As I write this, I am sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my next connecting flight. A fitting scene as I review the latest technological development from Apple. It didn’t take long for the stares to begin as I began writing this column on the new iPad. I can even hear whispers, “that’s that new iPad thing, cool!”

Yes it is cool. My pad arrived Saturday morning after a strategically timed four day trip from China. Out of the box I immediately noticed the sleekness of the device. Relatively lightweight, just over a pound, my impression was that it was indeed, a large iPhone.

Once you plug the iPad into iTunes and register, it is ready to use. I synched my existing iPhone apps – Facebook, Sling, Tweetdeck, and FourSquare. All worked as expected, though because they were all built for the iPhone the image size was smaller on the screen. Apple gets by that with a 2x button to enlarge the image.

Next it was on to setting up my wifi networks. Without an internet connection the iPad loses most of its coolness. The setup is the same as with an iPhone.   I set up two networks one for home and one with my Sprint Overdrive 3G/4G mobile wifi. The speed of the iPad is something you notice. It is fast and nimble, though like the iPhone, only runs one app at a time. I chose the wifi model only because 3G speed will soon be a thing of the past, and my portable wifi solves that problem.

My next venture was to the Apple App Store. Already there are 3,000 apps built specifically for the iPad. This is where the power of the iPad starts shining through. You soon realize the device is merely a platform for bigger things to come. I download Apples Office Suite – Pages, Keynote and Numbers, $9.99 each. I use these each day in my travels and it was comforting to find them here. A connector to the charging port will allow me to run presentations from the iPad, rather than from my larger laptop, and controllable remotely from my iPhone. Amazing how Apple thinks of these things!

But back to the apps. The New York Times has done its homework. It is easy to see how the print industry will benefit from the pad. They didn’t build their content like a traditional web page. The app is clean, built like a newspaper, easy to navigate and includes inline ads and sponsor splash pages. The ability to navigate among the content is refreshing. There is no clutter.  Photo galleries and article sharing options are included. There is video embedded in the site, but I had a problem with the stream playing uninterrupted on a clip from this morning “Today Show”.

As I mentioned the power of the iPad is the apps. Need a field teleprompter or just one for an upcoming speech? There is an app for that. PrompterPad gets it done for $4.99. It has adjustable font sizes and colors, bidirectional adjustable scroll speed and a timer. You can even control it via iPhone. Compare that to the old school field prompter costing thousands of dollars and you begin getting the sense of what this thing can do. Teleprompter+ for iPad and ProPrompter gets it done for $9.99.

Video on the iPad is HD quality and easily viewable outside. iTunes sells and rents the latest releases in movies, but Netflix is lining up to be the next killer app. The free download allows for instant viewing of online movies for no additional fee if you subscribe to their regular monthly service, as low as $5. Could this be the next model for local broadcasters?

The iPad is the game changer it is billed to be. As other companies roll out their version of pad devices — the HP Slate is already on the way — consumers will be introduced to yet another platform for content. It is all about portable from this point forward. Stations will be smart to develop IP delivered content for this emerging technology. Put it on your radar.

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