I too concur that the 11 inch macbook air will completely turn away the ipad power users. Because ipad power users want an ipad with a keyboard + mac os x / programming ability. The 11" macbook air is all that ipad power users have hoped for. Viewed from that perspective, it's a pretty good deal. Way more power and usability for not a whole lot more price.
To turn the ipad into a laptop, you've got to:
Buy a keyboard for $69.
If you buy a stand (we'll say a nice one), that's $30.
Buy a mouse, a magic trackpad is $69.
So you're left with a $125 price gap. For that money you get a real OS, 2 gb of ram, way better graphics, and web cam.
Those accessory makers probably just got angry because anyone who's a power user would just buy a macbook air. I'm really glad that I sold my ipad 2 weeks ago before this came out. Got lucky.
I believe that the ipads need to have a $100 price cut across the board (sales numbers do not argue that one's necessary, however)
Good analysis.
However it is not truly equal 🙂
You are losing out on the GPS, 3G Data (without adding a USB stick), and of course all the nifty APPs won't run on regular OSX.