But this…? What is the point. I have a Dell Mini 9 thats runing OS X and i love it, i had really hoped it would be something about 7″ thats running OSX, all be it very slowly. Apple are simply trying to tie more people into the Apps store with this thing. If this is all they were going to do they would have been better off making it a 7″ touch….its too big to put in a pocket, and for its size lacks soooooo much. No Bluetooth, No 16:9, No USB, No HDMI, No Flash…simply put, NO GOOD and NO WAY…would i waste my money on it.

I love Apple kit, have 3 macs, but id sooner spend my money on any of the netbooks out there – Sony have those lovely lttle ones for roughly the same price which would do anything the iPad is supposed to do, play Flash and let you put and transfer files onto it via USB all this has over netbooks is a touchscreen….

Apple should have basically come out with a MBair without a keyboard instead of this likely to be overall an iFlop.

Um, except for this one. You can debate the fineries of what it’s got or hasn’t got, but fundamentally, I just don’t get what it’s for. And every time I visualise myself using it, I also find myself visualising putting it down in frustration.

I think it’s a great entertainment device for commuters stuck on long train or plane rides. But I’m a Mac fangirl with a job and an expensive photography hobby, and it’s not the device I was hoping for.

For the job, could I do data entry, answer emails in a style acceptable to my boss (ie, using You in lieu of U), and writing short reports? Maybe. I’m not convinced that touch screen typing will be fast or ergonomic enough. There are times when I’m walking around cradling a netbook in my left arm while the right hand hunts and pecks; clearly a tablet would be easier then. But how easy will it be to find a flat surface where I could see the device and type without breaking my wrists? The keyboard dock would be an option when you get back home/to the office/hotel, but on the go, I don’t want to carry two devices.

For the photo hobby, uh, what if your camera don’t use SD cards? I’m an Aperture user who shoots RAW with a CF toting dSLR. When I travel, I’d love a light weight computer to view my images and back them up to a portable hard drive; when you shoot RAW, 16 gigs is easily one day of shooting. But the camera kit dock is only for SD, and I can’t tie up my camera and drain it’s battery for 15 minutes while 8 gigs of image files upload via USB. And, assuming there was room for them on the iPad, how to I get them backed up on a portable hard drive? How do you view files already on that drive? A pair of USB ports, even in a dock, would have solved a lot of issues.

Even if some clever engineer comes up with a USB hub for the dock connector, is there a native app for viewing those RAW images? iWork is nice, how ’bout an iAperture or even i-iPhoto? When you’re in the field or on vacation, all you need to do is view, keyword, and delete the junk. A light version for $10 would be lovely.

Like I said, it’s a nice entertainment device. I was really hoping for a computer. I guess I’ll be sticking with my little XP netbook.

Does that make sense?