thanks, Mark - your larger post does a nice job, I think, of characterizing the primary uses to which the device is suited / designed.
As for the question asked earlier, why an iPad as opposed to other tablets--was that serious or facetious?
I won't speak for the author of the question, but as a recent iPad owner, I think it's a serious and important question. From my perspective, the inability to multitask coupled with the absence of a working file system (unless I'm wrong - please correct if I am!) means for me that it is much better suited to the sorts of uses you initially describe - light email, web-browsing, etc. I also think it has promise as an e-Reader, which, as a traveling / gypsy scholar, is tremendously inviting: that said, my first experiences in these directions (no names, please), have been more ones of frustration with what I can't do with a text rather than of joy with having a text handily available. Of course, it's also great for simply consuming media, if that's what you want - let's not forget that someone/s are very interested in not only the quality of our experience with the interfaces and the device, but also with specific bottom lines. But if I want to do at least my kind of serious work - multiple documents open, multiple apps open, cutting-and-pasting between these when needed, etc., alongside a solid Internet connection (the wifi reception on mine is weak compared with my MacBook) - a laptop or equally capable tablet is not just preferable but simply necessary. As is often the case, then, it's not just a matter of "what you can do" (the rhetoric too often associated with too many new devices and technologies that we frankly don't yet entirely know what to do with) - what do you need / want to do? (and please read all of this in a cordial, friendly tone, one grateful for the discussion) sent from my MacBook (this time), - charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250 Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23 On 7/21/10 1:23 AM, "Mark Warschauer" <markw@uci.edu> wrote: