Few computing devices have sparked the burning gizmo lust ignited by the iPad. Apple's latest entry into the tablet PC market didn't generate much heat when it was first unveiled in January, but by April 3, the day of the official release, feverish customers were mobbing Apple stores. The company claims to have sold 300,000 iPads by midnight on that first day, and that more than a million apps and 250,000 e-books were downloaded to those devices. Apple says it delivered more than 500,000 iPads before the end of the first week. Mixed in with this nationwide hot-tech-toy fervor is the cooler consideration of the iPad as an educational tool. This device and the competing PCs set to follow it into the marketplace represent a new student-computing platform that K-12 school districts have already begun to explore in pilot programs. It's still early, but as educators begin weighing the pros and cons of the iPad, predictions that the device would make a three-way race out of what had been a head-to-head competition between netbooks and laptops for the increasingly discriminating wallets of K-12 are proving to be premature. It's beginning to seem that schools are more likely to be determining how this touchable form factor complements, instead of displaces, other keyboard-bound devices in their overall student-computing strategy. This article discusses whether the iPad is any better than the netbooks and laptops now fueling school computing programs.