i think it was phil schiller (but I'm not sure), who said something about a general strategy or trend that allows you:
- to do work on a laptop that only could have been done on a desktop before;
- and to do work on an iPad that only could have been done before on a laptop;
- and to do work on an iPhone that could only be have been done before on an iPad
apple is doing a rather good job of making that generally true. (although i wish they would hurry a bit faster...)
i think apple is currently at a cross roads kind of turning point on making the jump to allowing iPads to be more productive.
apple can do that if / when it wants to do that, and can devise a marketing strategy that fits chip and app capability to ensure usefulness.
a pocketable device (iPhone/iPad Mini) that allows you to do the work of an iPad is not immediately in the cards right now.
the ultimate (magical !) device will be the one that allows for a "flexible" "screen" (meaning some kind of "display" (which could even be holographic even) that gives you a display from an iPhone size to larger iPad size. but i think its safe to say this is 6 to 8 years from now.