I have to admit that I'm a bit letdown about the lack of camera and multitasking. But, I remember watching the live keynote with Jobs for the iPhone introduction. There was little applause and the camera showed the audience in a mostly subdued state. It was like they didn't really know what they were seeing, because it was so revolutionary. The true value of the device didn't become apparent for some time... especially when really cool apps started to be released.

I think this product might have legs yet... the 3rd party apps are the killer application in this case. The device has most of the ingredients in place, so lets see what happens next :)

fwiw, my Q1U has both a front facing 'Skype' camera, and a rear facing camera. It has a kickstand (great on an airplane seat tray) and replaceable battery. --All features that should be on the iPad. ...heh heh ..."i-Pad"

Why? 10 hour battery life and 1 month standby not enough for 99% of situations?

My Blackberries had user-replaceable batteries. I always carried a fully charged spare. I never used it.

You can get a small external battery for the iPhone. Plug it into a discharged iPhone and it will fully charge the iPhone. Twice. Costs about $60? Is the size of a C battery but rectangular.

There will be something like that for the iPad, I think. Bigger, presumably, since the iPad battery is larger.

Li-Po batteries are good for about 300 full charge/discharge cycles. After that they're junk.

And that's precisely my objection. It's less about how far one can go on a single charge-up (3-4 hours is enough for most foreseeable uses honestly) but the fact you can't eventually get the thing replaced when it starts to die is ridiculous. It's like having to buy a new car just because the tires are worn out.

That's the point - it doesn't necessarily have to be legible. A smart interface can adaptively learn "your" penmanship and/or shorthand and translate it to printed text characters, or I suppose you could (if you wanted) leave it exactly as you entered it, imperfections and stray marks and all. I don't know 100% if this is how the ipad operates but it would seem to make sense. It's just software.

The reason I typically don't get thrilled about the latest techno-geek toy is because up to now they suffer from the same limitations and they're more often than not just variations on the same theme with the same sorts of limitations. For example, there's very little that a new laptop can do that mine can't. Mine is six or seven years old and I bought it for 200 bucks from my old employer when they retired it. It's fine. I pumped up the memory and stuffed the biggest HD I could find into it and bought a wifi card and two new batteries. Total cost for all that was about $400. So for $600 I have something that runs all the same applications as a new one. Yeah, it's not as sexy looking or as light or as quick perhaps, but I actually like the fact it's a bit older and heavier. It's durable and because it doesn't have "sex appeal", it's probably less of a target for theft than something new and glitzy which costs three or four times as much. It runs the same spreadsheet, the same scheduling program, the same AutoCAD program, the same graphics editor, etc. that my "expensive" high-powered desktop (or an expensive, high-powered laptop counterpart) can.

The ipad interface is a fabulous idea. Another thing I've often stated in my quasi-Luddite, anti-techno-geek rants about people getting suckered by the latest fad/"solution" is that so many of them ultimately can't compete with the paper notepad and pencil I carry in my pocket. I can make any note I want to myself, draw a picture, insert a sketch or a matrix or whatever within seconds. No, it's not "sexy", but it's damn efficient. And (best of all) I don't have to worry about recharging it or what happens if it gets dropped in a puddle or onto a concrete floor. There is very little (aside from e-mail and internet) that a lot of these "toys" that people ooh and ahh over all the time can do that I can't do with a piece of paper and a pencil. I can doodle a picture, make notes, compose a letter, perform calculations, etc. in seconds (and do).

Aside from web-based applications, most people's use of a computer for productive work that actually matters is probably 80% achievable by a good old fashioned paper-and-pencil, let's face it. Disregard all the "toys" and associated multimedia crap that's largely just a pile of superfluous time-wasting bullcrap anyway. If you strip all that out, what HONESTLY is the real advantage to walking around with a computer or other electronic thing-a-ma-bob with more power than a Cray II from years ago for most people? Seriously? This is one of my usual objections - that most of the techno-geek toys give tremendous power, but it is channeled into exactly the wrong (useless) applications that do nothing to make people any more productive (in fact it makes them LESS productive what with myspace, facebook, itunes, youtube and all the other crap out there). These things do not help make a better society, they alienate it. There are real social ramifications to the onslaught of useless multimedia "fluff" technologies (but that's another discussion perhaps). Yes, that stuff can be fun, but it also seems to really squander the opportunity and potential for the use of oodles of computing power that was almost unfathomable years ago - more so when you consider that we can walk around with it without needing to push a mainframe around in a wheelbarrow! This was science fiction 20 years ago - inconceivable!

The ipad is a major step forward that actually meets my "59-cent-notepad" standard for ease of use/simple efficiency AND simultaneously offers something more - computer applications that actually enhance productivity rather than just being ultimately "fluff" that don't (when you get right down to it) do anything newer or better than I can do with a 59-cent notepad and a pencil. Add in the web access, e-mail capability, etc and it's potentially a pretty useful/potent little tool. Obviously "boot up" time will be a consideration too, but I suspect it's pretty much instant if you pull it out and want to start using it, like an iphone is.

I've wondered for years why "high tech" stuff that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars feels the need to shackle itself to a legacy interface (QWERTY keyboard) that's been around since the early 1900s. Time for something newer, more modern and more efficient. Apple "got it" with this interface on the iphone and droid uses something similar on their new phones too. This is where things SHOULD be going. I would suspect there's a touch-keyboard application thing too for people who simply MUST revert to typing, but I don't know. I suppose you could always buy a USB one and plug it in if you wanted.

This is something I'll definitely visit an Apple store to check out/play with. I still maintain that having an irreplacable battery is an idiotic engineering move. Unless I know that I can get the battery replaced when it starts to die, I'm not going out and spending hundreds of dollars on a device - that's just stupid.

! person I talked to that can't wait for it to come out because he can put manuals and PDF's in it , via the reader, instead of carrying around all that "crap" (his words) that he has to now! I looked in his car , he had 2 laptops, briefcase, pads, pens .manuals big thick 200 page printed out legal stuff ....all over the place, he says it will all go into this device & have internet , phone to boot

Why do you say you cannot replace an iPad battery?

It is probably like an iPhone. It costs $0 to have an iPhone battery replaced in warranty (or longer if you bought Applecare) and $85 out of warranty. I know lots, I mean lots, of people with iPhones. I can't think of anyone who's had a battery replaced. There must be some, but it just isn't a real problem. In the real world, the reasons people get their iPhones fixed (or replaced) are breaking, losing, stolen, drowning, malfunction, and upgrading. Battery failure isn't high on the list. In my experience.

So, how is this different than having the PDF files on a netbook?

Look, I like the IDEA of this device. It just seems much too expensive for what it will do. It is not like the iPhone, which will replace 2 devices with one. It doesn't replace a laptop, or a phone, so you still need those. I don't see people using this instead of a TV to watch movies. You can't watch a DVD on it anyway. You can't even connect an external DVD player to it. Maybe we need a Wifi DVD player for it...

I recently bought 2 computers. A Dell E6500 for my work, which replaced my 4 yr old D620. I also bought an ACER Aspire 10.1. I'm using the ACER right now. Everything I can do on the Dell, I can do on the ACER. It has a decent keyboard. It has 3 USB ports, wired and wireless internet access. A VGA connector. An SD card connector built in, bluetooth. 160 GB hard drive. 2GB of Ram. The specs are about as good as my D620, except the hardrive is bigger. I paid $279 including shipping. $279.

I can add a wireless broadband dongle for $50, and $30/mth from any of the cell companies. I don't need it, because I can do this either wired or wirelessly with my existing cell phone. I'm already paying a data plan for my phone, unlimited, so no extra charge beyond that.

$279 vs. $699, and my $279 netbook does more.

Landscape/portrait. Not a huge deal but it is different.

It was posted above and admittedly I'm making an assumption that this is the case. I'm still curious about this device and its capabilities and will check it out for myself. All I'm saying is that if it's true that the battery can't be replaced (or requires an outlandish service agreement and exclusive use of overpriced proprietary parts) that's a huge turn-off, probably a deal breaker.

Obviously, having the device being "unlocked" so it can be used on any wireless carrier's network is a big plus. One reason I've not considered the iphone at all is because of the exclusive agreement with AT&T. I currently have AT&T for my cell phone and their coverage sucks, for lack of a better word - especially in this region (although even in wirelssocal it was spotty and prone to intermittent drop-outs).

I'm interested. I'll have to test-drive one to answer some of the questions above though.

Jeff, remember it is Wifi. You can buy one of those little Wifi to cellular-broadband boxes from Sprint for cheap money. I have a WM 6.1 phone, so I downloaded a program for $20 to do this. It lets me use either the USB cord, Bluetooth or create a Wifi hotspot with the phone. And since I already have unlimted data on my phone, no second plan, no extra charge.

Is this not a "fuzzy" area in the agreement? I have these same capabilities via tethering but haven't really taken advantage beyond proving that it works on my netbook.

So there's no wireless capability per se? Just wifi?

That's okay I guess, but not any better than my current laptop (aside from nicer packaging and interface, as discussed above).

Wifi-only models of the iPad ship in March, 3G versions in April.

If I was going to buy one, I wouldn`t rush on it right now, since we all know that in six months it will have twice the storage, 3G in standard, etc...for the same price or less. It is always the same game Apple plays.

Yep, screw the early adopters.

I guess that is where the ipad name came from: You really need it after you got screwed :D

The brain-damaged CPU and OS are a show-stopper. Not to mention the paltry storage (I don't care what anyone else says--double-digit GBs are insufficient in any product larger than a cellphone). One of the things I like to do is watch a ripped movie in a window while I do other work or surf. Single-tasking precludes this entirely.

Someone please tell me WTH is NEW about this product.


...is it just because Apple finally got on board. ....er, Slate?