I’ve been using an iPad since its introduction five months ago, and the experience has done nothing to diminish my initial enthusiasm. In most ways, it has replaced my laptop as my primary computer for mail, Web surfing, calendar, contacts and more.

Tech blogs this week are talking about the likelihood that iPad sales are cannibalizing the sales of other computers – and I believe it. I know my enthusiasm for the latest laptop isn’t what it used to be.

I wanted to write today about the iPad and applications beyond mail, calendars and such.

Let me start with a complaint:  If you’re like me and you spend too much time fooling around with computers, Apple makes it way too easy to load up your iPad with apps you don’t need. Many are free. Many more cost 99 cents or $1.99. As a result, I’ve tried dozens of apps. Some are useful to me; others end up in the trash.

So, let’s talk about the apps I use every day, or almost every day.

The simple RSS aggregator called Reeder (with two e’s) ranks near the top. The linear presentation from Reeder provides the easiest and quickest way to monitor the feeds to which I subscribe.

Other aggregators – FLUD News, Pulse News, Flipboard and River of News – are flashier, serving up visual displays of news, Facebook and Twitter feeds. I use them, too, but not as often. About the various news media apps, a friend noted, they’re good, but they’re going to get a lot better.

For Twitter, I recently switched from Twitterific to Twitter for the iPad. For Facebook, I’m use the app called Friendly. Both do what I need them to do.

I use Evernote for saving random pieces of information and DropBox for accessing word processing documents and spreadsheets from my iPad or my laptop. I use Instapaper for saving stuff I want to read later.

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal app, which is slick, but I’m using it less as time goes on. I use magazine apps, including Wired and Vanity Fair. Other magazines I download via Zinio. I used to use the Time magazine app before deciding the weekly price was too high.

I read more books on Amazon’s Kindle than on Apple iBooks for the simple reason that more books are available via Amazon. Both work fine.

This is the miracle and the aggravation of new technology: It does so much until it does too much. I haven’t even mentioned WeatherBug Elite, Guardian Eyewitness, NPR Music, the New York Times Editor’s Choice, Bloomberg News, Wolfram Alpha, Art Authority, Zagat To Go, The Elements, Star Walk and more.

I need to get a life.

Do you think there’s an app for that?