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The iBooks application is exclusively for the iPad, which doesn’t go on sale until Saturday morning. For some reason, the inability to actually see or use the application hasn’t stopped more than 100 people from weighing in on the application’s merits, or the merits of the people weighing in on the application’s merits. Sound strange? It is.

We’ve seen this kind of “meta review” before, but probably not for something as highly anticipated as one of the iPad’s signature apps. Of the 111 current reviews, 97 are for 5 stars (out of 5), while the rest are about evenly spread between the different ratings.

The first review was logged Friday, April 2 by “andychao217” who proclaims “What an awesome app!” It’s a sentiment shared by many others, including “adudenamedRyan” who writes “If this lives up to even 1/2 of its potential, then we’re in for a real treat!”

Not everyone is impressed by their fantasies of having actually used the app. “HTshawn” gives iBooks a 3-star rating and writes “just ok.” And then we get a little more meta.

“Steve from West Chester” gives a “Review of Reviews,” and tries to justify the strangeness: “Being able to be among the first 100 or so reviewers of an application that cannot be reviewed yet seems like the right thing to do… I understand the discomfort of everyone seeing these somewhat dubious ‘reviews’ - but each and every one of us will be using this app to read lots of books.”

That review was shortly followed by another that demands that “the fake reviews should be condemned.” Of course, that message was delivered in a review entitled “It should be able to run on the iPhone” tagged with a 2 star rating.

So what’s your review?

[reprinted from MacDirectory.com]