Will the iPad render laptops obsolete?

Aha, an opinion question. Fun. 

Mr.askLogs' mom just got one on Saturday and so we got to try it out. It's actually pretty sweet and almost feels futuristic! Here's the thing. I think it might render those little netbooks obsolete, eventually. But I think there will always be a laptop market for several reasons. 

1. Clickety clackety for one thing. They have really made it suprisingly easy to type on those touch screens, but there will be a need for the clicky feeling you get when your fingertips meet some kind of resistance if you're writing a lot. Who knows, maybe they will come up with some crazy way for it to feel like you are typing on a regular keyboard, but until then, people will still want a keyboard they don't have to lug around separately.

2. Techies don't so much like programming that is geared toward the common man. I remember being in high school and being the Mac lab babysitter. I used to get in weird arguments with the IBM lab (that's what it was called back in the day) babysitter. He used to say that he thought Mac's were the worst invention of the century because they were easy to use. Wha? He liked that the IBM pc's were complicated, un-friendly for users and that he had to strong arm an operating system with an overwhelming number of lines of code in order to get it to do what he wanted. Read any Mac hater's angry rant about why Apple is the devil, and that alone will convince you that the iPad will never render the laptop obsolete. Then of course Windows 7 came out which is basically a whiny-look-at-me-I'm-easy, version of a Mac OS. Easy always sells. That guy from the IBM lab is probably clenching his teeth in rage right now. 

3. All that being said, the laptop is currently making it's move to make desktop computing, i.e. CPU's with separate monitors, keyboards, etc., obsolete. The laptops of today have an amazing ability to do almost as much as a big powerful desktop. But I have a hard time believing that a laptop, or some kind of futuristic relative of the laptop will languish under the mighty power of the iPad. If you want to design web pages, or edit movies, or write the great american novel, or play countless hours of World of Warcraft you will want and most likely need a laptop, or for now, a desktop computer. If on the other hand your computer use is limited to checking email, facebook, and twitter, or looking up movie quotes to prove people wrong, or maybe authoring a simplistic blog, then you might just get an iPad and kiss your laptop goodbye.

I think the iPad might take a chunk out of the laptop's market, and an even bigger chunk out of the netbook's market, but obsolescence, seems unlikely to me.

For a more comprehensive viewpoint on the debate see this bifurcated review by David Pogue at the NYTimes. He gives two separate reviews, one for techies and and one for regular folk on the iPad. 

Also, I want an iPad, but only if this product becomes a reality. If they can make and sell a Tauntaun sleeping bag for adults, then surely they can make it happen.