Has the iPad really turned many industries upside down? Has it replaced desktops or laptops? Has it become essential for any particular task? It's a device, th

Has the iPad really turned many industries upside down? Has it replaced desktops or laptops? Has it become essential for any particular task? It's a device, that is fun, and has its value. It's a successful product, no question about that. I know a few people who have one, though they don't actually see much use. There are a few niches for which it's particularly useful, but they are still niches. Most of the value seems to be novelty value, which will wear off soon enough. I've seen a few people try to use iPads and other tablets as a regular device. I've seen iPads at conferences; they wind up being a lot more of a pain to type on than a laptop. A coworker tried an Asus Transformer for a while instead of a laptop; he wound up giving up and buying a MacBook Air. Most people I know who have iPads wind up leaving them sitting around the living room, and when guests are over, they might pick it up, poke at it for a bit as a novelty, and then forget about it. It reminds me a bit of back when Microsoft was pushing its Windows XP tablet software. They had the convertible laptops with the swivel displays, that you could use a stylus on. I knew a few people who really liked those. There were definitely some uses for them; for instance, when taking notes in class, you could use it to draw diagrams. But they never really caught on; they didn't revolutionize the industry. They wound up being a niche product. Now, almost everyone I know who's into technology has a smartphone. Those really are revolutionary. You have access to the phone network, the internet, GPS, applications, a phone and video camera, media, and so on from wherever you go. The amount that a smartphone allows you to do, that was just science fiction 20 years ago, is staggering. Tablets, on the other hand, are in an awkward space. They are bulky enough that you have to think about carrying them around, just like a laptop. You can't do much in the way of real work on them. They don't have a keyboard, so they're clumsy for text input. They're good for consuming media, with light touch based interaction, and lightweight games, but they're not really all that compelling for video, for music you want a smaller and more portable form factor, and for text ebook readers have a lot of advantages (I certainly see more ebook readers on the train than I do tablets). There are certainly people who get plenty of value out of the iPad. It is a successful product, and has really given life to what seemed before to be a pretty much dead category. But as the grandparent said, it's not a "transformational device."