The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2. Its friendly, easy-to-use, interface gives the iPad an built-in audience. But in my hands-on testing, the OS itself didn't always translate well from the smaller iPhone. True, navigating by touch on the large screen is apleasure--and superior to, say, the joystick-based navigation of the comparable-size, nontouch screen. But images, icons, and text didn't look as crisp as I'd expected them to. Still, in most respects, Apple did a good job of optimizing its built-in core apps for the iPad's screen.

As a photo viewer, the iPad shines. Photos looked superb on the iPad's display, and you can use all of the familiar multitouch gestures (such as flick and pinch to zoom) found on the iPhone's photo app. The iPad's ample screen showcases images well and permits you to preview images easily.

The iPad's photo application is superior to the iPhone's, too, with on-the-fly slideshow creation, complete with transitions. Simply choose from among five transitions, pick the music you'd like to add (if any), and you're off. I don't see the iPad replacing inexpensive digital photo frames, but I can envision an iPad doubling as a photo frame as it stands upright in its dock. To set the iPad to photo frame mode, simply wake it from sleep (by pressing the Home button), and then click an icon at the right of the screen to start a photo slideshow.

Another convenience: The photo app gives you different ways of viewing the images (including sorting by places, people, events, and a mini-thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen to jump quickly to other photos in the album). Unfortunately, the sorting capabilities work only if you usie iPhoto to characterize people or events, or to tag places--so people who use other imaging applications for the PC or the Mac can't take advantage of those features. Some of my photos that were tagged with GPS info by the capture device (such as my iPhone 3GS) displayed that information; but for some reason not all of my iPhone 3GS photos showed in that view.