Not as sexy as Belle but I like it
There's a fair amount of chatter about the iPad since yesterday. My first reaction to it was disapointment, and I'm still a bit disapointed. I saw It as a scaled up iPod, and a missed opportunity. But is it?.
I am in love with my iPod. I use it to read, browse the web, it's my metronome, a music making tool on the move, and I have a dozen games and other uses for it. There are two main drawbacks: it's physical size including screen size and no camera. I find holding it to use the touchscreen awkward if I want to use two hands and the real estate makes viewing books and web pages difficult.
When I imagine a big iPod it looks like a joke, I see Dom Joly with a huge mobile phone clamped to his ear. But when I imagine the iPad as a library of full colour books and magazines (with subscriptions) it makes a lot more sense. I've looked at the Kindle and the Sony e-reader and they remind me of the first Palm Pilot. The flash as each page is turned, the lag when buttons are pressed not a good experience for me. I've got two MacBooks currently but for reading books I'd be very happy to leave the hinged screen behind for something more book-like.
The hardware is only half the story though, the iBook Store could do for e-books what the App Store has done for developers, created an easy to use outlet and a massive market. Of course Apple will lock down the device and tightly control the store so I'd hope that other manufacturers will develop similar solutions Amazon are well placed.
Will I rush out to by the first generation iPad? I don't think so** At least not before I can get Guitarist Magazine, 2000 AD and the like OTA but when that happens I'm in. If the 2nd gen has a webcam that supports video chats over Skype it's a no brainer
** I'm almost certainly lying about that 
