Hands off! Don't touch! It's my iPad! Buy your own!

Smartphones, iPhones and iPod Touches are personal devices that are meant to be used only by one user. They are perfect for individuals because they are small, fit in your pocket, cheap, and everyone has their own. A computer on the other hand is large, expensive and is designed to be shared by several people. Everyone in the household can have their own account with their own settings, their own music, photos, apps, bookmarks, usernames and passwords to websites, and so on. So is the iPad a personal device that is designed for one person to use or is it a device that the whole family can use? It's a very important question and you might not like the answer.

Whether you have a smartphone, iPhone or iPod Touch, it's a personal devices that is set up for your private email accounts, it has your own private calendar, appointments and contacts, the web browser remembers your login user names and passwords for various websites, the Facebook app goes straight into your account and shows your wall, and when you post an update it goes on your account, and when you upload a photo it goes into your album. Your Twitter app shows your Twitter feed and postings are made to your Twitter account. When you browse the web, the browser has your personal bookmarks, and usernames and login details are remembered and you automatically log in to sites as you.

When you put the iPad down, someone will say "Can I use the iPad now?" or "Pad the iPad over I want to go online." You'll have to say no. Hands off! Don't touch! It's my iPad! Buy your own!

When you put the iPad down, your wife or kids are going to be dying to use it, it's so cool, but just think. They'll have access to your email accounts and will be able to read all your mail and send mail from your account. It'll have your calendar appointments and they'll be adding their own, which will then appear in your calendar on your computer when you sync the iPad. They'll want to add their own contacts, which will then get mixed up with yours (would your kids want to put all their friends into your contact book?). Your kids will be logging on to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, your eBay account, adding bookmarks to websites you have no interest in, which then get synced to your desktop computer. They'll be automatically logged into all the websites you've signed up for as you because usernames and passwords are stored. They'll be buying and downloading content from iTunes on your account and their music will be mixed in with yours.

Every single app in the iTunes store is designed for a single user. OK, it doesn't matter if it's iFart, but a lot of apps use personal information, files, settings, login details, and so on, and they are not designed for multiple users. Facebook and Twitter apps are good examples, but there are many others. iWork for the iPad for example - will other people that use the iPad have access to all your files? Can they load them, change them, delete them? Are you sure you want to pass your iPad over to your kids to play with?

I've not used the iPad, but from what I've seen and heard I can't see anything that would allow for multiple users in the way that a computer allows multiple accounts each with their own settings and files. The iPad is a souped up iPod Touch and it's designed for a single user. All apps are designed for single users. So when your wife or kids ask to use the iPad, you'll have to say no, go and buy your own.

Are you seriously going to buy everyone in the household their own iPad at $500 each for the base model with no extras? No way! The iPad is too big and too expensive to be a personal device and it needs to be a shared device like a computer with separate accounts for each user.