I get home from work and want to plop down in the recliner and watch a little TV, maybe surf the net, adjust my fantasy baseball roster for tomorrow, and check some emails and tomorrows weather. I currently have three choices to do this: (1) I skip the recliner completely and sit at a desk in front of a PC, which I've already done for nine hours of the day at my office, (2) I do this from the recliner with my laptop, which is bulky, awkwardly shaped for actually doing work in my lap, with a big screen I have to look over to see the TV, and it burns my thighs and needs charged again after 75 minutes, or (3) I try and use my iPhone, which is slow for surfing, a nightmare for blogging or posting more than a single line or two to a site like BP, is virtually crippled by the Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball site, and not exactly awesome for emailing since the keyboard is so tiny. Yeah, the iPhone works awesome on the go, or in a pinch, but it's absolutely not my choice if I want to do some Web surfing for any extended period of time.
The iPad, with its single screen, no hinges, blazing speed, big OSD keyboard, full featured landscape-mode Web browser (even if it lacks Flash), and ample battery life fits a niche no other product fills. I can do what I want from the recliner, carry it to the can if nature calls, then carry it out to the three season room or patio if need be. Now, is that ease of use worth $500, minimum? Probably not to a lot of people, but it is to me.
Honest question, does anyone carry their laptop to the bathroom if they expect to be on the throne for 5-10 minutes? iPhone? Sure. A DS or PSP? Uh huh. A book? Absolutely! A latop? Well, that seems strange to me. And how about trying to use a laptop in bed!
I think the iPad is being overrated as a portable device in the context of it having the 3G capabilities and the estimation that this could be a true laptop or netbook substitute. I don't think it'll do that, or will be purchased to do that. People who do will probably wind up disappointed and trash the thing, no doubt. However, for people who expect ease of use and just want to have a Web portal at their fingertips when they're getting around their own home, I think this will be huge.
I don't expect much more than that in its current state because it is only the iPhone OS afterall, so it lacks multitasking. If it ran OS X, it might be capable of so much more. The big question is going to be whether the current A4 iPad can run the alleged mutitasking-capable iPhone OS 4. If so, then all bets are off.
