All the young kids I know who have them would strongly disagree with you. They love the things and had far less interest in playing games on my iPhone.

Between SWMBO and me, there 5 kids under the age of 12 in our families... and each one has a DS. Also, SWMBO has one and so does her 26 year old brother.

Compare that to the number of iPhones in the family which currently stands at 1.

"iPad"? Sounds like a tampon.

And only one vowel off from iPod.


Now to see how they are going to sell it. So far, it's just a bigger iPhone/iPod touch.

Price will be interesting. Nowhere as cheap as a netbook.

Wow... Steve Jobs has shrunk!

Rough specs / summary so far:

- 9.7" display
- .5" thick, 1.5 pounds
- Apple internal 1GHz CPU, ARM architecture
- 16-64GB of FLASH
- 802.11n + Bluetooth + optional 3G

- 10 hour battery ("months" of standby)

- runs all iPhone apps out of the box

- iBooks, lets you buy books from five major publishing houses at start, looks a whole lot like the App Store

- port of iWork (Keynote, Pages, Numbers)
- you could ostensibly use the iPad instead of a laptop to drive a Keynote presentation (presumably there's a VGA dongle for the port on the bottom, but they haven't said anything about it yet)

and $499 - $829

Steve Jobs: "We think we've got the goods. We think we've done it. Another thing we're excited about is that there's already 75m people who know how to use this because of how many iPhones and iPod touches we've shipped."

Problem: Those people already have iPhones and iPod touches.

Swing and a miss, Steve.

Geoff wins the Internet!

Yeouch.

And, according to one report I read:

Still no Flash in the web browser.

Yeah, no thanks.

I'd call it a single, but certainly no RBI. If you're the sort of road warrior looking to lighten the load, the iPad can do a Keynote presentation, so that's half the travel weight of a MacBook Air -- no small thing. I'd be tempted to leave one around at home for night-time web surfing, keeping up with mail, etc. -- all the things I presently do with my iPhone and/or Kindle.

Still, at least for me, I don't see myself buying it, largely because my MacBook Air and my iPhone, together, really do everything I need to do.

A feature, not a bug. Apple has single-handedly helped push back on the scourge of Flash-heavy web sites. 75M people out there in web-land don't and won't do Flash. That's enough to force web designers to pay attention to some of the newer HTML5 features that can replace things that you formerly needed Flash to accomplish.

(The never-ending list of Flash security flaws, alone, is reason enough to want it to go away.)

Or, for an equivalent weight savings, you could leave your left shoe at home.

Come on. 24 ounces is a huge deal? The road warrior's bottle of water is more than that.

Does Safari Mobile support HTML5 video?

TonyF: Gordon - An open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript with SVG. Supposedly works under Safari Mobile.

The iPad represents the ability to consolidate a laptop (3 pounds = 48 oz) and a Kindle (10 oz) into a single 24oz package. For the dedicated road warrior, two pounds is a big deal. I'm always making decisions on what to take or leave behind as a function of how much weight I want to lug around with me.

Does that, alone, give Apple a huge hit? No. Does that, alone, make me want to buy it? No. But don't discount the value of the weight savings.

I don't get it, what does it do that my iPhone doesn't do already. Apart from not fitting in my pocket.

This device doesn't replace a laptop on any level to me, can you imagine trying to use it on a plane or on public transport? You'd have to hold it with one and and type with the other.

And what was all the BS about the interface?

It also seems to be much bigger than it should be, ok it's thin but there is a clear inch around the screen on each side. I'd rather it be twice the thickness and be all screen on the front, with just a few mm making up the surround.

I think I'll give this one a miss thanks Steve.

Cheers

Cris.

The guy with the laptop and the Kindle can run real software on his laptop. The guy with the iPad is running iPhone apps on a bigger screen.

Also, the guy with the laptop has a device with a real keyboard. Throwing the keyboard dock into the weight and price equation is necessary for your comparison to be valid.

There are already Kindle applications for PC and iPhone, and announced ones for Mac and Blackberry. The advantage of the Kindle itself is that it has a passively lit screen. This makes it easier on the eyes and consume far less power. If you're going to get rid of that main feature, there's no particular advantage to it.

It's clearly useless as a phone; you can't keep it in your pocket, and there's no way to hold it to your head anyway. So you still need a phone, and if that's going to be an iPhone, the only thing you'd gain with the iPad is a bigger screen. Any "road warrior" worth his salt is already going to have a smart phone of some nature that he can email with and whatnot, so the iPad isn't really helping out there.

I dunno. I guess there is some benefit to a lighter device, but I'd say saving $500-$850, drinking from a water fountain, and being able to use real applications is the right choice.

Just being able to watch iPlayer without getting eye strain would be cool.

I'll reserve full judgement until I see what iWork looks like on it.

The product is very nice.

I still do not see how this creates a new category. Not at that price.

According to Jobs: "The problem is netbooks aren’t better at ANYTHING. They’re just cheap laptops." So, uh, they're better at being affordable. I know what he means, and I'm not going to claim that netbooks are better than the iPad, but they're certainly cheaper. And honestly I can do more with them because I'm not locked down by Apple.

I just can't see it being as big a product as the other Apple products.

I use my DS more for games than I do the iPod Touch. Something designed to do one thing and do it well will generally be better than something designed to do everything. Hell, look at the ergonomics of the i[Pod Touch|Phone] compared to the DS Lite. Night and day and guess which one is easier to play most of the games on.

Uh, sometimes Steve seems to make statements that he intends to be mocked.

What, exactly, is the iPad better at? Costing more than a netbook and doing less? I suppose it's better at running iPhone apps at pixel-quadrupled resolution.

Sometimes when I see an Apple product I just know I am going to end up owning one.

As soon as I saw the Mac Mini I knew it was for me, and I made the swap from Windows straight away. The iPhone was similar just not as quick, and when they announced the Mac Pro last year I got a little excited about it.

I am not getting that with the iPad. I am sure it's a marvel of technology inside, and I have no doubt when I see one I'll go "Nice!" but I will still be thinking it's not a product I will ever own unless it was very very cheap.

Cheers

Cris.

HELLO, YEA, I'M ON MY IPAD....

Just made me think of that

Cheers

Cris.

Ehh. If somebody gave me one I'd use it. Currently though I wouldn't go out and buy one.

The iPad would be a replacement for my iPod touch that lives in my house. I use it for random quick internet browsing, iPlayer and iPeng. If I need a bigger screen then I just go find my laptop or desktop.

As an on the road replacement for my laptop, I'll pass. I need a keyboard and the ability to run my own applications. Its got iWork inside it but you'd have to be insane to actually use it without the optional keyboard dock and you might as well get a laptop at that point and do more.

The iPad isn't aimed at me and I'm unsure of who exactly it is aimed for.

I can see definite uses at work for it, but personally? Probably not.

For an additional $10 per application, supposedly.

I think it has the potential to become a really good remote control and scheduling device for my MythTV system. Except it's rather expensive for that, and lacks tactile buttons.

-ml