For my work this will be brilliant. I spend a lot of time on and off planes and in and out of my car going to meetings etc. The Calendar and notes app on this alone are almost worth the price. I tend not to consistently bring my laptop to fast meetings since it is a hassle to open up and get the apps up and running. The fact that this is based on a similar UI to the iPhone means I'll be able to very quickly use it in meetings.

Beyond that I typically have scripts and show treatments in PDF format and already to most of my notes and markups electronically so I'll be able to bring the iPad to rehearsals and run through instead of sitting with my laptop out.

I'm also on my feet on job sites quite a bit where a traditional laptop doesn't make sense. I end up walking through the site taking notes in a spiral notebook and then retyping those as needed. With this I'll be able to take notes directly into the iPad and can even email things immediately.

So yeah, this thing is going to be a godsend. I'll happily buy the first revision, and the way things go with me most likely replace it with the second version when that comes out since this thing will have paid for itself in increased productivity.

But with business travel, you need a keyboard, and word processing. And the iPad doesn't multitask.

There is a word processor for it and it will work with the keyboard dock, or with the Apple bluetooth keyboard.

Yeah, I can see that it would be totally useful for someone like you, ND.

Ask Moxie FTW: [link]

Jezebel, also good: [link]

My favorite comment:

andBegorrah: Are you there, God? It's me, Marketing.

But with business travel, you need a keyboard, and word processing. And the iPad doesn't multitask.

I meant for the plane. You can keep your laptop in the wheeled luggage and use this for reading and watching video.

I think they just killed the Kindle DX. This should provide some nice downward pressure on e-book readers.

I think they just killed the Kindle DX

I would agree. Amazon's Kindle division is likely shitting bricks. Granted, there is still the Kindle app.

Yah, I'm a bit annoyed (OK, a lot annoyed) at the book pricing. I mean....seriously? The books are going to be more than paperbacks?? Does that include books that...are paperbacks? Or would have only been released as paperbacks? Because when Apple did this for CDs it made things CHEAPER ($9.99 was LESS than most CDs cost, at the time).

MadTV's iPad Video: Sketch Show PREDICTED Apple Product, Mocked It Perfectly

Turns out MadTV beat us to the punch. Fox's now-defunct sketch comedy show, made this fake ad years ago for the "iPad"--a menstruation device that hooks to your computer. Apple probably should have Googled "iPad" before going with this name.

meara, most of the paperbacks are at 4.99-- the stuff that was priced higher was hardback and here's the thing and this is why they've just boned Amazon spectacularly-- in all likelihood, because of the agreements that Apple has made with five out of the big six publishers, it will allow new releases to drop on the same day as a traditional release at a price point that, while not as high as a full price hardback, it's comparable to a discounted hardback price.

What happened was when amazon started pricing new release hardbacks e-books at 9.99, it forced Wal-Mart, because of their match lowest price guarantee, to price their physical hardbacks the same, which was a HUGE loss for the publishers & Wal-Mart alike. In many cases, however, Wal-Mart, not wanting to take the loss, simply refused to carry the title, also, a huge loss for the publisher because like it or not, WallyWorld is the single largest book retailer in the country. So what would happen was that publishers began writing clauses into author contracts stating that e-book releases would be held back a month or two months or whatever, which annoyed Kindle users, because they wanted to be able to read the book the same day it dropped as a hard copy.

My guess is, based on the pricing that I saw in the presentation, Apple's iBook store is going to release titles on the same day as the hard copy, which is going to make a LOT of people happy. Of course, that's just speculation, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Given that I've held out on buying a netbook and/or a dedicated e-reader, I may well wind up buying one of these in the next year or two. For me, it'll be a huge travel save, allowing me to do everything I'd like to do at conferences without worrying about my laptop, which is my main computer.