Is it you? I'd like to know. Apple's second generation tablet goes on sale this Friday. There was a ridiculous amount of rumor and hype pre-launch event and overly large amount of buzz post-launch. Has someone started calling this thing the Jesus tablet yet, like iPhone as the Jesus phone? No wait! Moses brought the tablets down from the mountain top, right? You get the point. There's much buzz. But who really is going to buy, particularly among Betanews readers.

If you plan to buy iPad, please also answer if you're a repeat buyer (meaning you purchased iPad 1) or if you're a new buyer. If new, why now and not before? For those people resisting the temptation to follow the presumed crowd, why not iPad? Did you buy or do you plan to buy another tablet, or perhaps none at all? Why? Please respond in comments, or email joewilcox at gmail.com.

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Android handsets infected with malware are getting a cleaning job from Google. On March 2nd, Google removed 21 apps from the Android Marketplace that contained malicious code (the number of infected apps is now 58). Now Google is "remotely removing the malicious applications from affected devices" and "pushing an Android Market security update to all affected devices that undoes the exploits to prevent the attacker(s) from accessing any more information from affected devices," according to a blog post by Rich Cannings, Android security lead.

Whoa. That's scary reassuring: Knowing Google can reach down to Android handsets to swat malicious code and undo its impact and simply that Google can reach down into devices at all. I mean whoa. "This remote application removal feature is one of many security controls the Android team," Cannings writes. Last year he defended the remote removal feature after Google nixed some applications. "This remote removal functionality -- along with Android's unique Application Sandbox and Permissions model, over-the-air update system, centralized Market, developer registrations, user-submitted ratings, and application flagging --provides a powerful security advantage to help protect Android users in our open environment."

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Last week's iPad 2 debut offered few surprises, other than Apple's new tablet not living up to out-of-control rumors -- and still there is endless cacophony on the InterWebs. By measure of noise, there is seemingly no other tablet worth purchasing. But, of course, that's not the case. Perception isn't always reality. But from iPad 2 hype and perceptions, there are five lessons competitors can learn.

I present them in no particular order of importance with recommendations competitors should consider adopting.

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This week, I unexpectedly started using Google's Cr-48 notebook running Chrome OS as my production system. On Monday, my 11.6-inch MacBook Air fatally crashed, leaving no real alternative since a friend has my Windows laptop. So I fired up the Cr-48, which I reviewed in December in seven parts. It has been a great week that got better after installing yesterday's Chrome OS update -- "0.10.156.46 (Official Build caa798a8)."

I started using the Cr-48 full time a second time with sense of urgency. I couldn't fall back to MacBook Air. It was sink or swim. Treading water wouldn't be good enough. Swim I did: As a work replacement PC, the Cr-48 has proved its worthiness, with Chrome OS obviously being major reason; Google synchronization is another. This second week's use also has me reconsidering the merits of the browser as a user-interface motif.

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I know that yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs proudly proclaimed 100 million iPhone shipments, which is a darn big number. But iPhone isn't winning the smartphone wars, a story that's getting tired to write (Apple could still win the mobile platform wars). Today, ComScore and Nielsen separately released new US smartphone data that puts Android ahead of Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone. It's quickly becoming an old story.

In January, Android handsets accounted for 31.2 percent of the US smartphone market, up from 7.1 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore. BlackBerry held the second position, after a devastating, steady decline -- 30.4 percent down from about 44 percent in January 2010. Meanwhile iPhone share remained flat, in the 25 percent range, for all of last year. US market share was 24.7 percent in January 2011.

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A year ago, PC shipments were on the rebound. The recovery is over for consumers, according to Gartner, which today lowered its global PC forecast for this year and next. PC shipments aren't going to be bad, just not as good. You can blame Apple and China.

Gartner lowered 2011 PC shipment growth by about a third -- 10.5 percent down from 15.9 percent. The analyst firm now predicts 387.8 million PCs shipped globally this year. Gartner expects 440.6 million PC shipments in 2012, with growth lowered much less -- 15.9 percent to 14.8 percent.

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It was the software -- FaceTime, Garage Band, iMovie and Photo Booth -- and the colorful Smart Covers. I kid you not. There are good reasons why so much of yesterday's launch event focused on software -- hell, Apple even made a video about the new covers; now what does that you tell you?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs officiated yesterday's launch event, which spent surprisingly little time on iPad 2 -- and that may have confounded some people, given the huge amount of hype about the tablet. But as I explained yesterday, Apple typically iterates rather than innovates hardware on a new category's successor product. I have laid out five reasons why the other stuff -- new software features and applications and even the colorful cases -- are more important.

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Today's iPad 2 launch came with a couple surprises: Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is on medical leave, officiated the media event. It's a smart way of quelling rumors about his health, without ever having to disclose any real information. The other surprise: The new iPad isn't remarkably different from the 1st generation model. Like many other second generation Apple products, the iPad 2 is evolution not revolution, a pattern of product development Jobs instituted long ago.

Apple typically develops its products incrementally, starting with a showstopper that Jobs often calls "one more thing." There is a consistent pattern: "One more thing" debuts with modest hardware features but something else nevertheless killer -- something people want, or think they do. During the launch event, Jobs performs his marketing magic, demonstrating how this "one more thing" will make peoples' lives better. Often the product lacks something compared to competing wares but offers something more elsewhere.

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While geekdom holds its collective breadth waiting for Apple's 1 p.m. ET "special event," presumably the iPad 2 launch, I thought it would be interesting to see how people use the original model. Yesterday I asked "Do you still own iPad?" because I keep meeting people who sold or passed along to family their Apple tablets. Betanews readers certainly had answers. Either you love or loathe iPad; there is little response between the extremes.

"Nope, gave it away after a couple of months," Anthony Scott answered in comments. "The size was nice, but the performance was poke out my eyes slow. Grabbing an old netbook, that has about the same weight/size and battery life and running Excel at 100x the performance of the iPad Spreadsheet, is sad how underpowered Apple made the iPad."

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My March started off badly today.

When I was a school kid in Maine, teachers said that if March roared in like a lion, meaning snowy stormy, it would go out like a lamb -- and vice versa. I got the storm in a faulty Snow Leopard rather than the Lion. This morning my 11.6-inch MacBook Air crashed and wouldn't reboot. If not for moving my computing life to the cloud, I would have lost an important day of productivity and lots of valuable data.

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The question is meant for people who bought or received the original iPad since its release in April 2010. See, I keep meeting people who gave up iPad -- and not because they're preparing to buy its successor, which geekdom expects will be announced tomorrow. I consistently hear giver-uppers say they no longer used Apple's tablet much, or at all.

I sold my iPad in December, mainly because my smartphone, the Google-branded Nexus S, proved to be good enough on the go and the 11.6-inch MacBook Air otherwise was light enough and offered more capabilities (granted reading ebooks or from the browser is more enjoyable on iPad). I know of at least two other MBA users who ditched iPad for similar reasons. Disclosure: I'm not exactly feeling good about the Air quality today. After several days of ongoing program crashes, the laptop locked up and won't bootup past the grey system check screen. If there wasn't flash memory in the thing, I would assume it was hard drive failure. But that's topic for another post.

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Today, AT&T announced that, starting March 6, it will carry Amazon's Kindle reader in its retail stores nationwide. Timing is interesting, given iPad 2's imminent launch and Apple App Store subscription changes that could compel Amazon to curtail or even stop distribution of Kindle software for iOS devices. Buyers considering iPad in AT&T stores will now have option of the lower-cost and ebook reading-dedicated Kindle.

Retail distribution isn't new for Kindle, which I've seen available here in San Diego from Best Buy and Microsoft Store. Given that Barnes & Noble and Sony sell their readers at retail, Amazon levels the competitive field for people that want to hold and experience Kindle.

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There has been lots of recent speculation about whether Apple can go on without its CEO should he not return from medical leave. Steve Jobs may be visionary and iconic, but Jony Ive's value simply can't be overstated. Apple's vice president of industrial design has influenced most of the major hardware product designs since joining the company in 1996. I have long felt that Apple could more easily go on without Jobs than Ive, but never really had cause to state so until today, following a report from the Sunday Times of London that is spreading like wildfire across the InterWebs.

Ive is the creative genius behind designs for iPad, iPhone and iPod, which, combined, accounted for two thirds of Apple revenues during calendar fourth quarter. He takes credit for Macs, too -- aluminum PowerBook, iMac, Titanium PowerBook and unibody MacBook Pro. Ive is an indispensable employee -- like Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter is to Pixar -- someone Apple shouldn't want to lose. If the Times report is even marginally accurate, Ive and Apple are in a tuff over whether he works in Silicon Valley or his native United Kingdom. The outcome raises questions about his departure from Apple.

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Initial sales didn't meet expectations, and the company is stalling until its next earnings report -- perhaps hoping sales will surge meanwhile. Moreover, if Verizon Wireless sold 60 percent of initial iPhone sales online, as the CEO claims, the other 40 percent leads to a surprisingly small number.

On February 14, I asked: "Say, whatever happened to that 1 million Verizon iPhones sold announcement?" If first weekend demand was good, then surely somebody, either Apple or Verizon, would have released sales figures. After all, Apple could have scored a big, distracting PR coup just as Mobile World Congress was beginning. Instead, there was silence, which Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel Mead broke as the weekend started. He told the Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the iPhone 4 launch broke sales records. Funny thing, neither news organization actually quotes Mead about Verizon iPhone sales. They summarize instead. Now why is that? Regardless, Mead gives no actual sales numbers, which removes real credibility from his summarized claims. He defers revealing sales until Verizon's next quarterly earnings report.

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Perhaps Apple chose the wrong time to get out of the server market. The company stopped selling Xserve at the end of January. Now the 2010 server numbers are in, and they're looking pretty good. Server shipments grew 16.8 percent during 2010 and revenue by 13.2 percent, year over year, according to Gartner. It was a remarkable turnaround compared to 2009, when shipments and revenue fell 16.6 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively. Manufacturers shipped 8.8 million servers for the year, generating $48.8 billion in revenue.

Gartner largely credited the rebound to x86 server upgrades delayed by the economic crisis set in motion by the September 2008 stock market crash. "2010 was a year that saw pent-up x86-based server demand produce some significant growth on a worldwide level," Jeffrey Hewitt, Gartner research vice president, said in a statement. "The introduction of new processors from Intel and AMD toward the end of 2009 helped fuel a pretty significant replacement cycle of servers that had been maintained in place during the economic downturn in 2009."

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