I’ve had an iPad for a few weeks now. Been trying to see how usable it is, and at what level. Here is my opinion on it.
The iPad, a revolution in computing. The true coming of tablet computing. I’m still trying to figure out why we need tablet computing. I have nothing against new ideas, or new technology. I just don’t see why someone would want to carry around a tablet, when they can have a netbook which can honestly do more than a tablet.
All that being said, the iPad is a neat consumer toy. It can do quite a bit, but overall it is meant for consumers, or average users, not for techs. The best app I’ve found for what I do, which is consulting and engineering, has been Penultimate, which allows me to create hand written notebooks, which I used to use pads of paper or notebooks for (I have about 10 of them from the past 3 years, each one 200+ pages).
Outside of that, I don’t have much use for it. The amount of free useful apps is minimal. The App Store is awful. Searching the App Store doesn’t give me what I’m looking for the majority of the time, and browsing by category is painful at best. I have found very few of the network tools that I have on my Droid phone (Ping, WiFi Analyzer, NetTools, etc…) available for the iPad, (and that includes similar type programs).
I also have a netbook, which cost about half of the iPad, has way more available for it (even if you leave it with Windows O/S), has more storage space, and a reliable keyboard. The netbook screen, size and weight do make it equivalent of the iPad’s specs there also.
I see the iPad for what it is, a consumer grade bridge, that is refining touchscreen technology. Eventually all of it will be obsolete as we will get a chip planet in us to really give us Augmented Reality. The are working on it.