Pretty much sums up my opinion (from comment on the AV Club): Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
It'll cost $500 for the base model, roughly $750 for the full-blown version, which is basically more memory and 3G support. This price does not include a case, a screen protector, an actual keyboard, or any other accessories, so add $100-$200 to whatever model you get.
The books will be $13-$15, even though the same books are $10 on Amazon. This is so that Apple can take the customary 30% and the booksellers still get what they are used to. The books are supposedly in ePub format (an open standard), but they will be playing catchup with Amazon and BN.
The apps on the App Store will run on this thing already. However, most of those apps are nonsense toys, which makes sense considering what they run on. For the full, actual useful apps, Apple offers "pixel doubling" to fill the screen (albeit in a grainy way), and some bigger name publishers have said they'll retool their apps to work natively on the bigger screen. Chances are you'll have to buy these apps again to take advantage of the full size screen.
It's the iPhone OS, which means no multi-tasking. Jobs touted amazing innovations like web browsing, calendars, and email. Wow! Can it do basic arithmetic too? It will apparently run the iWork suite ($10 per application, not the suite), so it'll have basic functionality for simple business tasks.
So basically, this is a repackaged iTouch (it doesn't natively make calls). It's larger, it's not as portable, it costs more, you can't run real applications on it (no Photoshop, no Office, etc.), it's fragile (glass and aluminum), and it's locked down to where new software only comes through the Apple stores (iTunes, the new book store), meaning Apple makes a shitload more off of it.
Is that worth a $500 entry price with no accessories? Fuck no. Unless you're an Apple Kool-Aid drinker, this is just another shiny toy from the inventor of the expensive shiny toy. There's nothing revolutionary, nothing that's a "killer app", and nothing that otherwise makes it desirable expect to have it sitting around for others to see and gawk at. It's the definition of gaudy novelty item.
