Ground control to Major Tom – it’s now official, Planet Earth has found a new religion.

First the iPod. Then the iPod Touch. Next, the iPhone. And now, voila, in comes the iPad! At least throughout the Western hemisphere, the iGospel seems to have taken solid hold.

As to the latest addition to the wondrous series of digital Apple-branded devices, no surprise, the iPad attracted yet again super crowds of avid disciples flocking to buy one the morning it came out.

No less committed I found those less fortunate.

Getting to at least touch the outside of an originally wrapped iPad box seemed almost equally spiritual – as I witnessed at my office, where, for a brief couple of hours, I actually had two! iPad sitting idle on my desk just waiting to be touched.

Now that’s love!

So, how much of this seemingly insane infatuation with a single hardware device was fueled by incessant media coverage alone?

Like pubescent teenagers waiting for their first real kiss only to then brag about it to the entire school, the plethora of online and offline coverage of the iPad’s April 3 public release simply was bar none.

Exactly how much of the corresponding echo chamber effect further escalated this new iReligion (and for that matter sales)?

We’ll probably never know for sure. But yours truly enjoyed reading through every bit of it — mostly via NewsMap, my #1 source of online media. I found the April 4 Technology section – virtually blanketed in iPad news.

Pretty cool, don’t you think?.

So, I just can’t help but think, if our fictitious Major Tom ever makes it back to Earth, he would have to wonder about why we turned into Planet Apple so quickly; how we got our iReligion so fast?

He might also think whether anyone thought about how to effectively dispose of the growing mountain of “i”-ish hardware devices rather than leaving future generations with countless landfills stuffed with them.

I know, that’s another story for another time.

Although myself an avid Apple fan, hey, I thought I quickly bring that up as well.

PS: Of, and for those of you on the opposite side of the spectrum , turned off by all this Apple iPad hoopla, be sure to check this out — the iPad, will it blend?