The iPad is not sold as a standalone computing device -- it's plainly stated that iTunes running on OS/X or Windows is required for syncing. My media server (which is also the system that handles video downloads for the house) has an instance of Air Video Server running.

I should state that I have a netbook running Ubuntu as well. I nearly never used it for video playback except for files I'd preprocessed on a beefier machine, anyway, as it labors mightily when dealing with video that hasn't been downsampled. It's a much less pleasant video consumption environment than the iPad (less portable, runs hot, has noisy fans, and an inferior display.)

It's actually very well suited for certain varieties of content creation. I co-edit a music blog and I'll be covering a music festival later this month. I'll be shooting event photos with a DSLR, transferring them to my iPad, and posting directly to the blog via the Wordpress app all from the event grounds. In previous years, I'd have to take a full day's photos home and batch upload them in the wee hours between festival days. The much greater portability is actually going to make a big differencenin how well I can cover the festival.

AirVideo will happily transcode pretty much any modern video file you throw at it for iPad viewing.

it would be silly to go point by point on this, suffice to say that half the things you say aren't possible on the iPad actually are.

I'm lying flat on my back in bed responding to this post on an iPad while my wife is asleep next to me, which would be very nearly impossible on a netbook, let alone anything larger.

Your use cases are not universal, and I know mine aren't. The myopia so many of my neckbearded brethren have is the inability to perceive why anyone would ever prioritize features and usability in ways different from their own. The fact that so many people still fall back on bullet point lists whenever discussing products illustrates this more clearly than any comment I could post.

Not only does it work fine in the stock Mobile Safari, but it's a cleaner view than in most desktop browsers because there's lex extraneous embed chrome in the webview: http://l.freeke.org/wkwlg

"Once is an Accident, twice is a Coincidence, and three times is a Pattern."

It makes no sense, as it wouldn’t actually solve any of their problems -- they have a channel stuffed with inventory of their current phones, and becoming yet another “me too” Android vendor does nothing to fix that.

Considering the relative size and cost of modern mass storage, I greatly prefer the OS X bundle system over fighting "DLL hell" for the sake of saving a few megabytes of disk space.

YMMV.

You could argue that the reason that U.S. consumers have a thriving market with tons of competition in free email providers is that companies can compete on features and performance, rather than government edict.

What incentive is there for another Iranian free email provider to develop a service that can be eliminated by the stroke of a pen from a twitchy mullah?

Wow, the degree to which you avoided answering his points is, well, it's exceptional.

Game corporation in "focusing on platforms where they make money" shocker.

Well, one thing for sure is that I Don't Want To Miss A Thing.

Any thinking person would have realized when he was transferred to the second institution after trying to have a witness whacked that he was going to be placed in a cell with an informant. I mean, duh.