Per my last article on the subject, I said in a comment that I would eat my words if the Apple tablet was priced right.
It is, so consider words eaten. It comes in $599, $699, and $799 configurations. This is far below the $1,000 to $1,500 people were expecting.
It is well above the price of entry level laptops and all netbooks, but considering it is full touchscreen and can be connected with AT&T or Verizon (not confirmed but supposedly it will), that can justify the extra bucks needed to buy one.
Will you be buying one?
I won’t. 
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I won’t. To me it’s a big iPhone. It even has the same OS as the iPhone. So I would have to wait for Apps to be made for it which is stupid. I would rather pay $50 more and get the ArchOS 9 which comes with Windows 7 Starter which is a real OS and can run programs for it.
Of course, the ArchOS is faster, has a 60GB hard drive for $550 where as the 64GB is $699 and lighter.
It will not displace the entire netbook market for sure. There are several obvious draw backs to this device besides a replaceable battery. lack of USB and a camera are the two biggest. It’s also GSM only, so no Verizon. Definitely a big disappointment.
Well, Steve says it’s more useful than a netbook, and I can’t disagree more. It’s basically a large format iPhone. All the same limitations are there.
A netbook is a *highly mobile full computer* whereas the iPad is a specific device. Limitations vs a netbook include, but are not limited to:
- No / iPad only peripherals. i.e. a,
Mouse
Printer
Keyboard (that isn’t that ridiculous dock one)
Scanner
External HDD
Camera
Video Camera… ect
- No multitasking. The hell!? This one was a no-brainer. You can *kind of* understand it on the iPgone since it’s a PHONE and not pretending to be a take anywhere work device. I can’t open Spotify and iWork? Seriously lame.
- Storage. Netbooks ship with 160Gb … this with 16-64.
Not that you’ll be using that as it still LACKS ANY KIND OF FILESYSTEM and instead relies on giving individual apps a small storage area. I sync “My documents” between Netbook and my other computer .. but I doubt the iPad will ever have this basic computer functionality.
The list goes on and on. I was really hoping this was a touch screen enabled version of snow leopard, NOT a glorified version of iPhone OS. If it were, $499 would be a netbook killing price.
I hate the fact that people keep referring to the iPad as a large iPhone. it’s not. It’s an oversized iTouch. No camera. Maybe if it had a webcam.
I can wait until someone comes up with a touchpad that has color and pictures, costs around 300 bucks and can get most any of the millions of books and thousands of magazines out there. We are close, but not there yet.
In the meantime, I will stick to killing trees by buying paper books and paper magazines.