Here is
PC World's take on the iPad's IPS display:
"... Ensuring that the device can be held in a variety of ways without major viewing angle issues was clearly of great importance to Apple, especially considering that you'll rotate the iPad depending on what you're viewing, and Apple positions the iPad as a casual use 'living-room' device, perfect for consuming an assortment of multimedia.
Typical casual-use devices, namely netbooks, use a twisted nematic (TN) display technology. TN although cheaper, offers inferior color reproduction (only 6-bit color, while IPS supports richer 8-bit color), and lower viewing angles, so Apple's use of a higher quality display techology (IPS) for such a casual device is welcomed...."