I won’t argue your points, but people upset that the 3GS cost less and does more than they paid for their original 3G iPhones didn’t dump Apple, they upgraded to the 3GS immediately or did so when their contracts expired.
Early adopters for the most part know what they are getting in for.
The hardware isn’t what makes the iPad interesting, its the user experience that hardware is built to provide that makes the iPad a potential game changer.
6 months ago I would have looked at the entire concept of the iPad and laughed at it as nothing more than hype, today I see that this could indeed prove to be something important. What changed in those 6 months? I upgraded my antiquated old flip phone and got an iPhone.. It took that for me to finally get the hype around the thing. Up until I was actually using one I thought of them as nothing more than toys, now I get it.
I won’t deny Apple is about coolness and hype, and no I’m not running out to buy an iPad, unless of course I come up with a nice idea for an APP, since I did purchase all the infrastructure to develop iPhone apps as well shortly after getting my phone. However, it definitely could prove itself to be a game changer, not because its technically an impressive device at the hardware level, but because it takes the proven user experience of the iPhone and puts it on a portable PC... that definitely has the potential to change things.
Time will tell if it does or not.
Understood....but not to pick at ya or your points, but let's discuss this sentence in your reply (excerpted above).
Is it really a PC? Not in my opinion. Now, if they made it available with a version of OSX, absolutely. No one can say that the iPhone and iPad OS's are remotely close to OSX (a fabulous OS, by the way)in terms of capability, apps, etc. So, it's not a phone, to be sure, and it's not really an e-book reader, and it's certainly not a true PC/Mac replacement....so what the hell is it?
To me, it's a solution in search of a problem.