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Speaking strictly from the reading perspective, the iPad will do the following:
1. email
2. most ebooks, free & otherwise using various Apps
3. blog reading, aided by Readability
4. magazines/newspapers, aided by calibre/Stanza/apps
5. internet article reading, aided by Instapaper
6. RSS, aided by Byline (I hope) and other apps
It is a one stop fairly portable reading appliance, packaged in a user friendly form. Assuming that 10 hours battery life is correct for reading, that will be fine. Just set it in its charger at night. General home wifi is enough for readers – constant access is not as important as predictable access. 3G – probably of no importance, except perhaps road warrior types. And if your eyes get tired, there are audiobooks.
But now, here's another, non-ebook perspective:
"It's Apple's netbook - no hard drive, 64gb, lightweight, long battery life, built-in 3G, voice via the Skype app for iPhone/iPod Touch. I'm definitely buying one, because I can do everything I need to do on a business trip with this thing, yet it's slimmer/lighter/has more battery life than my MacBook."
I'm beginning to think that this device is not a single device, but one that can be repurposed by the user toward the user's needs. I think it's a mistake to criticize it for what it doesn't have, because what it does have appears to have been very deeply thought out in terms of where Apple can carve off chunks of several different customer groups. The iPad will not replace e-ink based readers, but it will carve off a big chunk of the large screen market. It will not replace netbooks or laptops, but it will carve off a chunk of that market in which portability is highly important but deep work is not. It will carve out a certain part of the gamer market, and another part of the audio/visual market.
This device is not a game changer. What it is, is a very astute move by Apple to service parts of several submarkets for portable electronic devices which are not being well served by existing devices.
What the iPad is NOT is a device which is intended to move into a specific category of existing devices - ebook readers, netbooks - in their entirety.
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