Considering that the iPad is going to do for the printed page what the iPod did for CDs, I’d rate it a very green machine.

Ultimately, devices such as the iPad, low cost digital storage and increased bandwidth will help people break their habit of collecting physical media such as books, magazines, cds and dvds. Think about how much paper & fuel would be saved by issuing just one college text book exclusively digitally. Not to mention all the sore backs from lugging the things around. And if every text book that could go digital, did — how many trees are you saving?

Pile up every book, magazine, comic, cd, dvd you’ve ever owned — the fact that that raw material need to have never been used to store that information, imho gives the iPad a big fat green A+.

As far as the battery issue, the iPod didn’t have a “user replaceable battery” either. It’s tricky work. I’ve done it but the battery wasn’t as good as the apple one. What’s the big deal about taking it in to get it replaced at the store? That’s the cost of slick design.

As a whole, there IS a market for the arm chair/kitchen table as well as travel/car scenarios. Doing this already with my laptop, a few things concern me that give me pause to wait for iPad 2.0 if at all:

• Multitasking: WTF?!? Is this Windows 1.0? Of course you want email notices to IMAP down and not have to exit web browsing, ebooks, or whatever else you’re doing. People will go nuts if they can? Fine, limit it to 5 apps.

• Display for book reading: I don’t ebooks these days, at least not yet. My job has been too over powering to permit the time. I would think that some some smart person could adjust an LCD to reduce the illumination sufficiently to read well and cut power consumption considerably. I guess that is another opportunity for future competition to hash out.

• AGPS: So, if I have a WI-FI only iPad and I want to move from my coffee shop to wherever, I have to pull out a smartphone? Or if a passenger is using it to help the driver, no go? It seems an effort to railroad towards the 3G version and that is unacceptable. And, being in a mountainous area (and knowning the problems with cell reception with CA hills too), this seems a poor choice and gives an opening for competitors to latch onto.

• Portability: I already know that you’ll want the little case that you can get with it. Tilting the screen for optimally while typing or viewing (especially when at a table or on your lap ) is made more difficult without the little folded in tilt.

• Syncing: better be able to do bluetooth syncing for calendar or other updates. I hear otherwise, but we’ll see…

• Editing: Can I do more than view commonly used file types? We’ll see…

• Removable Battery: we all know these type batteries last about 3 years. I ran with my PBG4 for 5 years before a broken hinge severed my video cable – and yes, before that point I bought new batteries – from APPLE. The ONLY reason to seal the battery in my opinion is to force an upgrade of the whole unit when the battery life starts to get annoying. Does anyone smell the American car company business plan on Planned Obsolescence?

Me? I don’t mind that; what I do mind is the prohibitive price for so little hard drive space.