SEATTLE AP – People who lined up to buy the first iPhone knew what they were paying hundreds of dollars for: a new cell phone that promised to be better. Apple Inc.’s newest gadget, the iPad tablet computer, falls into a category that’s foreign to most people.

And yet plenty of them have already happily dropped $500 or more for a device they’ve never seen, in the hopes it will be some previously unidentified missing link in their digital lifestyles.