Totally agree for myself - I still use my Laptop from 9:00 - 6:00 AM) - The iPad doesn't do everything. In fact, it doesn't do a _lot_ of things very well. I use my (unJailBroken) iPad about 3-4 hours a day. Here is where it is Bad:
o Multi Tasking (Switching between
email, irc, IM, web, Terminal -
don't even try to do all at once.
o Long Form Typing
o Terminal Sessions
o Sunlit Use
Here is where I _really_ use it:
o Games (Field Runners, PinBall, MirrorsEdge, PvZ)
o In Person Social (Photos, Web Pages, Games
when hanging out)
o Video (I watch all my TV through iTunes on my iPad)
o WSJ - Guaranteed - 45 minutes a day. Awesome App.
o Good Reader (for PDFs)
o Kindle - though not as much as I thought I would.
o Email/Calendar - though not that much
better than my iPhone.
o Time Magazine. (First time I've read Time in 4+ Years, now I read it weekly)
o Marvel (I'm addicted)
With the exception of meetings in the office, where I still carry my Laptop, the iPad hasn't been more than 15' away from me in 30 days.
Can't wait to see what Applications are built over the next year.
I almost exclusively consume video content through the iPad. I download almost all of my TV shows and have my video podcasts download via RSS.
I then stream it to the iPad with Air Video. Probably the most kick-ass app I've seen in awhile. TV shows are almost all XviD or X.264 and Air Video converts them live on your machine and streams them over WiFi to your iPad (both local and remote).
Multi-tasking will be here soon. What about just plain web browsing? All of my non-workday HN posting is now on the iPad. I've also finished the Honor Harrington books on the iPad as well as Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
At this point, it looks like a consensus is emerging: The death of the general purpose computer is greatly exaggerated.
The iPad is a great tool for consuming information, but not so good at communications or creation. A month in, I've never heard of anyone doing serious work on an iPad despite Apple's efforts to shoehorn a full office suite into the thing.
However, people love it despite the limitations. The iPad's a device that's just plain fun, and that counts for a whole heck of a lot. Apple will probably sell millions of them, and it looks like they have a good shot at creating an enduring category.
Another prediction: the iPad is going to become a multi-purpose interface device. Look at the interface tools that already exist for programs like Pro Tools. If someone can make a profit on an input device to augment Final Cut that's just a knob with a button, imagine what you can charge to enable a multi-touch adjunct to the same program?
Have gaming interfaces appeared yet? It would be easy to undercut lots of "gaming keyboards." Especially since one has no manufacturing and shipping costs.
The sound studio we use to record dialog for our games has started using iPads both for occasional music stands, and (more importantly) for sharing the live running script and notations across everyone working to record. They seem to love it. It's definitely not being used for pure content creation, but you're right that as an accessory it has many applications.
After some failed attempts to get an iPad delivered to Australia early, I finally succeeded, though barely ahead of the Australian release. It arrived yesterday and I've mucked around with it a bit since.
Within the first hour, my wife was entering birthdays in the calendar and I said that I thought the iPad would prove poor at creating information, but great at consuming it (browsing, reading, watching, etc). Nice to see that early thought validated somewhat by your comment.
I do all my brainstorming, schema creation, and similar "idea sketching" work on mine. Doesn't sound particularly serious, but it's an essential part of my work now.
I've also seen a few pro-bloggers claiming to produce entire posts on the iPad, but whether they've kept it up or not is a different story.. :-) (It would drive me nuts!)
My iPad gets a ton of usage. It's almost replaced paper for me. Instead of sketching out notes and ideas on paper, I use Adobe Ideas on the iPad.. I get a permanent record and it's even better than paper (bigger canvas, colors, etc). This is about the only "content creation" I do with it, but a very essential activity.. I'm getting a lot more done thanks to this.
Beyond that, it can't be beat for checking e-mail and the Web just before going to sleep/after waking up, in the bathroom, or while sitting on the couch.
I've also started to read a lot more. I haven't had any weight issues with it at all, but I have a 9 month old baby so I'm used to holding a ton of weight in awkward positions for ages.. :-)
Looks cool - a bit like Infinote (which I have, but don't use incredibly often) but with a cuter design. Since it's free, I'll get it.
I doubt I'd stick with something like that, though. I want to write notes, scribble things, underline things, draw circles and lines around stuff, etc.. not type. So a sketching type app always works better for me.
You can sketch inside of a Popplet. I don't think of this as an app so much as an organizer. If I were Apple, I'd acquire this and let Files from various apps populate a Popplet, with the App "zooming" to view or edit each file.
Something like that would pretty much be the full equivalent of Courier.
The iPad is an information display and user interface device which can also leverage computation.
Take a look at the music applications available. TouchOSC is revelatory. It doesn't make music. It's a meta-tool. It lets you construct your own controls for musical instruments. (Actually, other devices can use Open Sound Controller signals as well.)
I love to use my iPad with my computer. When doing work it's a calculator, notepad, every scientific PDF I own, another browser window, email. It goes under paper and notebooks, gets tossed around. In a very real way it's a computer window I've pulled out into meatspace. I kind of want another, though the price is too much for two.
My computer is almost exclusively emacs or maybe Illustrator/Photoshop.
Why do we need to rationalize this device? Didn't we all agree in January that the iPad is indeed a slick product, but serves really no purpose for the average hacker. Now it's out and you bought it anyway because you couldn't resist Apple of course. And your defending yourself with statements how much fun it is to play games or read news websites on it. Congratulations. RDF in action.
Part of learning from decisions, for me, involves attempting to rationalize them. If I have a hard time rationalizing something, I might avoid deciding in favor of something that sounds similar in the future.
It's a fancy way of talking. I enjoyed it, but I can see why it's not the most effective way of getting a point across to a large number of people.
Or maybe (and this is a crazy thought), he bought it because he either thought it would be useful or was just curious, and is actually getting some utility and fun out of the device? Could it be...
I use my iPad differently than I use my laptop, and my desktop. I use it in instances where I wouldn't have used either the laptop or the desktop. I like it. If I didn't like it, I would've sold it.
I don't really care whether you want one or not. But it's really sad that you can't recognize that the set of things that are worth $x to you is not the same as the set of things that are worth $x to others, and have to instead make better-than-thou proclamations about a reality distortion field.
My car is better than yours, my editor is better than yours, my favorite trilogy is better than yours, and your favorite band sucks.
What I'd really like to see is some research into how much of the difference between Apple and its competitors is the placebo effect. People expect Apple products to be easy to use, and when they find something that's difficult, "It wasn't designed for that."
You look at Android or Windows or Linux by contrast, and when it's difficult to do something, it's because their design teams are much weaker than Apple's. Sure, the iPad doesn't have to do everything. But if you approach a netbook or a non-Apple tablet with the same "It's an Apple, so it must be good" mentality, is the iPad really worth the price premium?
Can't wait to see what Applications are built over the next year.