What's with all the tablet talk?

OK - so it's now official - the Apple iPad (horrible name if you ask me... I think iSlate would have been a better choice) has launched.

Several months ago, when the rumors were surfacing, I really believed that price point would be the deal maker for this device and not the feature set.  There are many other options in the tablet market that are pretty inexpensive (under $400).

Now iPad hits the market and according to apple.com it will "start" at $499.

Well - this is much better news than what I had heard before, which was somewhere around the $1000 range, but that doesn't mean that they won't have a $1000 range version of the iPad.  Add on the fact that you're going to pay for another device's wireless data service and I'm just not sure it's worth it, especially if you already have the iPhone or the iPod Touch.

What will this device do that my laptop won't?  Trust me - it will be easier to type on my laptop than on this device, guaranteed.

So far I've heard the following reasons to buy;

1. All those applications in the Apple store!  Really?  You mean I can get such great apps as the iFart and the lighter application on my iPad.  Awesome - I won't look like an iDouche at all!  Please... if I'm grabbing a mobile application, it's for a device similar in size to a phone, something that fits in my pocket and is very mobile... the iPad will not fit in your pocket.
2. iTunes integration.  iPhone has it, Touch has it... why would I need it if I already had those?
3. It's portable and you can read books on it!  My laptop is portable and I can read books on that as well.  If I wanted an item focused on just the book reading part, I'd get a Kindle.  I'm actually leaning more to audio books than just finding a device that I can read books on...
   

So - add the lack of reasons for me to pick one of these up plus the fact that Apple has decided not to use the ePub format for e-books, which means you'll have to buy through their store (the Kindle does this as well I believe, but there are tablets out there, like the JooJoo, formerly CrunchPad, that will support the open format) and I'm not sure why I would spend my money on this device.

On top of that - they have decided not to support Flash, which like it or not, makes up a large part of the web browsing experience on many sites.. ever been to YouTube?  Guess who brought you the technology to make that possible?  This kind of frustrates me a bit.

This is a good article that links to Adobe's positive and more critical views at this decision.

I'm not an Apple hater... I LOVE my iPod!!  The problem I see right now is that I haven't had a reason to buy a tablet up until now and I really don't see that Apple brought anything to the table that would make me want to buy one any time in the near future.