iPad, iPod, iTouch.. iTampon, iSlate?

The rave of Apple's new "iPad" has rippled waves of discussion across blogs and even twitter. What is your first impression if you didn't know that "iPad" was sold by Apple? A bed? possibly even a tampon sold at the supermarket? Well, that's the impression that critics have said that it has gave them when they first heard about it. Now even jokes such as " "The mocking goes along the lines of: Yes, the iPad is small, lightweight and slim. But can you swim with it?" wrote the Los Angeles Times' tech blog."

Its feminine-like name has started a trend on twitter: "The term iTampon -- a riff on the fact that the iPad can be taken to sound more like a maxipad than a slick new computer -- was the third most-talked about trend on Twitter on Wednesday evening."

The name "iSlate" for the now-called iPad was debated but dropped since it would have protrayed the new product as a very heavy product rather than the 1.5 pounds it actually weighs. The term "slate" would have also made it sound like a very ancient product (which the iPad clearly is the opposite of). " 'Slate is a little bit 'Flintstones,' said Stephen Hutcheon, an editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, a newspaper in Australia."

Apple's new product boasts its biggest touch screen technology ever created by Apple. It even has a keyboard integrated that appears when it senses an input field. Personally, it seems that the iPad is just a massive iPod Touch with more tweaks here and there. But it does beat having to constantly adjust the size of text and pictures to capture every detail on an iPod Touch. But with nearly 140,000 applications for the iPad, who wouldn't want one?