I know you'll think I'm wishy washy, but after declaring last month that I wanted a Kindle in spite of the iPad, I've changed my mind. Maybe this was the genius of Apple. Rather than letting anyone order an iPad right away, we all had to wait and think about it for a bit. Perhaps others like me who were not completely sold have become so in the intervening weeks.

Last week over breakfast, I told a friend of mine that I thought I might want an iPad after all.

"Of course you do," he said, not surprised at all.

But wait, you people who think you know me so well—let me explain.

First, as you remember, I was not one of those folks who dissed the iPad. From the very beginning I've thought this would be a significant device. I think it's going to be huge for education. I also think it's going to be all the computer a lot of folks would need at all.

As for me, as I told you, I've been wanting an e-reader—specifically a Kindle—ever since I held one in my hand last year. And if this were just an issue of a Kindle vs. the iPad as an e-reader, I'd go with the Kindle. I still think the Kindle's e-ink is going to be easier on the eyes than the screen of an iPad if you actually use the thing for reading for hours at a time.

But that's not the issue. For me, the iPad has a killer app: Keynote.

It's the idea of Keynote on the iPad that's been working away at me for the past four weeks. I watched Steve Jobs' presentation of the iPad with interest, but not expecting to actually want one anytime soon. I felt the second generation device would be better to wait for.

But then it happened. Keynote and the rest of the iWork applications were a total surprise. They were an unexpected development.

I teach from Keynote every week. I use it at church, and I use it in the classroom at IWU. Now, hold that thought just for a second.

I love my 15" MacBook Pro. It's hands down the best Mac I've ever owned (and I've owned a few of them!). I have it with me nearly everywhere I go. And that is part of the problem. I know we're spoiled compared to the computers we used two decades ago (most of which were not portable at all). Yet, often my MacBook Pro is more computer than what I actually need. Often I wish for something smaller. Kathy has a MacBook air, the lightest and most portable Mac that Apple makes. But I didn't want to spend that much on a secondary computer.

So last November, after receiving a bit more birthday money from family than I expected (it doesn't hurt that I'm both an only child and an only son-in-law), I bought a netbook.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "Wait a minute, Apple doesn't make a netbook." Yes, you're right. For the first time since I bought that Dell Pentium Pro in 1996, I bought a Windows machine. I bought an Acer Aspire One which came with Windows XP Home. But the flavor of Windows didn't matter. I didn't plan to keep it. I planned to Hackintosh it.

I wanted a Hackintoshed netbook for two reasons: (1) to teach using Keynote, and (2) for those times when I don't need a full computer such as if I need to go to a meeting to take a few notes.

Acer Aspire One Hackintosh running Accordance, a Mac-only program

And I did. After a number of trial and error attempts, I managed to get Mac OS X Leopard running on that Acer. I installed iWork including Keynote and I was ready to go. It was really slick, working better than I thought. Because of MobileMe, my calendar, contacts, and email were synced perfectly between the Acer Hackintosh and my MacBook Pro. Accordance worked no different than it would on a Mac. I even put an Apple sticker on the back of the Acer which looked pretty funny.

I used it at church a couple of times teaching and everything was great. Great, that is until it all fell apart in early January. If karma was a Christian concept, I'd be tempted to believe that I was getting what I deserved for trying to teach the Bible from a computer with an OS installed in clear violation of the end user license agreement. You see, Apple does not allow it's operating system to be installed on non-Apple hardware. Evidently the sticker wasn't enough.

On one fateful morning, I plugged the Acer Hackintosh into a projector that was already receiving a video feed from another source. The screen on the Acer went white and I never could get it back to normal. In researching the issue, I discovered that there was a problem with the specific video driver being used in the Hackintoshed version of OS X. It didn't play well with projectors.

At that point I gave up on the Hackintosh idea. Having to reinstall wasn't the issue. I needed my computer to work when I needed it. I couldn't afford unreliable equipment. Heck, that was what made me a Mac user to begin with!

So I installed Windows 7 on the Acer thinking I could still use it for occasional note taking. Well, it just sat there. I have been using Macs too long and a Windows machine simply doesn't do much for me. And I even tried using OneNote which so many Windows users rave about. It just wasn't enough.

So my Acer netbook sat unused. And the iPad with Keynote kept weighing on me. So I made the decision and sold my Acer on eBay. Now I have more than half the cash for an iPad.

I can envision teaching from Keynote both at church and in the classroom using nothing but the iPad. Last night, I went to a deacons meeting in which we had about half a dozen different reports that had been emailed out before the meeting. Although I took my laptop to the meeting (I usually do this rather than printing out reports I would only throw away later), I thought to myself sitting there that really, I could do all of that on an iPad and carry much less around. And I think of all those times that I wish I could sit in church and take notes on a laptop, but I never do because somehow it feels overly conspicuous. I can't imagine that I'd have the same reservation with an iPad.

An iPad couldn't replace everything I do on my MacBook Pro, but I bet it could do more than half of it. So many times a computer is more than what I need.

So now I wait for the iPad. I mentioned this to a different friend of mine yesterday. "Why on earth would you want an iPad?" he asked with great incredulity. I simply replied "For all those times that I could do so much more with less."