BTW, the iPad _does_ do video out. You need an adapter for that, but it will output to a projector or secondary screen.

Then mobile Linux apps could be as cool as iPhone/iPad apps.

In the end, I\’d like to have a Linux distro with an excellent touch UI (as good as Apple iPad) that I could install on the hardware of my choice (Chinese iPad tablet clone).

Maybe what you need to do is show Apple how to do it right. Design your own tablet with the same form factor, the same multi-touch sensitivity, at the same weight, with the same graphics and cpu processing power, with the same network connectivity. Give it extendible storage and removable batteries and a camera. Use Android and give it true multitasking, and put flash on it.

Let\’s see if you can match Apple\’s price point and still make a profit. And lets see what your battery life is like, or whether your users curse you for selling them a device that goes dead before lunch time. I\’ll bet you can\’t, and I\’ll bet that no one else can right now either: not with today\’s technology.

Freedom to the end users, is a very important thing of what makes Linux, linux!

Other than that, there\’s less here than meets the eye. How\’d they manage the form factor in 1.5 pounds? Imagine yourself repackaging a netbook into a tablet form factor. Lose the keyboard, remove the electronics, put in a smaller battery, use a smaller CPU to keep power consumption and heat dissipation down, turn the folding case into a single piece case, add an IR touchscreen.

Sounds a lot less miraculous, doesn\’t it?

What they\’ve done is open the door for competitors running Wintel tablets with Linux or Windows OSs and selling them at far lower prices. We know this for sure because one Asian manufacturer is already suing Apple on the patent infringement grounds based on whatever they did to get their tablet into the form factor, and their product retails at $338.

I\’m willing to wait around for that lower price point, and if it comes with WinXP or 7, I\’ll be happy to put a Kubuntu netbook distro in it.

Which prevents me from having to live in Apple\’s \’walled garden\’(the fanboys might prefer to call it a cyberspece \’gated community\’) and to pick my own apps based on my needs, not Apple\’s bottom line, and instead of having Steve Jobs pick them for me.

The old Treo phones (palm OS) could already do almost everything the iphone could (for many years prior), bar the accelerometer and multi-touch. Yes the Treo even had a \”Ture\” GPS option. I almost bought an iphone but could not justify it, there are hundreds of free app\’s for the palm OS. So there was nothing on the iphone that I could not do already. And now there is the Nokia N900.

I have an old Fujitsu tablet, that runs Linux on it. Its a ture tablet, touch screen and no attached keyboard. It does everything and a LOT more then the ipad. All for less then $100 (off of ebay).And it runs all day on a single charge. Has ALL the ports and BT, WiFi, Solid State HD, etc… Heck I even use it to connect to the servers at work either by com port or Ethernet (we don\’t allow wireless connections for security reasons), we wrote a simple application that lets it be used as a monitor with an onscreen keyboard when connected to the server, works as a console. I don\’t see that being a possibility for the ipad.

The company \”Always Innovating\” is working on a detachable touch screen/keyboard tablet for $400. It does more then the ipad, even though its not perfected yet. It will most likely be so soon.

I guess there will always be a market for the apple things, but open source people want \”Freedom\” not Corporate dictation and control.

Microsoft and Apple are the same game just with a different name. I wonder what EULA you will have to agree to, to use it. Proprietary is so last century.

Oh well to each his own (I know the apple lovers will bash me, OH well!).
If you love Apple, fine with me. Don\’t insult me for expressing my option. I don\’t you.

I will not buy one!!! Have a better one already.

Long live Linux.

How about ignore it? Surely there are many other developments of greater significance than a fancy tablet with a closed architecture! OK, it may be a Kindle killer. I don\’t see anyone jumping to replace their phone / netbook / desktop with it, though apple fanboys and children may have some fun playing with this must-have toy, this latest dump from the marketing machine.

Dear Steve, you are getting boring in your old age …

Now we need an open-source clone of Apple\’s UIkit touch framework for native Linux (not Android,) so easy-to-use (iPhone-like) Linux-based gestural/touch apps can be written. Here\’s a start: http://parsekit.com/umekit/

Then a distro tailored for touch-screen tablets that are hardware clones of the iPad can be created. (tuxPad?)

I can put nearly any distro
Ubuntu, Android, Mer, Gentoo, Chrome OS…

I am not \”linked\” to Apple, or any other company.

And at 299 $, it is much cheaper (well, cheaper than Apple is an overstatement…).