Besides the thousands who dutifully lined up outside Apple stores across the United States last Saturday, most have been cautious to get behind the possibilities wrapped up in the 1.5 lb body of the iPad. While the iPhone was clearly revolutionary in what it did for the mobile phone market, the iPad’s worth is a bit hazier, but only at first glance.

Falling somewhere between an iTouch, laptop and e-reader, the gadget has picked up much of the same skepticism that surfaced after the mainstream debut of the netbook. Like netbooks, the iPad is not revolutionary in the applications it offers users. Laptops surf the web, play movies, provide directions and run games. iPhones and other smart phones allow these functions on the go, albeit on a smaller scale.

However, the iPad is revolutionary on an extremely important level — interactivity. While the iPhone pushed the development of simplified, mobile versions of websites, the iPad has the potential to inspire enormous advancements in the web we experience today via our laptops and desktops. As many have already said, the iPad is a tool for consuming, and that is about it. There is nothing wrong with this though, and Apple has produced a product that does it exceptionally well.

Imagine your average magazine. It’s glossy, colorful, filled with eye-catching designs and bright photos. It’s a design-dependant experience that tends to be lost on a computer screen or black-and-white Kindle. On the iPad though, this same magazine is a living, moving, full-screen experience that goes beyond what a paper magazine can do. Links, video and other perks of the web can be incorporated with the only loss being the feel of paper in your hands.

Developers are already buying into this interface that calls for a more feature-rich experience that is meant to be pinched, pushed, dragged and all-around tweaked to completely draw the user into the online world. It is this movement toward a more advanced web that means people should walk, but not run to buy an iPad. The iPad is not limited now by what it can do (though a webcam would not be a bad addition). It’s fast, clean and can perform a huge variety of tasks — a rare accomplishment for a first-generation device. Instead, a pre-web 4.0 Internet is in the way and until it is a reality, the iPad’s beautifully glossy touch screen will only be marginally better than a laptop screen.

However, price aside, I would not mind owning an iPad. To be fair, I have somewhat by chance become a member of the Apple cult. I own a 3G iPhone and a MacBook Pro circa 2007, both of which are among my most treasured possessions. Despite owning two of Apple’s gadgets, the iPad most clearly overlaps in function, though I still see a clear purpose in my life for the tablet.

Outside of using my laptop at the Herald and in class, I spend about three hours each day avidly reading my RSS feed and surfing the web. On weekends, I stream Netflix movies and catch up on TV, as my apartment does not have cable. Several times a year I travel home via bus to Minnesota or fly to California to visit family, laptop awkwardly in tow every minute of the trip for a bit of entertainment along the way. All of this is plain and simple consumption of media for which an iPad would serve me miles better. It would be a luxury, but a luxury I would use for hours each and every day.

So for now, feel free to be skeptical of the iPad. There are already more than 1,000 applications specifically designed for the iPad, and thousands more will appear in months to come. More sites will make the shift from Flash to HTML5, and magazines and newspapers will capitalize on an online interface finally suited to them. The iPad will be recognized as not just a shiny, pretty toy devoid of productive qualities that blends relatively well, but instead a device capable of providing a powerful user experience that brings people in contact with information in entirely new and useful ways.

Signe Brewster is a sophomore majoring in life sciences communication. If you have a topic you want to see addressed in Technologic or are willing to lend out your iPad for a day, e-mail her at [email protected].