First-order effects

• One return is financially immaterial to Apple, but the essay extends a recognizable narrative arc — April's return piece, then this one — that legitimizes reversal as a normal consumer outcome for a device marketed as inevitable.
• The author's stated problem is personal fit rather than device flaws, which redirects the critique from hardware specs to whether the iPad occupies a real slot in a working professional's day.

Second-order effects

• Apple's own calendar compounds the hesitation: with the iPhone 4 landing in July after its pre-order delays, discretionary spending on gadgets is concentrated into a single season, forcing buyers to choose between the tablet and the phone rather than buying both.
• Each published return story hands skeptics — and competitors building rival tablets — ready-made evidence that first-month enthusiasm does not automatically convert into settled usage.

Third-order effects

• If the pattern holds, the tablet market will be adjudicated less by launch-week reviews than by sustained-use testimony — whether owners still pick the device up weeks later — shifting Apple's burden from generating desire to proving daily utility.
• A visible population of remorseful early adopters would also pressure the emerging tablet category toward clearer identity-defining use cases, the way the iPod earned its place through a single dominant behavior.