Informal iPad 2 Public Awareness Study: An Hour at Starbucks with my iPad 2

Apple’s iPad is nearly a year old. The 5 day old iPad 2 (as of yesterday) does not look significantly different from its predecessor based on a casual glance. And, yet four total (but polite) strangers came up to me in a Starbucks yesterday in the one hour period I sat there while waiting for an old friend to arrive and while we were actually at a table conversing. In the 11 months since the iPad’s release, out of the blue questions from strangers had dwindled down to nothing despite the fact that I carry my iPad around and use it in public quite frequently.