Here's the thing. I wanted to like it, but for the price I can't see getting it. Plus- for me as an artist/designer, having no stylus to sketch or work with is a deal breaker. No ability to jot notes or draw out ideas and work from it? What were they thinking? Oh yeah- and no Flash in the browser- you must be kidding.

Currently I have an iPhone which I love. I also have the Barnes and Noble Nook, which I use ALL the time to read newspapers, books and other materials (like technical PDFs). And though it's not as shiny, fancy and can't play video, it EXCELLS at giving me a portable library I can literally fit in my jacket pocket. The iPad is almost too big- I'd have to really be aware of carrying it, which with the Nook it can sort of go with me all the time without being getting in the way.

But really, it comes more down to the price than size. The Nook was $259, almost HALF the lowest priced iPad (which if you DO want a multimedia device 16GB is silly small). I'll definitely check it out when it's in stores. So I won't say No completely, but I really think they missed doing something groundbreaking.

Ive got a kindle .. got it for christmas...but I dont use it and probably wont. I see all this stuff as ridiculous..how lazy have we become? how dumbed down?

Id rather have a large library full of physical items.. Even if one is dumb as all hell, a big library says "i am intelligent, i am well read and classy" .. a kindle and their ilk in comparison? not so much.

"i am lazy"

'

ive gone the other way. exiled the digital sources and accompanying equipment to the family /movie room, while the main system consists of my turntables(Sota Sapphire and P2) , phono amps, a big ass magnum dynalab triode tuner and Revox reel to reel.

i guess the kindle may come in handy for traveling(like digital music) but for serious day to day reading?? no way\\\

my books (over 3400 volumes) are near and dear to me...

sometimes it feels like humans dont even want to interact with the world around them.. want everything piped in to their cerebral cortex..no interaction, no emotion..

Well- if someone gave it to you, that's part of the problem. They were solving a problem you didn't have. I on the other hand was an avid reader up until I had my son almost four years ago, and stopped commuting and started working from home. Since most of my time was with him I suddenly had no more time and room for reading- until I got a Kindle last year. If I had to juggle, or remember to bring a book, mag or newspaper with me all the time it wouldn't happen- and didn't. Suddenly, problem solved!

I showed my 65 yr old Dad the Kindle, who loved it, and saw he could save money on all the hard cover books he usually buys and I gave the Kindle to him. He saves money on newspapers now too. After that I pre-ordered the Nook and got that in Dec.. It's basically the exact same thing now, but over time will have more features IMO.

I have four book cases full of books, still get around four mags mailed to me, and one local paper delivered (which read in about five minutes). But in Salem, MA I can't get my favorite paper, The Washington Post, except by eReader, and again, who wants to lug an inch thick of newspaper around, plus 2-3 books?

I'm all about physical media when it's better, or fits in with my life, which is why I own a couple hundred DVDs and about 2000 records and CDs. Certainly some books I'd never buy in digital format, but others, there is no reason to have it take up shelf space either.

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as an artist/designer, having no stylus to sketch or work with is a deal breaker. No ability to jot notes or draw out ideas and work from it? What were they thinking?

I agree on that missed opportunity... Especially with a name like iPad, i would expect it to be like a notepad or sketchpad...

NOTE: nothing really stops them from adding a stylus accesory later though! It's an advanced touchscreen, so all they should need to do is offer the correct software and a cheap plastic stylus...

I think the best use for it would be as the ultimate media server remote (as someone already said)... It is light and portable enough to hold in your hand comfortably... but also big enough to be a real alternative to a computer screen... The existing touchscreen media remotes really don't cut it (in terms of size).... Unless you want a big screen that you can't move (sooloos, etc...)

I was thinking the same thing for music until I got a Squeezebox Duet. For films it is going to take much longer to replace physical content like DVDs and Blurays. For books it is going to be huge. Think about kids having all their scholar books on the iPad; I already read the NYT on my Samsung Omnia II cell phone (on the Samsung Omnia I it was a bear).

I have been raised with walls covered with books floor to ceiling, the french way, priceless editions from Balzac with Balzac hand written notations in the margins. Unless they wrote music, musicians were considered gypsies, not artists, but writers were complete artists, and artists always occupied the highest echelon of the society, unlike in America.

I love books but I love my Squeezebox and I may fall in love with the iPad as well. The turntable is gone. Now is time for books to go too, I guess.

"We Spent A Lot Of Time Talking About Africa, As we Should. Africa Is a Nation That Suffers From Incredible Disease."
G W Bush

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I have been raised with walls covered with books floor to ceiling, the french way, priceless editions from Balzac with Balzac hand written notations in the margins. Unless they wrote music, musicians were considered gypsies, "reproducteurs", not "inventeurs", but writers were complete artists, and artists always occupied the highest echelon of the society, unlike in America.

Graciousness and humility are big in France, too. I'm so glad we didn't let the Germans exterminate you and your artistic higher echelons of society.

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I have been raised with walls covered with books floor to ceiling, the french way, priceless editions from Balzac with Balzac hand written notations in the margins. Unless they wrote music, musicians were considered gypsies, "reproducteurs", not "inventeurs", but writers were complete artists, and artists always occupied the highest echelon of the society, unlike in America.

Graciousness and humility are big in France, too. I'm so glad we didn't let the Germans exterminate you and your artistic higher echelons of society.

Dont let Froggie bother you, hes a real pussycat. He just needs a monthly bitch slap and spanking. Like so many French men, he likes being dominated.

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I have been raised with walls covered with books floor to ceiling, the french way, priceless editions from Balzac with Balzac hand written notations in the margins. Unless they wrote music, musicians were considered gypsies, "reproducteurs", not "inventeurs", but writers were complete artists, and artists always occupied the highest echelon of the society, unlike in America.

Graciousness and humility are big in France, too. I'm so glad we didn't let the Germans exterminate you and your artistic higher echelons of society.

Perhaps he understands that the big American banks financed the Nazis. This is clearly stated in the congressional records for 1942.

Ken, let it ride, man.. we get it, we really do... but you will gain no converts here. Well, maybe grosse fatigue, but hes a little off.

What does it say when a country is capable to elect twice an individual as inept and stupid as GW who put us in this hole, a State of Massachusetts that has already universal health care and elect a guy that ran all the time without saying he was a Republican.. We are all paying for that stupidity. Americans should read some Balzac instead of reading the Bible.

"I am A Pitbull On The Pantleg Of Opportunity."
G W Bush

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Americans should read some Balzac instead of reading the Bible.

You just like saying "ball-sack."

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OK, after seeing the demos of this product and thinking about it some, I have to come clean and admit that I've drunk the koolaid: I think this device is going to be huge.

Not too huge, I hope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsjU0K8QPhs&sns=em

Sorry for the poor taste - couldn't resist.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

if the face of it is glass like the iphone, etc, then there is going to be quite a few po'd comments from people. If it is as water sensitive as the iphone, then the complaints might get pretty huge. I don't think that such will slow the sales, though.

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.. Like so many French men, he likes being dominated.

My experience here tells me the contrary. The reason that a house interior always stinks and looks so tart in america is because the wife decides everything. In France the guy pick the color of the sofa and the art work, everything, even his wife's panties.

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.. Like so many French men, he likes being dominated.

My experience here tells me the contrary. The reason that a house interior always stinks and looks so tart in america is because the wife decides everything. In France the guy pick the color of the sofa and the art work, everything, even his wife's panties.

Dude, you make it too easy...

[ }..Dude, you make it too easy...

I'll grant you that: your women are good in bed and you never have to negotiate to have a baby with them like with any european woman, but they run you, they'll leave overnight to have a baby with an other man if that is what they want to do. They are never attached to you.

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.. Like so many French men, he likes being dominated.

My experience here tells me the contrary. The reason that a house interior always stinks and looks so tart in america is because the wife decides everything. In France the guy pick the color of the sofa and the art work, everything, even his wife's panties.

Froggie, what color are your panties? How much are your interior decorator rates?

When you lose an argument you insult

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What does it say when a country is capable to elect twice an individual as inept and stupid as GW who put us in this hole, a State of Massachusetts that has already universal health care and elect a guy that ran all the time without saying he was a Republican.. We are all paying for that stupidity. Americans should read some Balzac instead of reading the Bible.

"I am A Pitbull On The Pantleg Of Opportunity."
G W Bush

Could be because, despite the lies of advocates in Mass, their universal health care costs have skyrocketed up, not down...They know it sucks...

in Mid 2008 69% of residents approved of MassCare...In Oct 2009 it was down to 59%...Brown won by 54% so...the love faded.

The iPad is a bit of a disappointment to me.
It is basically a big iPhone.
It is certainly not a computer to do work with.
Reader, internet access, media server (although why the hell would anyone want to watch a movie or TV on a 10 inch screen I just don't know).
Fine, but even here they hobbled it with no Flash and no camera for Skyping, conferencing etc. And because it won't directly interface with an external HD it can't be the front end to my digital music system either.
Not sure how this is going to be as big as some pundits are suggesting.

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I'll grant you that: your women are good in bed and you never have to negotiate to have a baby with them like with any european woman, but they run you, they'll live overnight to have a baby with an other man if that is what they want to do. They are never attached to you.

That's just the panties talking.

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When you lose an argument you insult

Insult? I beg to differ! I am your biggest fan! Don't turn your back on my love, Froggie.

Then wait until HP comes up with a computer like epad costing $800. Their small computer touchscreen with a movable screen is neat but unpracticle to read books.

No you can't pick their panties here. They'd report you to the police, say you are a pervert. Look at you: you all look 20 years older, fatigued and defeated. Your women still look fresh by comparison. Now look at french men at sixty: they are in their prime ready for more adventures and they get twenty years old. They are having the best time of their life with their wifes still hanging on doing the dishes.

I love you, me neither
I go and come between your loins
You are the wave, I the naked island
Physical love is a dead end

You give tax credit to the wealthy
You ran an unecessary and ruinous war
Then you can't have universal health care that would fix a lot of things in this country, and save money in the long run, as Paul Krugman has been saying in the NYT.

Then you were capable of electing a guy like Bush twice!
What is wrong with you??

You Can Shit Hard
You Can Shit Soft
But you Have To shit in the Hole
- Montaigne

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No you can't pick their panties here. They'd report you to the police, say you are a pervert. Look at you: you all look 20 years older, fatigued and defeated. Your women still look fresh by comparison. Now look at french men at sixty: they are in their prime ready for more adventures and they get twenty years old. They are having the best time of their life with their wifes still hanging on doing the dishes.

Pride is the consolation of the weak.
-Vauvenargues

And don't forget panties!

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I love you, me neither
I go and come between your loins
You are the wave, I the naked island
Physical love is a dead end

I hate gainsbourg

Why is that? I am not a huge fan of french pop music but why don't you like Gainsbourg in particular, at least some of his songs like Je t'aime, Moi Non plus, and a few others? You can't be listening to the Beatles all the time.
He was a highly intelligent classical trained pianist. He got Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Birkin, they all fell for him.. they were all there crying at his funeral.

I try something else.
Do you like any thing French at all or you are just like Ken Kessler?
Do you like Artur Rimbaud?
There is nothing like him in the anglo-saxon litterature.

Yes, I like Rimbaud very much..Verlaine, Proust, Baudelaire..

but I hate french music(well, edith piaf I like but shes not french I dont think?)

oh and I love singing Poulenc's gloria.

There is more than Poulenc.. Have you heard of Machaut and Debussy by any chance?
But we were talking about pop music.

My experience is that your knowledge of french music is limited to Maurice Chevalier which I hate and was for exportation to america only like some bad bordeaux, and Edith Piaf.
You know more about music from Mali and Senegal than french music here.
No one has ever heard of Barbara here (google Barbara french singer). You know a few Brel mostly through Nina Simone (Ne me quitte Pas). Nobody knows Jean Ferrat. You don't know Bashung. There is some fine french music but it is not rythmic, it is more cerebral, spoken, melodies are simple yet sometimes beautiful, even heartbreaking, but it doen't help when some one doesn't speak french.

There is someting very funny in Inglourious Basterds when Brad Pitt is asked if he doesn't speak anything else than English, like most americans, while the Europeans, the Germans in particular, switch effortessly from German to Italian to French. He looks like a retard.

Hitler on the iPad.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/28/the-meme-that-will-never-die-hitler-debunks-the-ipad/

That is hilarious!

Grosse Fatique wrote: There is someting very funny in Inglourious Basterds when Brad Pitt is asked if he doesn't speak anything else than English, like most americans, while the Europeans, the Germans in particular, switch effortessly from German to Italian to French. He looks like a retard.

Most school kids in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France etc. have foreign lingos at school, but that most certainly does not make them more or better educated.

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Most school kids in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France etc. have foreign lingos at school, but that most certainly does not make them more or better educated.

True.

As with all groups, some Europeans and some Americans are wonderful people; some, dreadful.

Relatively few Europeans "switch effortlessly" between multiple languages. Many speak only their native language with a smattering of words in other languages. Younger people often have a rough conversational ability in English - a language taught in school due to America's traditional dominance in science, business, transportation (pilots speak in English) and popular culture. Some Europeans in touristy cities speak other languages quite fluently. Then there are some that are truly fluent in multiple languages - some by locale, some by family background, some by individual talent.

Europeans are no better nor worse than Americans, just different.

If Europeans are inherently more civilized why do they keep copying American culture? And Asia: even the highly chauvinistic Japanese wear American business suits.

"American business suits."

Now you have invented the business suit..
I mean, not too long ago you were living in a shack cooking ouside and exterminating all the indians..

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not too long ago you were... exterminating all the indians..

But we saved the French. Go figure.

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Relatively few Europeans "switch effortlessly" between multiple languages. Many speak only their native language with a smattering of words in other languages. Younger people often have a rough conversational ability in English - a language taught in school due to America's traditional dominance in science, business, transportation (pilots speak in English) and popular culture. Some Europeans in touristy cities speak other languages quite fluently. Then there are some that are truly fluent in multiple languages - some by locale, some by family background, some by individual talent.

Personally I think the whole America vs Europe thing is a bit of a hareng rouge, IME this is all about who's got a big one and who hasn't.

America's principal language (I believe it is supposedly English although I've ended up in parts of California where nobody seems to speak it) is a 'big' language, as are the UK's, France's, Germany's etc. Although I don't have any statistics to point to it is certainly my experience that natives of these countries are less likely to speak additional languages and those that do generally do less fluently.

Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands etc. are all 'small' countries with 'small' languages. Speaking these languages buys one very little outside the native country which I think provides a very powerful incentive to learn a 'larger' language, in the case of the aforementioned countries typically English. And let me assure anyone who hasn't had the pleasure to visit them that a ridiculously high proportion of their populations do indeed switch effortlessly between their native tongues and English, although as Elk correctly states, in a European context they still only represent a small minority.

One particularly significant causal factor here IMO is that for cost reasons English-language films (other than children's films) are rarely dubbed into these languages, only subtitled. Thus, people grow up hearing English to a degree that the French, Germans, Italians, Spanish etc. do not.

So I really don't think this has anything to do with America, Americans, their general level of education or their cultural literacy. I mean, what proportion of Chinese speak a second language?

Personally I think we should all just speak Latin. Res ipsa loquitir.

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There is more than Poulenc.. Have you heard of Machaut and Debussy by any chance?
But we were talking about pop music.

My experience is that your knowledge of french music is limited to Maurice Chevalier which I hate and was for exportation to america only like some bad bordeaux, and Edith Piaf.
You know more about music from Mali and Senegal than french music here.
No one has ever heard of Barbara here (google Barbara french singer). You know a few Brel mostly through Nina Simone (Ne me quitte Pas). Nobody knows Jean Ferrat. You don't know Bashung. There is some fine french music but it is not rythmic, it is more cerebral, spoken, melodies are simple yet sometimes beautiful, even heartbreaking, but it doen't help when some one doesn't speak french.

There is someting very funny in Inglourious Basterds when Brad Pitt is asked if he doesn't speak anything else than English, like most americans, while the Europeans, the Germans in particular, switch effortessly from German to Italian to French. He looks like a retard.

I speak 3 languages, and will probably know 2 more by the time i finish my linguistics degree.

being a polyglot doesnt necessarily make one smarter.. but most importantly , Froggie, my fist is not ethnocentric at all.

I do wish you French men would take your tight ass pants back to france... not a good trend here..

Took you a long time to lay this one
You have no fun no more
Are you a Republican by any chance?

"Natural Gas Is Hemispheric. I like To Call It Hemispheric In Nature Because It Is A Product That We Can Find In Our Neighborhoods."
G W Bush

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Took you a long time to lay this one
You have no fun no more
Are you a Republican by any chance?

"Natural Gas Is Hemispheric. I like To Call It Hemispheric In Nature Because It Is A Product That We Can Find In Our Neighborhoods."
G W Bush

When I go to the given country and greet people, I apologize for not speaking the native language and I apologize for speaking only English.

Makes sense to me, and helps grease (lubricate) the given exchange in a positive way, right at the origin point.

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"Natural Gas Is Hemispheric. I like To Call It Hemispheric In Nature Because It Is A Product That We Can Find In Our Neighborhoods."
G W Bush

It seems prevalent in your neighborhood, GF. Stratospheric, even.

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When I go to the given country and greet people, I apologize for not speaking the native language and I apologize for speaking only English.

Makes sense to me, and helps grease (lubricate) the given exchange in a positive way, right at the origin point.

Until you begin your logical discourse on the nature of existence, mass thought manipulation, hinky suicides and the secret language of flatulence.

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Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands etc. are all 'small' countries with 'small' languages. Speaking these languages buys one very little outside the native country which I think provides a very powerful incentive to learn a 'larger' language, in the case of the aforementioned countries typically English. And let me assure anyone who hasn't had the pleasure to visit them that a ridiculously high proportion of their populations do indeed switch effortlessly between their native tongues and English, although as Elk correctly states, in a European context they still only represent a small minority.

Very good point. I have met many individuals from these countries that do speak/write other languages very well. In fact, my first German instructor was a Dane. He was fluent in a number of languages.

It is silly to claim one country or people is better than an other. Every country I have visited or lived in has wonderful attributes, and some not so good aspects.

50% of americans are just fine individuals. It is just the other half, those twisted minds, the bible readers some stemming from the klu klux klan that don't want universal health care, vote tax credits for themselves and change the law for political contributions sending the country back to a robber barons time that are unpalatable. Who ever stands in their way is French, real or figurative.

As for myself I am an anarchist (a liberal in other part of the world) with a small pension two cows one dog and a castle in the Loire Vallee.

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50% of americans are just fine individuals. It is just the other half, those twisted minds, the bible readers some stemming from the klu klux klan that don't want universal health care, vote tax credits for themselves and change the law for political contributions sending the country back to a robber barons time that are unpalatable. Who ever stands in their way is French, real or figurative.

As for myself I am an anarchist (a liberal in other part of the world) with a small pension two cows one dog and a castle in the Loire Vallee.

Only 50% ?
Are you sure :-)

I hope the nutjob religious right comprises far less than 50 %

The far right is indeed scary.

They are the most vociferous, they have money and are holding the right hostage. They have become the face of the Republicans in the US and the face of the nation abroad.