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Apple has confirmed that the launch of the iPad touch screen tablet has been set to late May. The disappointing news will certainly upset plenty of folks across the world as the launch of the device in the US has shown how useful a gadget the tablet can truly be. With its many features and impressive hardware, it comes as to no surprise that the iPad is one of the most sought after devices of this year.

What is surprising however, is Apple’s lack of foresight in terms of keeping up with public demand. Despite the many rumors before that Apple will be manufacturing these devices in the millions before the April launch; it seems that they did not expect the iPad to be this big of a hit.

Many Apple fans are disappointed as this is the first time that the Cupertino based company has delayed the launch of a major device. Considering Apple’s great track record with the iPhone and the iPod series, this 1 month delay comes as a big letdown.

In any case, the launch delay has not bogged down talks for the distribution of the Tablet in the UK as Vodafone and couple of other mobile network operators has announced that they will have the device on stock and ready soon enough.

While waiting for late May might not sound like it is much fun, the iPad is well worth the trouble. The slim ten inch device comes with a very glossy touch screen display (which sadly ends up with a very bad glare in daylight) and a high speed processor. Thanks to the accelerometer, users can choose between portrait and landscape orientation in real time.

Read the rest of the article and more about the delay in the launch of the iPad at the Wall Street Journal.

The big confusion into what the Apple iPad truly is has led many people to actually believe that the device is meant to be some sort of a touch screen version of a laptop or a netbook. This assumption however, is very wrong.

Despite that fact that both the iPad and the netbook share similar features such as web browsing, playing games, video and music playback and more, the two devices are actually quite different from each other. What the iPad does is provide people with a new means to access media content faster and easier without having to rely on laptops and other devices. The iPad however cannot handle large scale content processing such as big documents and spreadsheets. That is a function that laptops are meant to do.

Still, this does not mean that the iPad is a bad product. What it does, it does very well. Given that the Apple tablet does not support Flash, the experience of using the internet is still very exciting when using the touch screen user interface. The pick up and play nature of the iPad makes it very encouraging to rely on web access for information that would have had you picking up the morning paper instead.

Aside from the above features, the Apple iPad also serves as an impressive eBook reading device. While many who are used to the Amazon Kindle might feel that the iPad is too big or too bright (the glare on the screen in bad lighting conditions is really a major drawback), those who are just transitioning from real books to digital content will find the iPad’s visually pleasing interface a more natural transition than having to face the cold hard walls of text on the monochromatic Kindle screen.

Read more about how the Apple iPad is being used by laptop owners at Network Computing.

You may not think that it is a big deal, but when you see the vast difference of the eBook reader layout with the old black and white screen of the Kindle, it takes very little further convincing to realize how much of a improvement the Apple iPad truly is.

The biggest problem that eBook users had with the Amazon Kindle was that the technology was literally taking them away from the book experience. Many people who are Kindle readers have actual book collections that they have enjoyed reading, while it may seem silly, there is a certain charm to holding a book by its spine and flipping its pages as you read.

The Kindle on the other hand presents books in a completely digital format: pure text. While users can add notes, comments, and even highlight or bookmark specific portions of the literary content, much of the charm that using a book has is lost on the Kindle.

The Apple iPad however, retains all the goodness of real books. Many users have seen the impressive landscape more view of the iPad eReader. This allows users to see a virtual book in a two page spread layout. There is even that crease in the center that divides the two pages as well as a view of the many book pages on the edges. The iPad presents eBooks in a virtual book fashion, allowing users to feel as if they have a digitized book which they can flip open and read –unlike the giant wall of text on the Kindle.

Of course, the iPad easily outmatches the Kindle in terms of specs –but that is simply a given advantage as the iPad is a tablet and not just a reader.

Read more about the difference of reading an eBook on the Kindle and on the iPad at the LA Times.

The Apple iPad had quite the successful launch April 3. According to the folks at Cupertino, stores managed to sell about 450,000 iPad units since the first day. That number counts all the folks who walked up to the stores and bought devices right on the spot as well as those who pre-ordered their tablets earlier.

The iPad is a standalone touch screen tablet. It has a 1GHz A4 processor which enables the iPad to launch and run applications without breaking a sweat. Early buyers are complaining that the device’s limited internal memory is hard to deal with (as transferring files is limited to connecting directly to a computer –the iPad does not support USB devices), though simply using the device for casual browsing and book reading seems the be the best use of the gadget.

According to buyers, the touch screen user interface turns the web into an easy to grasp concept for both children and people who are too old to understand logic behind a mouse and a keyboard. The iPad’s pick up and use nature also makes it as accessible as the morning newspaper or a monthly magazine, encouraging internet access even more.

Of course, the device has its own share of flaws. The current operating system still lacks support for multitasking which means that running more than one app is impossible According to reports the next iPad OS update may start offering the feature.

Also, the device lacks support for viewing Adobe Flash on websites which has rendered some URLs inoperable. While some apps such as the one for YouTube circumvent this problem, it is still a major issue among Apple users. Steve Jobs has confirmed that the iPad will never support Flash and will instead support HTML5.

Read more about the sales of the iPad at Pocket Lint.