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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 5073654" data-attributes="member: 5100">I'd say I'm interested, but not excited, per se.  I may be in the minority, but I've never really found Apple's interfaces to be all that -- they just don't click with me.  I have yet to purchase an Apple product and I don't see that changing with this.But... I am very interested because it may usher in a new breed of machine, which could be cool.  I'm not sure what niche the machine occupies, though.  Is it an ebook reader with color and some smart phone toys?  I want a lower price point for that -- say $300, maybe slightly more.  Is it just a slate tablet running on OSX?  Slates predate the convertables and there's a reason they died out quick.  I've done the tablet thing, and it has its uses, but it ain't as cool as it sounds for reading PDFs.  And, unless tech has changed significantly (which it may have) there are some trade-offs in terms of power, which means you're buying another computer-priced toy that occupies almost the same niche, but not quite.  My tablet was great for taking notes, project planning, email, etc. but it sucked eggs for surfing the web, playing games, and programming.  Some of those could be fixed because it was a convertable, but it just didn't have the horsepower for bigger games or programming.I'll be really interested to see where the iPad goes, though.  There may be a niche it fills that I'm not aware of.  Mainly, though, I think it's going to be a dud in itself, but turn up the heat for other gadgets at a lower price.  There's probably room for a personal electronic device that combines a color e-reader, PDA-like features, note-taking, and web-browsing.  I think it needs to come from the e-reader, PDA, or smart phone side, though, rather than the desktop/laptop/tablet side.  In other words, if this is a giant iPod Touch, it's probably the best thing they could put out, right now.I think the <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet" target="_blank">Microsoft Courier</a> looks much, much cooler, though.</blockquote>

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