I see it as a step towards hurting Dell, who makes a portion of their money selling laptops and desktops to people who really don't need them, like my parents, grandparents, other non-technical people. It's also a step towards hurting the "PC repair" industry that charges these poor folks $150 to install and run freeware antivirus tools and "double your memory".

I think the lack of Flash support is going to hurt it the most, as the target market I'm describing are people who tend to use Flash a lot (think Facebook games and other online games.)

The iPad is aimed at that market of people - the people who use the Internet as another vehicle for entertainment. I've seen what the iPhone has done for average people, and I think this is Apple taking that a step further.

I guess I wouldn't say it's "revolutionary" but then again, I said that about the iPhone. ("it's just another phone, who cares?") And remember, it was pretty 'meh' before the app store.

I could be wrong, but I think it has the potential to be pretty neat for the average person. We need a revolution in that space.

I disagree @ iPhone. That was revolutionary. It was the first pocket webbrowser that actually worked well and rendered websites properly.

>> "And remember, it was pretty 'meh' before the app store."

Again, difference of opinion. I couldn't care less about the app store. Why would I download software approved by Apple, when I can just use the browser for most things?

A netbook is more of the same, its what we already have. The iPad is something new and different.

And, I've never even seen a video of a device using ChromeOS. I can't seem to bring myself to have a positive opinion of a device that's been announced for 9-10 months without so much as a screenshot or picture of a device running it.

I've made this point before, but, its worth repeating: I don't even know what market Google is targeting with ChromeOS. I've looked into it, but, I honestly have no idea.

Why would I download software approved by Apple, when I can just use the browser for most things?

Better experience. Sure, if you never use native apps, you won't know what you're missing. But, having used them and then going back, its not quite the same. There's something slightly off about the scrolling, about how everything behaves when pressed, etc.

Who's not sitting pretty? Microsoft. They've got to connect a Hail Mary pass with WinMo 7 to survive and stay relevant. They may do it, though.

You could care less. But you know better than to download malware. Most people don't, and I'm sure you know that if you've ever had to fix someone's computer over the holidays.

As for netbooks? Triad them. Screen's too small for the elderly. Apple lets you zoom up things you can't see. I have horrible vision, and I have an ipod touch and a netbook. Guess which one I surf on? It ain't the netbook.

I really think they're targeting people who don't want a computer who want the Internet for entertainment, and nothing more. It's a good sized market. Time will tell if I'm wrong.

My mum has a macbook, which serves her fine. My kids have Netbooks with Ubuntu netbook remix which also is great for browsing the web.

I just don't see how the form factor makes sense. I can just see the write-ups now - highly irritating to use for long periods, aching hand/neck, too easy to drop, etc etc

Kid #1's friends have computers, but they don't use them like we use them. They use email and Facebook. (Yes, I know, I already covered Flash games previously, so we'll need to see on that one.)

They don't know or care how their computer works, they use Internet Explorer cos it's there, and they don't download software because they've had to pay so much to have it removed by GeekSquad.

This is a smart move by Apple. It'd be smarter if they'd just make Flash work, put a couple of USB ports on the thing, and let it be a master for an ipod.

The fact that you need a win or mac box with iTunes to get music on this thing could very well be the one thing that keeps it out of the reach of the everyman. In that case, you and I are in total agreement.

Small, cramped, hot, ugly.

With the iPhone (and likely iPad), you'll know what to expect from the device soon enough. With the netbook, I can never quite shake the "This isn't quite a computer, even if its pretending to be one" feeling and get used to the keys being 10% smaller.

Yes, I fucking do think it'll suck less.

Sorry, but you don't see. Heck, I am a geek and I do want iPad, and I know exactly why do I want it. That's because I know what I will not be doing with it, and why "deficiencies" which were repeated over and over since Jan 27 do not matter. No, I won't be doing any programming on it, nor will I be carrying it out of my house often. But there are activities on which I spend a lot of time and for those iPad is just perfect.

I used to be surprised how many geeks missed the point that iPad has IPS screen, but I just gave up. It is so easy to point what iPad does not have and miss that it does have. Just wait till you can spend some time with the device, and say meh then.

To us less useful means less depth.

To the general market less useful means less confusing.

Less confusing in consumer devices = win.

It's the geeks that are hailing it as useful.

I can't see how my kids would use an iPad, and I can't see how my mum would use an iPad.

I find it easy to see why Apple expects it to be popular. I may be wrong, but the (apparent) fact that lots of people are interested in buying an iPad suggests they can think of ways to use it, and seriously doubt that Apple would be investing lots of money in launching one without assuring themselves of likely demand first.

Me, I would rather not buy an iPad - even though it looks like a very good product, technically - because I am increasingly put off by Apple's aggressive vertical integration and business tactics (like this patent lawsuit). But however I feel about that, I can't deny their expertise in engineering and marketing. Even if I buy a competitor's product, the price and specifications will have been influenced by Apple's offering.

I feel like we (computer users) have already gone through this 'utility' barrier many times - did average consumers 'need' the mouse, the GUI, videogame consoles, color graphics, dedicated monitors (vs a TV adapter) etc.. etc.? Well, no, not as such, but it seems that people's desire for a technology often forms prior to the availability of tools that properly exploit it, even though their use cases may be inchoate.

I'll give you two examples of non-computer geeks who nevertheless have use cases for a tablet, with the understanding that these too are anecdotal.

One is down the street from me: the people who work at the 7-11 use an oldish Panasonic tablet computer for inventory management. they probably don't need multitouch and the software looks a bit primitive, but they seem well comfortable treating it as a digital clipboard that they can hold with one hand and operate with the other. Now, you don't need a degree to work at 7-11 or even to get your own store, just a willingness to work at a small 24-hour retail outlet. 7-11 is a mature franchise business so I don't imagine that they rolled out the use of tablets to their employees on a whim - more likely, such devices hit a sweet spot between usability and capability which proved beneficial for limiting the cost of inventory control.

Another area is for creatives in a studio. I work with audio and video for a living, and for some tasks using a mouse is royal pain in the ass. There is a thriving industry in hardware control surfaces for musicians, and many of them are repurposed by 3d animators, compositors, and other video professionals because the cost of dedicated hardware for the latter is stratospheric. A general purpose device with multitouch is already a winner in this market. Cheaper ones will sell like hotcakes.

Add enough of these market segments together, and you're looking at some real money.

The greatest weaknesses of a PC are its complexity and its UI. A PC is complex enough that a novice user can either completely fuck it up or is terrified to try doing more than a limited number of tasks with it. And that's an inclusive or.

PG, in 2001:

"When you own a desktop computer, you end up learning a lot more than you wanted to know about what's happening inside it. ... My mother has a computer that she uses for email and for keeping accounts. About a year ago she was alarmed to receive a letter from Apple, offering her a discount on a new version of the operating system. There's something wrong when a sixty-five year old woman who wants to use a computer for email and accounts has to think about installing new operating sytems. Ordinary users shouldn't even know the words "operating system," much less "device driver" or "patch."" http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html

Even if you're accessing web apps, people still have to wrangle with the operating system a good deal. People need a limited device that gets out of the way and doesn't need them to administer it. And it turns out that a limited device can also make some security guarantees about running native apps, as well.

The keyboard/mouse UI is pretty nice, but still a weakness in some respects. Keyboards are fast and mice let you do spacial things with a screen. Unfortunately, keyboards in most contexts have somewhat arbitrary effects ("/" means search, "command-z" means undo) so people don't use them outside of entering text, and mice are not especially fast. Both devices are also rather indirect. Multitouching a handheld device is about as fast as a keyboard and probably even more intuitive than a mouse. And the directness is unmatched. It can even reproduce maybe 70% of a keyboard just by pushing a keyboard up onto the screen. This seems obvious in retrospect now that we've had iPhones for years, but once again--the weakness of the iPhone and iPod touch is the small screen size.

And in the laptop context, the keyboard and trackpad physically get in your way. Why have a touchpad which indirectly controls a cursor when you can just touch the screen? The keyboard has more use, but when you take the tradeoff of eliminating it, you can get a lot closer to the screen and carry it around in a usable state far more easily. I've spent a lot of time carrying around open laptops, and it's pretty unwieldy.

I don't think the iPad will be revolutionary until it doesn't require a PC to sync to. It would also help if it was cheaper--cheap enough that you could have one in each room, at least. And I'm not completely convinced myself. But there are enough signs that they're onto something that I'm intrigued.