I haven't read it all yet but I had a look at the title and decided it wasn't going to match my expectations. True, there are four paragraphs but two of them only have one sentence. That just shows a lack of understanding of your reader. The picture at the top might expand into a bigger version if i clicked on it but I haven't so I'll assume it doesn't.

1. People have to get tribal when they do something as simple as make a purchase and must hate the other tribe. What silly little monkeys we are.

2. Sci-fi has been showing us movable screen computers like the iPad for years, most recently in Avatar, and when they become a reality the short-sighted among us state that they aren't that great. It's a magic window! It's sci-fi happening now and people are saying it's "just" a big iPhone. Talk about lack of vision.

3. People seem to be looking at the inert lump of glass in the hands (of others) and missing the implications of the iTunes/iBook distribution channels that are going to change their lives, homes, industries and spending habits.

I mean funny in the sense that "you have to laugh at tragedy, or you'd cry".

I just hope I'm not stuck on using QWERTY. That would really screw me over.

One question for you — are you as tired as I am of hearing all the negative comments and opinions around the name? Does a name really matter? I say no.

'nuff said.

This is the Newton for the 2010s. It is Sculley's Knowledge Navigator.

Laptops are general purpose devices, designed for both creating and playing content.

This handicaps their player functionality, like trying to eat from the frying pan.

The iPad is like a serving dish, it's core strength is serving content.

Though like good designers Apple sees the utility in supporting content cooking, too. It remains to be seen how well as a general-purpose platform the iPad does. On a desktop with a keyboard it reminds me of the Sony eVilla.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_eVilla

As Steve so accurately pointed out, the device won't be successful unless it can do something that existing things like iPods, netbooks, etc. can't. Quite cynically the iPad lacks exactly in that department.

I can't use it as an eReader because of the IPS screen.
I can't use it as an movie viewer because of lacking a wide screen.
I can't use it for Skype for a lacking camera.
I can't use it for mail for lacking novel input technologies. (A full size keyboard offered as accessory being the best evidence - or watching Steve's awkward fumbling while trying to type...)
It also fails as a gaming device compared to existing DS, PSP, etc.
The list goes on ... most ppl are faced with the question - what's this thing good for? Why would I want to use it?

And I guess still not finding remedy for lacking multitasking, or the lack of flash.. things that users have been demanding for ages now, aren't helping either.

Some people maintain it's the magic (or as you put it, that little something that makes it "click") that Apple is selling. I agree and that exactly is my problem - the keynote was a boring demo of things an iPod Touch already does, just on a bigger screen. As much as I wanted to, I didn't feel any excitement whatsoever to buy this product as I usually do when Apple announces a new gadget.

I'm very curious to see how successful that device's going to be. It probably comes down to whether someone comes up with apps that the iPad is better at delivering at than other devices.

The 10" display is fine for handheld viewing -- in your hand it's the same size as a 24" display on your desk or an 80" display on a wall.

You can't use handheld tablets for video conferencing anyway, not without an adjustable camera, and if you're going to have that you might as well just make it an accessory. The tablet itself is too big to wave around as a normal camera anyway.

You can use it fine for checking mail. I agree that the virtual keyboard is its greatest apparent weakness. I was hoping for some real thinking here, but we got nothing really.

As a gaming device it's going to kick ass, especially compared to the iPhone. 3 of my 10 apps I'm doing this year are games, games I couldn't do in HVGA but will be awesome in 10" XGA.

I'd have liked to have at least 160 DPI for this, but 132 should be OK I guess.

Lack of userl-level multitasking is not a problem. It's a feature not a bug. This is not a device to do background processing, it is a media player not a creator. Nobody plays two sets of media at the same time. Or should, anyway.

Lack of flash is a platform defense thing. Helps keep crap off the platform. If somebody can't make an iPad version it's not compelling content.

"just on a bigger screen". That's where you're lack of understanding is failing you. The move to XGA is very significant. When I go to the gym for the treadmill, movies are too small on my iPod, but they'll be fine on the 10". The dictionary app I was working on was sorta cramped in HVGA but I'm finding too much space to work with in XGA right now.

The form factor is basically the same size as a B5 notebook, the size I liked carrying around once I discovered them in Japan.

Also, Apple has upped the performance with their custom integrated silicon. This is an iPod Touch on steroids.

"just a bigger screen". You can't compare almost 10" to 3.5". The difference is qualitative not just quantitative. Watch some prOn if you don't believe me.

"It probably comes down to whether someone comes up with apps that the iPad is better at delivering at than other devices."

Try 10,000 someones.

Well, off to POLYSICS concert in SF now! yeay!

It seems to me that the iPad is intended more for people who consume the interwebs, as opposed to those who create.
Which is just about everybody.

As an E-reader with web browsing capabilities, the iPad is an absolute BEAST. They should probably sell it as such.

But the most comically overlooked feature of this presentation was the iBooks app. If iBooks and the iBooks Store is positioned the way iTunes is, it's going to be an absolute juggernaut.

As a nerd and a mac devotee, i have no use for the iPad, and probably won't buy one. But there's a massive amount of normal people out there who like reading books and the web, and enjoy forwarding dick jokes via email for whom this device is an absolute god send.

Techies need to stop thinking of Apple as a computer company. They're a lifestyle company who just happen to make computers.

Some people just want to see a the champion fail, and spend their life trying to find chinks in the armor. (most of these people are disappointed they didn't join the bandwagon first).

You like Apple, that's cool. You want to give every product they put out the benefit of the doubt before you make your decision. That's cool too. Would you give the same benefit to Microsoft? Maybe, who knows. I don't know you personally, you're free to think what you want. But to lament the internet for not giving your chosen god the level of respect you think he deserves is kind of lame... unless, you're prepared to the do the same for anyone else. (for the record, I'm not prepared to do this for anyone)

Short of your displeasure in the internet, I find no fault in your reasoning, you want to feel it, touch it, use it, etc. Sounds fine to me.

Personally, I'm just pissed that I may buy it and have yet another electronic device that is too expensive and fragile to treat as cavalier as I would like. Put some crazy ass rubber shit around the frame if you expect me to use it as some sort of glorified web browser or e-reader that I'm supposed to lug around here and there.

My theory is that Microsoft has their A teams and their B teams. Their A teams get to do all the fun stuff.

We fan boys don't really care that people have sand in their vaginas about Steve Jobs, Macs, etc. It's just the general level of passive-aggressive idiocy, as parts of your post above demonstrates, that gets to us.

If the iPad were just a glorified webpad or eReader, it wouldn't be worth $500 to me -- it's the apps that are going to make this product a useful device worth the $500+. Apple has done a lot of engineering to get a useful set of technologies down to that pricepoint. That's what innovation is.

And having dropped my iPod Touch while walking in a parking lot (and my unibody macbook pro three times (don't ask)), I think it will be tough enough without the rubber covering you want.