Right now, there may aswell be no other tablets outside of the iPad. Apple revolutionised the market, showed the way and still everyone else can't get it right. The iPad is how you do these devices.
I don't think there are computer replacements. Not for most people. There is obvious limitations and adding any added complexity for functionality destroys what makes the iPad such a great device.
People laughed when the iPad was announced. Just a big iPhone. Thing is though, that extra screen real estate turns the ultimate portable device (A Smartphone) into the ultimate consumption device.
With a few technological improvements and the world opening up to digital content I think we'll reach a point where a device like the iPad will be as common as mobile phones or microwaves. It will be the digital paper we've all dreamed about.
If we can combine LCD and eInk technologies, to combine the iPad and Kindle experiences. If we can sort out good and ubiquitous wireless internet and if we can fix all this BS around digital content like licences, silo'd stores, international rights that cause some things to be available some places and others not then we are on to an absolute winner.
What I really want is an open standard for digital data transactions. I want to be able to buy all my content once for a fair price anywhere in the world from it's original creator and move it to any of my devices. I don't want to HAVE to have iTunes. I don't want to have to wait until Audible UK gets the rights to the Game of Thrones series. I don't want to buy a Kindle version then get a new device and can't read it there because it doesn't support it. Doesn't matter how it works, it is all useless middleman crapwear as far as I am concerned. People trying to lock as much of your content as they can into their silo and lock the door so only their other crap can get into it.
What we need is little boxes in our homes that act like servers. It's registered to ME and it's MY digital vault. Anything I buy, from anywhere goes to IT and I simply stream it to my iPad, My TV, My Phone etc whenever I want it.
Anyway that is all a bit of a tangent. They will not replace traditional Laptops. Not until we invent some kind of direct from brain input system. You just can't work as well on a touch device. They are pure consumption and I think we should all be fine with them staying there.
One downside I do think exists is this 'app' mentality. I don't like the mobile world creeping into the PC world. OSX Lion embodies this. Suddenly we scroll like we do on mobiles, we have an app store like mobiles, we have icon dashboards like mobiles. I don't like it. I don't like tiny little apps that do exactly one thing and you jump into that, do your task, then jump out and into another extremely specific app. Sure it simplifies PC's, and maybe that is a good thing.. but I like their complexity. Smartphones are designed as dumb interfaces because you need to be quick and just bash at things in the rain. PC's don't require that. I'm all for better user experience but I have an odd feeling that copying the mobile mentality is going to kill something very special in PC's.
