^m^

TouchTerm is an SSH client for the iPhone that’s available in the AppStore. It’s excellent.

http://jbrink.net/touchterm/

Now I know what I’m getting, an iPad. With the keyboard accessory it can totally replace laptops (as a second computer) and it will be much more comfortable to use for 90% of what I use my laptop for, and not bad for the other 10%.

Is it a perfect product? No. Will it sell like hotcakes? Yes, absolutely.

E-ink is far superior and thats who Kindle, Nook and Sony uses it

I need something to WORK with. I need to type papers for hours at a time, and leave JSTOR open in the background. I need to be able to send files freely. I need to be able to use Smart Classroom data projectors with one out to the projector, and one in from my USB thumb drive – so I can easily transfer from my desktop I use to write to my portable I use to teach.

No multitasking.
No video out without proprietary adapter.
No USB without proprietary adapter.
No keyboard!

And no, I know how to touch type. No keyboard = no home row = no touch type.

So am I going to spend $250 on a netbook or $500 and go without?

The iPad is a toy.

I read ebooks on my Touch all the time, and did on my laptop before that. The only problem with the laptop, for me, was the big lump of keyboard between me and the screen, for reading in bed etc. This totally solves that.

You do hear the backlit-screen = burst-eye thing a lot, and for some people it certainly seems to be an issue. But more and more people are finding that it isn’t an issue for them, at all.

http://www.fondationlecorbusier.asso.fr/fondationlc_us.htm

I’m with Frucci on this one. No Thanks!

Maybe Le Corbusier accidentally made something… comfortable?

i am pretty sure that Jobs would make himself comfortable on a bed of nails if fakirs where considered designer icons.

More generally – if the iPad still retains Apple’s AppStore as the only source of software, then this is not going to take out the netbook. I love my Lenovo netbook – it’s small enough to carry at the same time as my work laptop (corporate environment!), and I can install what *I* want, not limited either by Apple’s nor my employer’s policies.

As for the iPad hardware – you need a dongle to connect to just about anything else. You can’t read either an SD card or a USB drive without one of two adapters. (Actually, the USB adapter is described as being for reading from cameras – I don’t know if it even reads effectively from regular USB drives.) Your brand new iPad owner can’t accept a file on a USB stick. Most *picture frames* accept USB sticks!

This strikes me as a “peripheral device” not a “core device”. I use my netbook to load up my iPod – but I don’t see that the iPad can reload my iPod. And while we are comparing those two – the largest iPod holds 160 GB and claims 36 hours of audio playback, so I would still have lots of reason to have an iPod. By comparison, the iPad’s storage space appears to suffer from trying to stay slim and low-powered.

Lots of regular mobile use – off-loading the camera, loading up the iPod (or – horrors! – an non-Apple mp3 player), or refilling Grandma’s picture frame – is just going to run better with a netbook that has lots of built-in connectivity, with no restrictions on apps. And those are all everyday uses, not geek uses.

amen

1. Surf the Internet.
2. Check email, facebook, and comment on blogs (mostly #1)
3. Look at pictures I have taken.
4. Play music and video.
5. But mostly 1.

Though I more serious writing, number crunching, etc. on my home computer, probably 99% these other things which an iphone can already do pretty well and an tablet PC of any make can do even better. I could imagine an ipad replacing the ‘computer I use to check email/surf while watching TV’ function or the ‘thing I use to read before I go to bed’ function performed by my laptop and my iphone. And otherwise, yeah, I would consider a netbook for that category.

But that is just me.

Synth and effects controllers run from a couple hundred bucks all the way to skies-the-limit depending on features and the coolness factor of the interface. There’s already some basic MIDI controllers for the iPhone/iTouch andThe iPad makes them 100x more useful. And yes, I’ve used my iPhone live on occasion and very often in the studio. I’m primarily a guitarist, but I used my phone as a drum/rhythm machine, synthesizer, theremin, mellotron, field recorder, emergency guitar tuner/chord dictionary, and even as a recorder for vocals.

Much like in the early life of the iPhone, the usefulness was debatable until the next rev of the OS was released and I feel similarly towards the iPad. I suspect that iPhone/iPad OS 4.0 (probably demoed at next WWDC?) is where we’ll really see the potential blow up.

Again, it’s a niche market but speaking as someone who uses an iPhone as a musical instrument more than as a phone I’m kinda excited.

PCs and Macs are way too complicated with backup/virus/system software configuration/headaches. No one ‘wants’ one. They just need one to surf the web and do email, etc. Enter Google OS and iPhone OS.

The tablet PC is the ultimate joke: All the complexity of a PC with another layer of complexity tossed on top. ugh.

Why install a PC in an office environment? They need constant babysitting to keep them working and virus free. Data can end up on them. It costs more just to setup a corporate PC than it does to buy an iPad. iPads can be bigger – they also support eternal monitors. Locked down with signed software – that’s the IT dept’s dream.

I don’t see Microsoft doing anything about this.

im holding out for the macbookpro with touchscreen & touch/user-app configurable keyboard that can actually run both iphone & ipad apps along with serious MAC OSX software.

I think there’s a lot of promise in this device, and Apple definitely has the hype and muscle to make a serious attempt at delivering the promise. Anybody dismissing it because it doesn’t do x, y, or z is seriously missing the point. There are 300,000,000 people in the united states alone; how many of them do you think care about running gcc? If you’re a manufacturer depending upon selling millions of something, are you going to shoot for the gcc demographic? And if you’re in the gcc demo, and something doesn’t fit that, why does that mean it’s not going to succeed? You do realize that there are markets other than the one you’re in, right?

If the gcc demographic was the only market for portable computers, we would still be stuck with magnesium cased SPARC clones that cost $10,000. While I loved the SPARCbook, it was not a path to a large market full of affordable machines.

It’s got excellent reviews, does more than an iPad, is more portable and convenient than a netbook, and has enough features to make you drool. Unless something better comes along in the next couple months, I’ll be getting one as soon as they start shipping.