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.

Cool, so when is the app store going to get Chrome, VLC, Skype, Handbreak, WoW, or any of a dozen other Mac apps I use all the time?

When is it going to get Garage Band?

How about Firefox and flash?

How about Microsoft Office? I have that on my Mac. 

To say the Mac does not have apps is to not know the Mac library very well.

Or they could have both. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to patch together an iPhone emulator / virtual machine for the iPad, they probably already have all the pieces lying around anyway.

But it does not compete with netbooks. Netbooks are for browsing the internet and working. To work properly, you want a keyboard and normally, to have a web page open in the background for research or anything else

That library was built up over years, the iPhone's was built over months, and contains a substitute for every app in your list except Handbrake (which makes no sense to have without a DVD drive) and Flash. Personally, the only time I miss Flash is when I come across embedded video that isn't Youtube, and with html 5 taking flight, I expect that frustration to disappear over the horizon. I actually appreciate not having to load the useless Flash crap on most pages.

Office? There are many iPhone apps which edit Office files (expect them to get updated to take better advantage of the iPad), and Apple just added another with their iWork suite designed specifically for the iPad.

Skype? Been in the app store for quite some time now. Skype and voice memos would be the reasons why Apple built a mic into the iPad.

VLC? I haven't found the need for a media player beyond Files, but if you need more formats there's an app called OPlayer that promises to do that for you.

WoW? I guess you really wanted this to be a MacBook with a touch screen, lots of power, more weight, a bigger price tag, and a shorter battery life. If you feel like it, there are a few thousand other games that you might like to play instead. Mac OS still has a strong lead in creative/productivity software over the App Store, but it has been quickly left in the dust when it comes to time-wasters.

Garage band? There are a ton of music apps already available, from little tinker toys to some serious music software. Given that Apple has already made iWork for the 'Pad, I wouldn't be surprised if the iLife suite is next in line.

As Grimes pointed out, this isn't meant to be a serious work machine, that's what the MacBook line is for. It's for entertainment and communication, with perhaps some light work on the side. If you need very powerful apps, the iPad has neither the hardware nor the interface for the job. Given the years of failure that other companies have seen trying to sell a laptop-like tablet, it's understandable that Apple wants to try a different approach to the concept.

Ipad isn't so bad...but don't want it...nothing jumped to me...

Slate tablets are mainly used in medical, education and engineering areas. This is a glorified Ipod touch, not a tablet.

But how can you do any useful work without multitasking? At the very least you should be able to run a browser and word processing software simultaneously.

Agreed. I currently take a laptop to meetings. I regularly run evernote, email, and IM. I can do all this on the iPad, but not at the same time.

The more I think about this device, the more the only two shortcomings that I really care about is limited storage and multi tasking.

I sure hope the next gen fixes both those problems.

The need for multitasking is mitigated by save states. My phone takes about two seconds to quit a text editor and launch the browser. Once you've copied the text that you're looking for, it takes a couple more seconds to get back to the text editor, which launches at exactly the place you left it. Not quite as fast as alt-tabbing, but the effect is much the same.

This does fall apart if you want to monitor an IM or some other communication software while you work.

Oh, and I never answered your point that Apple could have built the iPad for both Mac OS X and iPhone OS software. Really, doing both is just choosing the Mac OS path, since you have an iPhone emulator on your Mac if you have an iPhone dev kit. The result would be a schizophrenic user experience which would discourage development designed specifically for a touch interface. It would also be following in the footsteps of every failed tablet design of the past decade and pitting the iPad againt Apple's MacBook, which was actually Apple's fastest growing product line last quarter.

I'm not sure how much of a market there is for a less portable, more useable media device between the pocket and the laptop, but the more I think about it, the more I think Apple made the right move by not simply trying to chop the keyboard off a laptop.