[SunkenCiv]

presents the same portability issues as any laptop - you'll need a case of some sort to protect it and carry the power cable

As with a laptop or netbook, the "case" can consist of a kevlar bag. The power cable will be necessary after 10 or 11 hours use, iow, B.S.

It's heavy... at 1.5 pounds... it's simply not light enough

Maybe Apple can buy weight credits from people with brains small enough to write articles like this -- Al Gore can set this up.

We might ignore the awkward size and weight, but the iPad is also slippery

File that one under, "selling points that will push the price of Apple stock close to $400 and prove popular with the millions of 2010 buyers of the product."

The screen has too much glare... Forget reading in the sun If you thought to take your iPad along for an outing in Central Park or at the beach, forget about it.

Also forget about walking through Central Park carrying anything that looks the least bit valuable.

Fingerprints are annoying

Especially to safecrackers and other criminals.

It does not multitask... same operating system as the iPhone... all of the iPhone's limitations.

Ah! That explains the slow sales of the iPhone.

The browser is limited The iPad also uses the same limited Safari browser that's found on the iPhone

Ah! We finally get down to it -- the writer could just have written "I hate all Apple products" thirteen times.

The virtual keyboard stinks

Eight...

There's no USB port

It's a mobile wireless product, and has a port for a dock, for those who just have to transfer the photos they can't take with it because it doesn't have a camera. ;') Three choices -- 16, 32, 64 gb primary storage, dock that isn't a USB port, oh no, if one doesn't care to use wireless options -- and you'll be at home, so carrying some small extra item won't be necessary.

many of the 150,000 apps already available on the iPhone will also work on the iPad

but they look horrible, so does yo mama.

The price is just too high

So was whatever the editor paid for this screed.

$499 is just the beginning, a low-memory model that will fill up too quickly for anyone with a big music library and/or an appetite for video.

That's one of those straw man things -- there's no impediment to interfacing and archiving stuff from the iPad, the 16 gb model isn't the only model, and anyone with a big music library probably doesn't need mobile computing because they never leave the house anymore.

It doesn't replace anything

Sure it does -- it replaces Flash.

Netbooks didn't replace anything either -- except for replacing small margins for computer makers with even smaller margins for computer makers.

This product will be a winner (assuming the Chinese OEMs don't screw the pooch as they did with the early runs of 27" iMacs); the biggest winner will be those who want to include SSD units in low-end netbooks and laptops running non-Apple OSes, because production has been rising since the supposed shortage supposedly caused by Apple last year.

[ctdonath2]

Heh. Akin to my list earlier.

Elaborating...

Most people carry SOMETHING big enough to spare space for an 8x10x.5” device. Insofar as it’s big enough to actually use, it’s hardly there. The “power cable” is a mere skinny USB-to-iPod cable requiring little more room.

The lack of a physical keyboard is another great step in Apple’s record of removing stuff users really don’t need. Yeah they’ll whine ... and then buy it and love it without what’s missing.

No USB port? for what purpose? Only real need is the postage-stamp-sized adapter for cameras ... oh wait, that’s available and it’s the size of a postage stamp.

Not enough storage? it’s made for what data you’re actually using, not archival purposes. My whole music collection is 48GB, and 90% of that I’m not going to listen to anyway. Now with iTunes 9.1, I’ll re-rip my whole collection to lossless, and auto-compress what I need when I want to fit - hardly taking up much space at all where I’m actually going to listen to what I’m actually going to listen to. Likewise for video: recompressed, what you’re actually going to watch won’t take up that much space if you’re not goofy enough to want to dump ALL your videos on there. And both music & video are moot points with the growing dominance of Pandora and Netflix et al streaming.

And it’s not supposed to _replace_ anything. It’s something new, so please people stop complaining that it isn’t what, well, it isn’t.