Apple's iPad One Year Later

April 3, 2011— -- Apple's iPad is quite the accomplished one-year-old.

Since its release, one year ago today, it hasn't just entertained gadget geeks and Apple fans, it's helped catch crooks, make music, teach students, treat patients and more.

It has shown that it's more than just a cool toy for techies, but a valuable tool for people in fields as varied as art, music, health care and law enforcement.

Below, take a look at five of the iPad's top uses of the past year.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the iPad would be "revolutionary," did we really think it would someday help save lives?

Well, the device is only as good as the hands it's in, but over the past year it's found its way into the hands of doctors around the world.

Days after the iPad's release last year, Kaweah Delta Healthcare District in Visalia, Calif., made headlines when word got out that it had ordered 100 iPads to help doctors access X-ray images, tests results and patient monitoring programs.

But the device has spread to other health care professionals in the United States and overseas.

Last June, a team of doctors at a Kobe University facility in Japan used an iPad during surgery. A YouTube video made the rounds online, showing a plastic-wrapped iPad used as a display.

Kids these days have it so easy.

Instead of lugging giant textbooks to and from school every day, lucky students in grade school and college only have to carry one thing: their iPad.

Last March, Seton Hill University, a private Catholic school in Pennsylvania, announced that it would give a new tablet to each of its 2,000 incoming freshman. Other universities announced that they would also give some students the new iPad or give them the option to get that instead of a Mac laptop

But the iPad also found its way into even younger hands.

Sacramento Country Day School, a private school in California, last summer announced that it would give each sixth grader a new iPad at no extra cost. And other private and public schools have lined up behind the iPad too.

In January, the New York Times reported that public schools in New York, Chicago and New Jersey planned to test iPads in the classroom. In Scottsdale, Ariz., even kindergartners get the high-tech devices.