The iPad's success is getting me away from a desk for the first time in 15 years.
I will absolutely use my primary computer with its giant display for development, complex games, video encoding and photo work. I will absolutely continue to bring my new MacBook Pro to client sites.
But for everything else I will be slouching in my lounge chair with my iPad. Even typing out responses such as this one I'm typing at about 80-90% of the speed of a physical keyboard. Most of my leisure computing activities are browsing, Twitter, the occasional IM and email -- and I absolutely prefer the iPad for those activities over my MacBook Pro or my development workstation.
I've used a computer for 30 minutes since Friday. I haven't had a need to. With work that changes, and that's fine. But for play, this is without question my preferred device. Especially since I seem to be getting 15-18 hours of usability from a charge since the screen only needs to be at about 30% brightness to be easy to read.
I think your examples hit on a key point -- iPad use cases are decided by individuals, not by organizations.
I occasionally watch a CNBC trading show ("Fast Money"). The four traders at the desk used to have live market feeds delivered to laptops that sat on the desk, and those were replaced with iPads on stands last year. Now some of those traders have their laptops back in addition to the iPads, presumably because when you're looking at charts and numbers, bigger is better.
I will absolutely use my primary computer with its giant display for development, complex games, video encoding and photo work. I will absolutely continue to bring my new MacBook Pro to client sites.
But for everything else I will be slouching in my lounge chair with my iPad. Even typing out responses such as this one I'm typing at about 80-90% of the speed of a physical keyboard. Most of my leisure computing activities are browsing, Twitter, the occasional IM and email -- and I absolutely prefer the iPad for those activities over my MacBook Pro or my development workstation.
I've used a computer for 30 minutes since Friday. I haven't had a need to. With work that changes, and that's fine. But for play, this is without question my preferred device. Especially since I seem to be getting 15-18 hours of usability from a charge since the screen only needs to be at about 30% brightness to be easy to read.