All good things were meant to be leaked…right? Just in case you weren’t one of the lucky 11 journalist to walk the inner hallways of Apple’s testing labs I got a few snapshots for ya.

You’ll see the prototypes covered and surrounded my iMacs, the outside/inside of an anechoic chamber of death, the dummy heads and hands used to test reception and a 3D cat scan of the iPhone 4’s internals. Enjoy.

Screencaps via [ABC]

Being an early adopter has its ups and downs. We tend to buy unbaked, buggy, unrefined products whose companies, and future users, are relying on us to provide useful feedback as a method of insight into the next iterations. I am fully aware of the pitfalls and dangerous grounds of being an early adopter as I have been burned in the past. For anyone who pre-ordered a JooJoo, my heart goes out to you.

As of late, my last major leaps into the valleys of the early adopter world have been nothing short of amazing experiences. Why’s that? Well, my last few major purchases have all been tested, refined and spit out of the Cupertino offices in sunny California. Yes, between my first gen aluminum iMac, iPhone and MacBook Pro, my experiences have been nothing short of amazing.

Now, you may have looked at the iPhone as a leap of faith back in 2007 on that blistering hot day in June. But I saw it as an opportunity– an opportunity to go where no man had gone before. I was going to have a phone with a brain and flawless execution. Well, this time around my leap of faith was a little bit rougher. Here I was faced with not only a new product, but a product that had NEVER been in existence to human kind before.

The following questions lingered inside for months: where am I going to use this? That on-screen keyboard might be terribly sucky. How am I possibly going to give all my gadgety products all of the attention they long for each day? After all, this is supposed to do it all, with the exception of making (non voip) phone calls.

Incase you hadn’t figured it out by now, this “magical and revolutionary device” is indeed the iPad. I’m guessing the article’s title gave that away anyway though. It has been an entire week and I could not be more pleased. Over the last 168 hours, my iPad has been with me every step of the way. I could be wrong but I think my MacBook shed a tear the other day while I was comfortably browsing the web with one hand and a finger.

Emailing, surfing, consuming oh my! And the apps? Oh the apps are amazing! I feel like there is not a single feature set or functionality point that my iPad would fail at. Sure, it doesn’t have a camera or support an over-allegiance to one popular, closed content producing codec. But heck, that’s what innovation is all about…right? Apple is single handedly spurring mass interest into an exciting new way of animated coding, and I see nothing wrong with that. Some of the greatest inventions in history would have never been created had their creator stuck to the norm.

All in all, the iPad rocks! Denying the iPad’s usefulness by only comparing the number of USB ports, screen sizes, tech specs and peripheral support to other yet to be released products has absolutely no bearing or justification when this device falls within your hands. Apple has done it again and my leap of faith for their next big thing is already solidified.

Here are some apps that just might get you by if you aren’t willing to spend $19.99 for the ever so popular productivity app “Things” for the iPad. These all retail under $5.00 with most being absolutely free..me likey that.

Apps Reviewed:
Evernote
GoDocs
Memeo Connect Reader
3banana
EasyTaskPad