I had waited for this day for months (well since announcement day) and was ridiculously excited. The few days before I had already visited the App store on iTunes and downloaded some apps ready for when i got my iPad.

When I arrived at Bluewater Shopping Centre  just before 8am (store opening time) there was a fairly big queue, approximately 70 people. On approach I could hear screaming and yelling, when I got closer I could see it was the Apple staff inside the store, for a moment I thought I was in America! I made my way to the back, and stood in the queue for about 30 minutes while I consumed free Starbucks & finger food from Apple themselves. The picture below (taken from my iPhone) was when we were about half way through the queue.

When I finally made it to the front of the queue, I was introduced to my personal Apple representative and then taken to get my 64GB 3G iPad. Once I had collected the iPad, I was then taken to the accessories, where I chose to purchase Apples protective case. Once all my goodies were bagged up, I left the store and made my way home (I chose to activate at home, but was offered if i would like to do it in store).

On arriving home I dashed to turn on my Mac pro, opened my iPad box, and stared in awe at how amazing it was. Below are some pictures of me unwrapping my iPad.

Whilst it was syncing a message came up on the screen that said “Waiting for activation, this may take some time”. I believe it was because I had inserted the Micro Sim however the sim had not been activated, so it could therefore not activate. I simply ignored this message, waited for it to finish syncing and then played with it.

When I plugged my iPad in I decided to sync a few iPhone apps to see what the double pixeled apps were like. All the iPhone apps worked on the iPad, but of course it wasn’t as visually satisfying. Below is a screenshot of my iPad on the home screen.

Feel free to ask any questions you have about the iPad, and I will try to answer them for you.