Today, people all around the world waited in line for the iPad 2 to go on sale. I have never been a big fan of Apple products. If you know me personally you would most likely call that an understatement.

A few years ago I purchased a 16GB iPhone 3G. I had 3 smartphones prior to purchasing the iPhone: a Samsung Blackjack, Samsung Blackjack II and a HTC. All 3 of these phones ran Windows Mobile 5 or 6. I was generally happy with them but I like to be on the cutting edge so I jumped at the chance to upgrade. The iPhone 3G was a decent phone, minus the limitations that AT&T and Apple put on it. After a quick jailbreak and a few apps from Cydia I had all the functionality I needed.

Last year I was introduced to the Android platform by a friend, Dan Simrak. My iPhone was running very slow. The limitations were frustrating and I was anxious to purchase some new technology. When the 1GHz chips came out I again took the opportunity to upgrade, this time to a Samsung Captivate. The Captivate is stupid fast compared to the iPhone 3G. While the Android Market lacked some of the apps that I had from the App Store I was blown away by some new features such as Swype, widgets, and Google Apps support. After 6 months of owning the Captivate AT&T had still not released the 2.2 "Froyo" update so I had to root the phone and install a hacked version of Froyo. It was well worth my time though for Adobe Flash support and performance enhancements. Froyo also gives me the mobile hotspot feature that AT&T doesn't want me to have on my grandfathered unlimited data package.

This all brings me up to today. This morning I visited MacOutfitters in Doylestown, PA to pick up a "deli number" for the 5pm release of the iPad 2. The store opened at 9am and when I showed up at 9:08 I was given deli number 36 (and 37 for my friend Jim Worth). I wasn't even sure if I would get an iPad 2 but I found out later that they had 100 in inventory. Jim and I returned to the store at 4:30pm with our boys to get on line with about 70 other people. As I was standing at checkout my 3 year old says to me, "daddy, can I get my own iPad?" My response, "sure, as soon as you get a job!"

Sitting in the parking lot I quickly connected my iPad 2 to my Windows 7 laptop for activation. In Doylestown you would expect to find some open wireless access points but a quick scan revealed nothing. So I turned on the mobile hotspot feature on my Android 2.2 phone, wirelessly tethered my laptop, plugged in the iPad and VOILA! The iPad activated and we were on our way.

Driving home I didn't see much of the iPad 2. Actually, I have owned it for about 8 hours now and have only used it for about 20 minutes. But it is nice to know that it will be there when I need it, as long as I have my Windows 7 laptop with iTunes for syncing, and my Android phone for tethering.

So how soon until I jailbreak my new iPad 2? Not soon enough.