Since the trolls seem to be eating dinner, I thought I'd add a few thoughts.
I've said in several threads that I wouldn't be buying the iPad if I hadn't been able to picture how I'd use it, so I'll put my money where my mouth is:
--Living room: Usually I do what I'm doing now, which is sitting on the couch with the TV on in the background. I end up hunching over the coffee table, ending up with lapburn, or having to get myself way too bunkered down with a lap desk. (Get in position, feet up, lap desk firmly weighing you down, cords arranged, then realize your glass of water is out of reach on coffee table.) I was watching the engadget liveblogging on the 27th, and I think this shot, along with the price, helped sell me for good:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/apple-creation-0416-rm-eng.jpg
--Kitchen: MacGourmet app + archived cooking shows + case with kickstand + olephobic coating = win. I don't have a television in the kitchen, but I'm a huge cooking enthusiast and I'm often referring to my MacGourmet recipe library, either on the iphone or the macbook. However the iphone is too small, and the macbook takes up a lot of counter real estate. I can also put cooking shows (large archive of Nigella Lawson and Alton Brown) on the iPad as needed.
--General haul-around-the-house use: I'm an info junkie. I frequently look things up. Sometimes I want to finish something I'm reading in bed. Bringing the macbook in means hauling the power cord, lapburning, etc. iPhone means fighting with the auto-orientation. I also often let audiobooks play from the speaker on my iphone when I'm doing something with my hands and I don't feel like having earbuds in.
--Watching TV shows at work on lunch hour. I use DVR software called BeyondTV (PC) that can be configured to automatically convert and podcast your recorded shows for iTunes.
--eBooks. I've been an ebook enthusiast since before they were commercially available (ahem), and I've used everything from a Palm Pilot to a Sony PRS-700. While I am somewhat concerned about the size (I think it may be a little too big for my bedtime reading...I can see myself falling asleep and dropping it on my face), and the lack of e-ink, I'm definitely going to convert and import my ebook library and see how it goes. If it works for me, I may give the PRS-700 to the husband. (In the interest of full disclosure, ebook reading was not a huge selling feature for me.)
--Vacation: the cabin we visit for vacations has both wifi and a hammock. Enough said.
--Not me but my Mom: Mom's currently receiving chemotherapy for cancer, and I often spend time with her at the chemo clinic. These sessions can be quite long (up to 6-8 hours), and the hospital provides free wifi. We often see people in there with computers, netbooks, kindles, etc; right now Mom is borrowing my husband's netbook for her sessions, but it really got me thinking how nice an iPad would be for those folks, most of whom are older. The lightness and accessibility of the iPad also seems like it would be ideal for cancer patients undergoing hours of boring treatment. It's a long walk from the hospital entrance to the treatment clinic, and even my little plastic macbook gets annoying to carry around in a shoulder bag after a while.
In short, this purchase required no kool-aid drinking whatsoever. I'm a technophile but I also value utility above all. If I didn't think the iPad would provide it in
my specific circumstances in ways superior to my current devices, I wouldn't be buying it.
