In your opinion, what would be some practical uses for the iPad? I'm just trying to gather enough good reasons to justify getting one for myself when I already own an iPhone and a MBP. Maybe you guys can help me think.
As an ebook reader (possibly). The 9.7" kindle is $10 cheaper than the cheapest ipad. The ipad can access kindle and ipad books, has a better Internet experiece, and better multimedia capabilities. So i see it as a iKindle. In this context, it's a good deal. As a netbook, it's a horrible option.
I could see myself reading a book with this with extra perks.
I don't see this quite replacing a computer.
I was listening to the podcast and I think one thing that has to be said is Apple is smart because of all the hype surrounding it for months now alot of people have been pre-meditating about what place the tablet would fill without even know much about it. So it's not like "ok we have it now what will I do with it", most people already had the use of it planned for months this was just confirmation of "oh yeah I can use it for what I've been planning to use it for". I didn't even have to think about it, last night was a prime example for me, my MB Pro is in the shop and I didn't want to take home my netbook to watch the podcast but watching it on my phone although it's better than not watching it doesn't give me the same level of emmersion. So ta daa in steps the iPad and with the bigger screen and keyboard and I'm hoping louder speakers spot filled.
Also like I was saying in another thread I think one of the ways Apple could make this device complimentary to the iPhone is this. I don't know about others but I hate when I'm working and my phone is in my pocket and I get an email or text message. I don't want to take the phone out of my pocket, check it, it's nothing crazy important and I just interrupted my train of thought or what I was doing. However in this day and age we need to know everything right away that is what I end up doing alot of times per day. So what they should do is to have the iPhone and iPad link together whether through Wifi, BT or it's own link. Then two ways to do it a) have message forwarding on the phone and you choose the iPad as the destination it's sitting on my desk and if a text, email, whatever comes to the phone blip it pops up on my iPad easy to read and dismiss if it's not important and without disrupting my workflow alot b) Once the link is active if the iPhone is running a process, iTunes, Safari, etc. the messages get relayed to the iPad. Also with the same token if I have the iPad in my lap and I'm reading the message on my phone I just swipe it and it flies into the iPad and I can reply with the bigger screen/keyboard.
So IOW, you want to spend $400 for something that having an IMAP mail account will accomplish on any device?
That's the argument I have been ruminating: I can access the web, my email accounts, read books, watch recorded movies/tv episodes... all on my phone. What would be the use of having another device that does all those things, but it's just bigger?
I'll have to see one close up before I can make any assessments of course, but the argument for getting one is starting to weaken.
I love my iPhone but honestly I probably don't do half the stuff you guys must do on yours. I listen to music, talk on the phone, text and tweet those are my big uses. I barely ever browse the web, play games because the screen and typing is just not good for me to do those things and others. So for me the iPad is perfect, it allows me to do all the things I want to do on the iPhone in the way that I want to do them. I'm sure it's lighter than my MB Pro, so it will save me from bringing it home every night.
I want it for reading news papers and magazines. Yes, you can go to news web sites, but I'd like and OFF-LINE "print edition" of newspapers and magazines on this so I don't have any paper delivered my house. You could also read them all on a plane.
Think about it. Download your latest mags and newspapers for the day and you'll have them later or on a plane to read.
I might use PressDisplay.com - Newspapers From Around the World to subscribe to newspapers if they don't find a better way to deliver them. But I hope eventually they can convince all of the publishers to deliver stuff natively to the iPad.
I think Slingbox will be awesome on this thing for really watching real live TV on it.
Of course you can't do that over 3G unless you jailbreak it or use it via wifi over a phone or myfi type connection, just as with the iPhone. But it'll still be very cool.
I'd love to see field runners on this with BIG iPad specific maps. I'll get it just to play fieldrunners. LOL.
It has been mentioned that getting college text books on this would be a pretty compelling use case. I agree.
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Practical uses for iPad? 
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