Will The iPad Change the Course of History?

Reading many of the bloggers, you'd think that the iPad is going to do just about everything. While the thing is definitely cool in some respects, I don't really think that it's worthy of a lot of the hype. Afterall, this is old technology. It's just the iTouch or iPhone made bigger. What's the big deal then? Well, it does seem like it'll compete with the Amazon kindle and as a graphic designer, I like some of the features that it has. I've used some paint/drawing programs on the iPhone and couldn't help thinking that'd it'd be much nicer to have a bigger screen. But still, this isn't really that big of a deal to just throw a bigger screen in an old product doesn't make it that much better. Is there really any chance that this thing is going to do away with laptops and netbooks? I think not. I think that it will be an important product to watch (as pretty much every product from Apple is, but let's not forget what it really is. It's just a new tablet that is not even really independent. In fact, I think for me I'd almost rather get one of the mod-book tablets that are actually real laptops converted for use at tablets rather than a scaled up iTouch. Of course the iPad is currently out of my price range. Maybe in a few revisions when they've halved the price to around $250 bucks and made significant upgrades to the hardware, then I'll consider the iPad a viable option. Otherwise, the iPad for me (and many others) is just another cool but mostly useless gadget on the market. You may find me to be one of the few bloggers out who hasn't litterally drunk the coolaid, but this is really how I feel. The iPad has no real use other that being an ebook reader and an internet browser.