[Barnes]

[quote=Pastiche;2290802]Use industry standard software suites?[\quote]
Like what? Office? iWork opens office documents.

Use firefox with adblock?

Why?

Use the cloud?

BUZZWORDS!

Use SSL?

Check

Write commands, macros and batches?

I have heard that this is the number one requested feature for all consumer electronics ever made.

VoIP?

You think the microphone is just there for the T-Pain app?

Use software that YOU want to use not what Apple wants me to?

Name three iPhone apps that YOU would like to install but can't or are you talking about hypothetical apps that haven't been written yet.

Listen to music without using iTunes?

You don't listen to music with iTunes. You choose the songs you want to listen to from the iPod app and listen to them with headphones.

Watch movies without using Quicktime? Watch movies in different formats?

Formats that aren't industry standards? Industry standards like the Motion Pictures Experts Group formats that this would support.

Integrate seamlessly with open sourced home server software? Use open source media servers like Subsonic and Twonky?

Have you contacted the Freetards at Subsonic and Twonky to ask them why they don't support the iPad?

Oh and my netbook gets 9-10 hours of battery life too.

My battery powered lawn mower gets the same. Why are we comparing different devices?

It still amazes me that people don't get Apple. This is not a computer, it is a consumer electronic device.

Apple, from the very beginning set out to make the personal computer an appliance in the '70's. They still sell computers and the iPad is another appliance that compliments the digital home.

In your kitchen you have multiple appliances that meet specific requirements. No one complains that their microwave doesn't make milkshakes, one pulls out the blender to make a milkshake. If you want to make batch files, you use a computer. If you want to sit on the couch and read the news, you can use the iPad. Just because a computer can do some things that an iPad can do and an iPad can do some of the things a computer can does not mean that they are the same. One might prefer cooking in the microwave over the oven but that doesn't mean that the two can't exist in the same space.

The purpose of this device can only be clear when you stop thinking that it is the one device that will replace everything else. It's not supposed to. It is a new device category that fits somewhere between a laptop/netbook and a smart phone.