Pardon me if the title came out sounding a little incongruous. But I'm trying to make a point that the current craze over tablets doesn't make much sense, even with (or you might say, especially with) the 450,000 iPads sold to date. Indeed, the fact that 300,000 are sold on day one--with most folks either making special trip just to queue up for one, or via pre-order, makes it clear that many are simply buying into the intense marketing hype.

Indeed, a mere week after its launch, news is trickling in of users who are returning their iPads, with the list including at least one avid Mac user as well. Macworld Senior Contributor Ben Long, who confessed that he didn't like the iPad, wrote a satirical piece on his first few days of experience with the device from an "undisclosed location"--for fear of a backlash from the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, no less.

The director of CITP and Freedom to Tinker blogger Ed Felten probably summed it best when he penned a blog titled "iPad: The Disneyland of Computers." He wrote, "To me, the iPad is Disneyland...I like to visit Disneyland, but I wouldn't want to live there." Of course, Felten was referring more to the closed ecosystem revolving around the iPad hardware and Apple's approach towards third-party software.

To me, the comparison of the iPad to Disneyland speaks to me of how Apple has once again successfully created an extraordinarily compelling, well-oiled user experience in the shape of products like its highly popular Mac computers, its line of iPod music players and of course, the iPhone. Like Disneyland, the iPad has stepped forward and is calling out to you to drop by the nearest Apple Store to pay it a visit.

In the meantime, the rest of the tech world are merely seen as attempting to follow in the footsteps of the tablet mania. They don't appear to be too successful yet, however. The other tablet device that has captured some measure of attention and news coverage in the past few months, the JooJoo appears to be beleaguered with usability and navigational issues. Computer maker Hewlett-Packard reacted quickly by unveiling its own Windows 7-based Slate tablet, though with no release dates yet.

So what are the 450,000 iPad owners going to do with the iPads that they were dazzled into buying? I won't be surprised if many of them are still trying to figure that out, though. Then again, does it really matter?

For one, I will probably find an excuse to get one myself when it finally arrives in Singapore, where I live. Surely, it won't be difficult to figure out some uses for the sleek hardware. In the meantime though, what exactly are you using your iPad for today? - Paul