I get tired of people calling the iPad nothing more than an oversized iPhone (or iPod). It is not and if that is really all you can see in the iPad you seriously lack imagination. For those people I present here my adaption of the famous René Magritte painting ‘The Treachery of Images‘ (better knowns as ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’).
Fair enough, the thing isn't quite a gargantuan iphone/pod, but I still really feel that it's a huge letdown. In the grand unveiling of the thing, Jobs explained that he wanted something that was in between a laptop and iphone/pod, and performed the functions of each better in some way. It's that last part that's lacking. How is this BETTER?
I see one very clear capacity in which the ipad is significantly better than it's predecessors. It's bigger than an iphone/pod and less visually complicated than a laptop. This is something my technologically-challenged mother would probably have a very good time using. It's one piece, it's got a touch screen, like an ATM machine (she can use that just fine), and it's BIG so she wouldn't have trouble seeing the icons or type. The finger motions required are intuitive, so using the photo functions Jobs demonstrated would work well for her, and most importantly, there is no mouse. Probably THE hardest thing about computers for my mother and other people in her shoes who I've spoken to is making the connections between their hands, the mouse, the cursor on the screen, and the icons the cursor is supposed to interact with.
So, given all of this, yes, the ipad has something to offer and I think that is important. For me personally, however, sorry, it's still just a big iphone/pod. I failed to see why any of the functions and features Jobs demonstrated are actual improvements. If you can explain that to me, I'd actually really appreciate it, but it's not in the least obvious.