I think I'm the _only_ person in the office who refuses to carry his iPad into meetings with him - It's just not the right tool for a highly multi-tasking and textually intense environment.
But, with all those caveats aside, there is just something strangely social and engaging with the iPad that I never really got from a Laptop. A few use cases:
o Walking to Work/Dropping in to a restaurant for breakfast - I would never consider yanking out a laptop to read a newspaper, and the iPhone just never really worked for me in that medium - so I would typically drop some change into the Newspaper Box and read/discard a mound of paper. Now - every morning, I walk to work reading the WSJ, or, if I'm waiting for a friend to show up for breakfast, I can pop it out and get caught up.
o At a restaurant, or Movie Theater, we have a 10-15 minutes - I frequently spend time flipping through photos of events, sharing face book pages, etc.. I guarantee you I never have (and never will) do that with a laptop. And there is something about sharing pictures on a 9" screen that makes is viscerally different from doing so on a iPhone.
It's small enough that I always carry it with me, but large enough that reading on it doesn't feel awkward.
I'm a luddite, in that I don't like change, and I have zero intention in replacing my laptop use with an iPad, but, I have zero doubt that having some time of slate/tablet (whether it be Apple, Android, WEBOS) will be a permanent part of my life going forward.
And yes, future versions will be much better. I would _kill_ for a stylus capable device - and not the crappy capacitance low-resolution stylus that I use with my iPad, but something that I can actually draw, and take notes with. Do you know how silly I feel about taking out pens and napkins to sketch out a drawing while carrying an iPad equipped with SketchBook Pro?
Syncing is still too slow - USB 3 or some other gigabit+ sync would be much appreciated. And, for low-volume syncs, over-the-air syncing would be nice.
It's early, it will get better, but it's definitely here to stay. And it's definitely made my life better. Increased the quality of social interaction. Allows me to dynamically share memories and experiences in a richer, more meaningful form.
Napkins + Pen are about 10x faster for quick sketching, and about 15-20x more accurate for fine-grained details.
The iPad is many things, but a replacement for my pen and notebook it is not.
I'm in a lab right now, and a quick network sketch of the components took me 30 seconds. Using omnigraffle, (God, I pray I somehow manage to get my $50 out of that App), it took me about 5 minutes.
Of course, the difference is I now have a rich-vector drawing that I can email, modify, update, and _always_ have with me.
I would be very, very interested in hearing about other people's experiences using their iPad as a: o Sketch Book o Technical Diagramming Tool o Not Taking Devices.
Particularly your success and techniques. :-)
But Omnigraffle is not for drawing, it's for formalizing. Just like an outlining tool is not for thinking, it's for expressing what you've already clarified in your head.
Computers require you to formalize -- make decisions, order, and choose form -- totally prematurely.
I find pen & paper to be the best thinking tool there is because it's completely free-form.
If you want the next best thing to paper, try that stylus hack and a doodling program, not a tool like Omnigraffle.
I wouldn't mind an iPad, but I hate spending money. It is not so much an argument of value contra price in my case. I'm sure it will be a great toy, albeit one I am sure to find much more interesting in a second-generation edition. Not having any of the video-streaming tools outside of the U.S. is also a bummer.