The iPad is coming!

The iPad is coming!  The iPad is coming!  If you ordered your iPad early, you can pick it up at the Apple Store this Saturday.  Or if you asked for it to be shipped directly to you, I've seen several reports of units being shipped out of China a few days ago, so they should be in your hands soon.  If you just show up at an Apple Store this Saturday, I suspect that you'll find them out of stock, but most Best Buy stores are supposed to get a few units so you might have better luck there.

There was much coverage of the iPad earlier this week.  Brad Stone of the New York Times wondered whether the iPad could live up to the hype.  Adding to that hype, in the cover story on this week's Newsweek, Dan Lyons said that the iPad could change everything.  And Josh Topolsky of Engadget posted a comprehensive preview.

But now some of the real reviews are in.  Apple sent several reviewers their very own iPads about a week ago, and around 9pm Central last night, Apple lifted its embargo and allowed those reviewers to talk about the iPad.  The initial reviews have been glowing.  Here are the ones that I have seen so far:

• David Pogue of the New York Times
• Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal
• Andy Ihnatko of The Chicago Sun-Times, with additional articles 1, 2, 3 and 4.  Also, Ihnatko is posting videos to his YouTube page.
• Ed Baig of USA Today
• Tim Gideon of PC Magazine
• Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing
• Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus of the Houston Chronicle
• Omar Wasow of The Root
• Also, last night, MacBreak Weekly episode 188 was recorded with Andy Ihnatko showing off his iPad and Alex Lindsay asking questions.  I watched it live on TWiT Live, and when it is posted online, you will find it here as well as in iTunes.

If you want to learn more about what the different built-in apps on the iPad look like, earlier this week Apple posted Guided Tours of several of the apps.

Because the iPad runs the iPhone OS, I plan to include some discussion of the iPad on iPhone J.D.  But if you want even more iPad news for lawyers, I recommend two websites.  First, Tablet Legal.  This was the first website dedicated to the use of iPads by lawyers.  Josh Barrett has been doing a great job with this site, and I'm sure it's going to get even better once he gets his iPad.  For example, here is a great article on the great expectations for legal apps on the iPad.

Second, I am looking forward to The iPad Lawyer.  Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer fame announced at ABA TECHSHOW during a presentation that we gave together that he will debut The iPad Lawyer very soon; for now, the site just redirects to The Mac Lawyer.  Ben told me that he ordered a 64 GB iPad (the non-3G model).

But of course, all of the regular legal technology sites are likely to be flush with iPad coverage, especially over the next few days and weeks.  One recent example worth noting is this article by Randall Ryder of The Lawyerist explaining how the iPad would be useful during meetings with clients.