By Chris Nguyen
Features Editor

I have seen (and held and touched and tapped) the future and oh, it is beautiful.

It’s Apple’s iPad. And I promise it’s amazing, and this is coming from a former skeptic.

On the release date for Apple’s iPad, April 3, I drove to the Apple store at The Shops at Willow Bend in Plano to understand the Apple cult, an interesting group of dedicated followers that will go to great lengths to wait for something that is not a Boy Wizard, four women navigating their love life in New York City, Luke Skywalker or a vampire-loving teen.

I came in minutes before the 9 a.m. release date and found myself surprised at the crowd. I had braced myself for a bunch of people, but it was still jarring to see men in khaki shorts and boat shoes and women in sweatshirts and no make-up past the age of obsession to be standing one after another. But more than that was the utter lack of enthusiasm. As the Apple employees opened the doors and counted down, the buzz picked up a bit to what could be called as hot as polar bear in a bikini.

And my perspective didn’t change once I talked to some of the people in the line. Numerous people ignored my interview requests. As for those who graciously let me talk to them, they were either listless or refined in their love of Apple.

“This time I going for the larger one,” Dallas resident Tom Grugal said. “I’m excited for true mobile computing. I’m a doctor so I can take this with me to hospitals, emergency rooms or offices and have a true mobile computing without having to lug around a laptop.”

Other waiting customers described what they would use the iPad for.

“We all have iPhones,” Fort Worth resident Alexa DiMaggio said. “We have three people in my family, but more iPhones, but we heard about the iPad and it should be similar. And I got to TCU and it’ll be good to use in class. [I’m excited] for eBooks and to use it for textbooks in class.”

Yes, that’s all good. But where was the love? Where were the shouts of ecstasy like those that come from Jacob-lovers? Where were the illogical bursts of love of the exciting new features of the iPad?

I left dejected, feeling that Cult of Apple was merely a legend masterminded by Steve Jobs himself and iPad, dare I say, nothing more than an enlarged iPhone.

That is until Sunday.

Walking past the Apple store at NorthPark Center, there was a huge crowd that was almost bursting out the doors. Oh, people! I thought. Lured in by such an inane product as the iPad. But, boy, do I just want to take a gander.

And so I did, waited for a few minutes for an iPad to free up and took any glance I could in the interim.

Finally, it was in my hands. Being the size of printer paper and about a thick as an iPhone, the iPad felt right. It wasn’t too big; it wasn’t too small. And the bigger screen makes touch so much more intuitive. My clumsy fingers had little trouble in moving the screen this way and that, opening up Safari, navigating iTunes. I could just imagine being able to design pages on this little device one day.

Most impressive was the iBook option. For the record, I have never used Amazon’s Kindle before nor have I used Barnes and Noble’s nook, but the reading on the iPad was about as close to real paper as I have seen so far. The glare of the computer screen that makes reading a nuisance disappeared with the iPad while flipping the pages was natural with the flick of a finger. Before my eyes, I could see my future life with this little cutie.

I would take it to class in college, jotting down my notes as my classmates looked admiringly. I would be in an airplane watching an episode of “Mad Men” as my fellow passengers looked admiringly. I would read my textbook at the library as my bystanders looked admiringly. I would use to play pictures of me at my funeral as my guests looked on admiringly. It was just so—beautiful.

I came in with hesitation. I came out with the feeling I WANT ONE—no, I NEED ONE.

However, I still left the Apple store empty handed even though my mom would have bought me one as a graduation gift. Why? Well, for one, it is never a good idea to buy a first generation product. Think about buying the first ever iPod with its clunky design, limited spacing and bulging size. Already, there are a lot of improvements that iPad could use.

As a part of its vertical integration, Apple does not allow iPad to run on Flash, so no Hulu access is allowed, and users can only read, not work, with widely used programs like Microsoft Word (thought Apple’s own iWork products with similar uses can be).

Furthermore, although it starts at the relatively low price of $499, to get an iPad with even the fraction of the memory of a laptop and 3G Internet access that would free me from using just Wi-Fi would cost nearly $900.

I cannot explain what Steve Jobs spikes his products with to make them so desirable (nearly half a million iPads and counting have been sold so far) and , but I can say that the iPad really signals a change in how we see computers in the future. But that’s the thing- in the future, not right now, as Apple continues to works the kinks out.

However, once that future arrives will it be glorious.

Video coming soon.