in Mrs. Haney's class. Having long resigned in defeat to understanding iPhones and iPods, I took one more stab at learning what it is that so fascinates the iPad crowd for about $500 per.

Here's what Google told me:

"On the inside, Apple has given us a surprise. The device uses an Apple-designed chip it is calling the 'A4,' which runs at 1GHZ and is used for managing everything.: processing, graphics and I/O. The system has between 16 and 64GB of memory, contains Bluetooth and EDR wireless connectivity, has a speaker and microphone and also contains Apple's accelerometers, ambient light sensors and digital compass with assisted GPS technologies. There is a 30-pin connector for attaching the device to computers, but it also uses Bluetooth and Enhanced Data Rate technologies for fast wireless access up to 3Mbps."

It should be further noted:"

The system contains 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi options but also can directly tap into UMTS/HSDPA and GM/EDGE 3G wireless networks, and come unlocked and without any contract so if your wireless carriers uses GSM micro SIM, it should 'just work'..."

In a home where the coffee maker doesn't always work, I'm not convinced the iPad would have any chance of working. But I would still ask, what was the big Apple surprise?