I got to agree. I got caught up in the tablet fever like everyone last year, but in practice all the complaints that people had with the iPad release panned out. Tablets across the board are jacks of few trades, master of none. Terrible input, only so-so for web browsing/reading, and basically on par with a laptop for video and portability.
To quote a very smart man in 2003 [1], tablets are still only good for "a bunch of rich guys who want a third computer" (edit: relevant tablet talk is around 8:00-10:00). I have hope things will be better 3-5 years from now.
In my unscientific survey, netbook usage far outstrips tablet usage in cafes. Moreover, the people who bring tablets don't seem to really use them, they just glance at them occasionally.
An iPad just seems like a very expensive Kindle.
If Tablet prices get down to say, $50, they'd be great to hang in the kitchen and get weather and recipes from!
I won't disagree with your observations. I will however point out one thing: the sampling is skewed because you only really see what people are doing in public.
I would guess that the majority of iPad usage is in the home and, to a lesser extent, in the office, so much so that I probably won't even buy the 3G version of the iPad 2 (I have the 64GB 3G iPad). Plus now I live in New York (rather than Australia, when I bought mine) and wifi is much more readily available here (Starbuck's for one) if I feel inclined to take it with me and need the internet.
One disappointing thing is that Apple seems to be doing the big CPU/memory upgrades of the An platform with the iPhone, not the iPad. This is annoying for two reasons:
1. The iPhone 4 came out a mere ~3 months after the iPad. Are you telling me that this 3 month gap meant the iPad couldn't have 512MB of RAM like the iPhone 4? Presumably, the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 will be on a similar gap; and
2. I'm more interested in processing capacity on the iPad than an iPhone.
It comes from my admittedly small sample size. The women I know (friends, family) have always ignored tech purchases their significant others brought into the home.
But not with the iPad; they ended up being very active users. In bed, on the couch, in the kitchen, etc
Come on. Apple directly markets to the latte set - it's their target audience. It'd be as silly as saying that MS has the best OS because that's what all the high-end gamers use.
Also, on the hardcover thing, we must live in very different areas, because even excluding novels, most books people have lying around are paperbacks and while there are a few hardbacks, they're not used with anything like the regularity of e-readers.
In my unscientific survey, netbook usage far outstrips tablet usage in cafes. Moreover, the people who bring tablets don't seem to really use them, they just glance at them occasionally.
In my equally unscientific survey tablets far outstrip netbook usage on public transport. As to your second point I think most people consider that an overwhelming positive for tablets. You don't have to "use" them like you do with a real computer. You can just glance at them occasionally and very quickly do whatever it was you wanted to do and then get back to doing whatever you where at the cafe to do, like eat food or talk to friends.
An iPad just seems like a very expensive Kindle.
But it is a Kindle you can comfortably browse the web, check your mail, twitter and facebook and play Angry Bird on. Reading e-books is relatively low on the list of things most people I know use their iPad for.
Tablets across the board are jacks of few trades, master of none.
My tablet is the master of social web browsing - browsing the web with other people around, remaining engaged. Browsing the web on a laptop is typically pretty isolating - even just the posture required to handle a laptop while browsing requires sitting down by yourself somewhere. With my tablet I can stand around or sit on the couch with other people around and my body language doesn't suggest that I want to be left alone.
Remember that a laptop isn't exactly a master of any trade either. Even my mbp's keyboard isn't quite as good as a standard pc104 desktop keyboard. The screen is always smaller and located sub optimally wrt your hands and eyes compared to a desktop computer's monitor. The trackpad on most laptops is a terrible input device - too small and not accurate enough for fast cursor manipulation - a mouse is usually better.
To quote a very smart man in 2003 [1], tablets are still only good for "a bunch of rich guys who want a third computer" (edit: relevant tablet talk is around 8:00-10:00). I have hope things will be better 3-5 years from now.
1: http://video.allthingsd.com/video/steve-jobs-onstage-at-d1/1...