Stories by: Tom Kaneshige

Apple's extraordinary run over the last few years may begin to show signs of slowing next year--its first year without visionary leader Steve Jobs.

If you're lucky enough to be on a Hollywood set, chances are you'll see more than a few people carrying iPads - and most will be big-shot executives. It should come as no surprise that the iPad has caught on in the entertainment industry given the iPad's billing as a great media-consumption device.

Thanks to the iPad, the traditional IT culture is about to be upended.

After stringing together record-breaking quarters, bull-rushing the smartphone industry, creating a market-rattling tablet, and earning the title (at least for a little while) as the biggest company in the United States, Apple now has plans to reward itself.

Soon, SAP hopes to sew up a gaping security hole for its 7,000 iPad-toting employees. The Germany-based tech giant is beta testing a product that will allow it to send PGP-encrypted confidential email to employees. In turn, employees will be able to decrypt them using a Symantec viewer iPad app.

Like Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Apple is looking unbeatable in the wild tablet market. Will the iPad be the last man standing after the smoke clears?

Apple's iconic iPad reports for work in all sorts of strange places, from archaeological digs in Pompeii to movie sets in Hollywood to cockpits in the sky.

A neurology patient at a Texas hospital may soon find doctors handing him an iPad with game-like apps on it to test his motor skills. Nurses will be able to roam bedsides while remotely checking electrocardiograms, or EKGs, on their iPads. Doctors are already sharing medical records on iPads with their peers, in order to discuss patient care.

Let's say you scored a boondoggle to Los Angeles for a business conference, and instead sneaked off to nearby Disneyland with the family for a vacation on the corporate dime. Or maybe you simply told your boss you were meeting a client, but hit the golf links with your buddies.

Don't expect to get a lot done on your iPad 2 the first day. That's because you'll be too busy (and too excited) loading your new toy with great apps, music and movies. Yes, it will take hours.