I personally think it's a joke. My boss has one and I was playing with it the other day. The laptop he bought me for work does more, runs faster, has a bigger screen and was about the same price. What a scam!
I popped for the 64gB 3G WiFi after seeing Mike's the other day . . . it's awesome. Not so much for me . . . as my iPhone does pretty much everything I need . . . but it will be for her.
For a professional photographer meeting with clients, as Mike does, it'll be the bomb being able to show your work in that quality anywhere at anytime.
Well, now he's playing iphone games on the thing... bigger screen, yeah.... that's about all it's got going on.
He still looks like he's having fun with it... i'd hate to be lugging that thing around though. My laptop is under the seat. With my droid on deck I have no desire to get the 17 inch behemoth out.
I'd like one for the kitchen / living room. Nice battery life, a nice family of well designed applications, and I'm tired of buying new keyboards and dealing with Windows on the laptop we use now.
I've never used or even seen an ipad yet, so I can't comment on how they work, but I've see they are selling like crazy so Apple must be doing something right!
What the detractors fail to realize is that the iPad is not for "power" computer users. It's for computer novices and "consumer" type users that simply want to check email, browse the web, and do a few other things like share photos or watch videos.
The fact that everything is integrated and it's apps are proprietary to the hardware means there is on fooling around with drivers or options.
Think about your mother or grandmother...what sort of things would she do on a computer? Think she's going to be playing World of Warcraft? Probably not. So why get a computer with all that capability and all those confusing buttons, slots, and things to plug in?
If you don't like the iPad, you're probably thinking about it in the terms of a computer. It's not. That's why it's selling like hot cakes. It's not designed to go head to head with laptops or PCs. It's designed to capitalize on the success of the iPod and iPhone (the #1 selling consumer devices of all time).
Too bad Tablets PC's never really took off, Fujitsu has removed their entire line of tablets (tablet only) machines. These were real computers that could do real work including displays that could be color calibrated and would run Photoshop. Just about everything could be run on Windows or if you choose maybe Linux.
The Arm processor in the ipad could be a lot more than what they are doing with it, it could run Linux (for Arm), and a few other os's.
Basically it is a big toy and like a lot of people, most buy anything that is new and shiny from Apple as they live the cult life.
If you don't like the iPad, you're probably thinking about it in the terms of a computer. It's not. It's an appliance, just like Bill Gates predicted back in the '80s. Like a gaming console. Although contrary to the appliance philosophy, the PS3 is more popular than the XBox because it does more than just games, it's more computer like.
All that being said, I don't understand the passion over an appliance, a device, or an OS for that matter, use what works for you and leave all the chest thumping to the gorillas ...
Too bad Tablets PC's never really took off... I got a Wacom for my computer. Extra nice! http://www.wacom.com/ Mine is like the Bamboo, but came out a little earlier.
Instead of walking around Bed Bath and Beyond with my wife (although I do like the Beyond section), I'm sitting in the car listening to Eric Clapton, catching up on my email and the boards I frequent. This iPad keyboard is a lot easier to use than my iPhone.
I've used my iPad for some sales presentations. My customers have like it, except one guy who didn't want to see it, as said it might tempt him to go buy one.
So far it's been more for display than composing. I've shown product comparison videos, tool demo videos, sell sheets. At a recent distributors event, I handed it to a contractor with the pipe cutting video running. You could tell he'll remember my products.
I called 28 stores the other day trying to run down the 65gB, WiFi, 3G . . . all were sold out. I was in the Apple Store today and the place was jammed to the gunnels.
I confess that when it came out I was a skeptic and didn't see a thing it could do that my laptop or iPhone couldn't. The I watched Mike on his and saw the size of thing . . . it's frankly "just right" for a lot of things.
It'll work for some folks, not for others. But Apple appears to be having no problem selling them.