Is That an IPad in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

By Ray Nicolini

Apple's slimmer and lighter iPad 2 can be pocket-sized... if you have the right pockets. Testers at the Tactical Pants Blog, while confirming the Web's insanely long tail, recently tried to cram the iPad 2 into nine pairs of "tactical pants," or cargo pants with multitudinous and ridiculously large pockets, in a quest to find the best pair of pants to carry the tablet. The conclusion: yes, the iPad 2 is technically pocket-sized, but you're better off carrying the tablet in a case if you want to move comfortably, sit down or not look pretty freaky. The best fit was Blackhawk's recently-discontinued Warrior Wear Pants. The blog's tester was able to "comfortably glide across the office with the iPad 2 at his side," though even with this relatively good fit, sitting was deemed to involve "issues." The worst fit, aside from not fitting at all, came from Genuine Gear's tactical pants, which accepted the tablet but left it precariously prone to slipping out. The reviewer's conlcusion: "Convenient, yes. But truly practical? Not exactly." Six pairs of pants, clearly unworthy of their "tactical" designation, didn't accept the iPad at all. Since Steve Jobs has proclaimed his disdain for 7-inch tablets, it seems like a good pair of tactical pants is as close as anyone will get to a pocketable iPad. It's unfortunate that the current batch of tactical pants all leave something to be desired in the iPad-toting department, but with luck, a tactical pants designer is reading this right now and identifying a market opportunity. For the man with more refined tastes, you can order a custom-made suit with iPad pockets.