Technology iPad How does Apple keep out-inventing the rest of the tech industry? Often, it's by reinventing a product category that its competitors have given up on. In theory, the iPad is merely a follow-up to such resoundingly unpopular slate-style computers as Microsoft's Tablet PC. But Apple is the first company that designed finger-friendly hardware and software from scratch rather than stuffing a PC into a keyboardless case. When it calls the results "magical" and "revolutionary," it's distorting reality only slightly. One analyst says the iPad is the fastest-selling nonphone gizmo in consumer-electronics history. Flipboard Even if you dote on Facebook and Twitter, spending time with them can feel like getting pelted in the face by thousands of undifferentiated updates from your friends - exhilarating, perhaps, but also exhausting. The killer iPad app Flipboard ends the chaos by grabbing updates, photos and links from your friends and other interes