I never get to yell First! So I may as well yell Last!
After reading all the insane speculation people have been spreading the last few months, I find myself disappointed with the reality. I guess that's what they were paid to do, so: Good Job!
I love the people accusing Apple of "hype." They haven't said word one about this device, or even acknowledged its existence till today. This is a definition of "hype" with which I am unfamiliar.
I can see a definite market for this, but it has a couple of holes for me that won't get me to pull out my wallet. It has a few points I'm happy about, though. Unlike some on this board, I'm very happy they didn't go with a stick-of-gum 9:16 aspect ratio. The 3:4 is perfect for e-books and Standard-Definition video.
We knew it would be an e-book reader, but unfortunately it's not an e-book reader for me. I'm not going to pay $15 for some best-seller and only get a text file. If I can't transfer the 4800+ titles I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg, Google Books, Internet Archive, manybooks.net, Blackmask, etc., in HTML, PDF, and DjVu formats to this device and read them on the go, then it's not an e-book reader.
As far as video goes, I was hopeful. The iPhone and IPT are only 320 lines high. I'm not about to watch, and certainly not pay for, any video that's not at least Standard-def. I was assuming that the iPad would be capable of showing 720p at least. 1024 x 768? WTH is this? I'd be happier if it was 640 x 480at least then you could watch SDTV in native resolution and 720p in half-resolution, but showing each pixel as it comes in. As it is, 96% and 93.75% respectively of the pixels on your screen are going to be calculated, on the fly, by a mobile processor. Um, no thanks.
Here's an interesting piece of numerology: If you take the dot pitch of the iPhone and figure the size of the ideal screen resolution, 1280 x 960 (720p native resolution, SDTV line-doubled) you get exactly 9.7"! What do you want to bet that's what the iPad was supposed to have, and they couldn't get the quantities or the price they wanted? Maybe a later revision will have it, and then I may buy one.
No camera? Meh. I remember when the iPhone came out, a lot of people were bitching that they should offer one without a camera, because it would get confiscated at the security desk a lot of places. Now people are bitching because this doesn't have a camera. (I wonder how many are the same people?) Getting your phone nicked might be an annoyance, but what if they confiscate your iPad you were going to make your presentation with? Oopsie-daisy!
No Flash? Bravo! Flash would be a deal-breaker if I couldn't kill it with something like ClickToFlash.
Somebody upthread was complaining that they were expecting the textbook implementation to allow notes in the margin and highlighting. We haven't seen those things yet, and we don't know that they won't. Imagine calling up the keyboard, typing a short note in a box, like a sticky, and dragging it with your finger to some point in the margin. This would be better than handwriting, IMO. And I'll be very surprised if you can't highlight in various colors with your finger.
The keyboard dock, and the ability to use other bluetooth keyboards is a huge deal, I think. This would allow you to do a lot of things you ordinarily need a laptop for, but you don't have to carry it around with you.
I'm really torn over thisit looks cool, and the price is right. If I'm wrong about being able to transfer e-books to it, and can read HTML and PDF (I know DjVu was probably a non-starter since even desktop Safari can't use its DjVu plugin to read local files, and has to have a standalone reader), and if the pixel interpolation is better than I'm afraid it is, I might buy one anyway. I just remember when they were trying to flog HDTVs with 768 lines, and you could see 12 or 24 bands across the screen from across the room due to roundoff error !
