[gnurant]

That is simply not true. Not everyone has a laptop and a smartphone. The ipad is far more compelling than a smartphone for me, maybe not for you. I can think of a dozen innowative usas for it. If it lives up to the promise of 10 hrs battery that's amazing in itself.

It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it. I see this as innovation rater than the last 10 years of immatation.

[DrJokepu]

I agree with that. I don't own a notebook, and here's why: as a developer, I find it very hard to work on a laptop: I need two displays, a proper keyboard, a proper mouse and a powerful machine. It's question of taste, I suppose. For my "mobile communcation needs", my Android phone is satisfactory most of the times. However, for casual browsing / reading, the smartphone is too small / slow and the desktop computer is too big / uncomfortable. Laptops are way to big for casual browsing either in my opinion. I believe a tablet would be an ideal device for me.

I don't know yet if the iPad will be the "one" for me, but right now I'm pretty much certain that I will purchase a tablet in the next few years.

[mattmaroon]

Maybe. I'm not sure you're wrong by any means. There could be people who don't have a smartphone or a laptop who would drop $500 on this. And, to be honest, it's not useful to focus on price. The original iPhone was priced out of popularity but it rapidly dropped.

But the point is still valid, which is that it has to create a market. Apple is 0 for 1 at this in recent years. I consider the Apple TV the only real attempt at creating a market rather than launching a more compelling product in an existing one, and it's been a failure.