You know, I just clued in to something that I hadn't thought of before.
Apple had a very important design choice to make when they decided to make a tablet. They could either choose to base it off Mac OS X, giving the device access to all the software in that environment, or they could base it off iPhone OS and gain access to that software.
The thing is, developer support for iPhone OS is utterly insane. Mac OS has had to fight for scraps of software support for two decades, while the App Store has 140,000 apps of every variety after only 18 months of existence!
So which software library do you want your tablet device to tap into? It's a no-brainer. The programs may be slighty limited in scope, but the iPad is going to get way more software as a giant iPod Touch than it ever could as a cut-down MacBook.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
