The biggest problem with the device is how closed it is. It tells you what formats you can play, what size video you can play on another device, what applications you can you, and to a certain extent how you can use them. The biggest fault here is that as a physical device it is great, a ten inch vibrant touch screen with multi hand gesture support. This device could theoretically have many many many many many uses to musicians, scientists, etc... but unfortunately on the closed platform you just can't do it. This device could have been very very useful to me, but unfortunately it has been severely crippled for the sake of driving profit, and to make it a more simplified platform. You are basically paying 500 bucks for a giant iphone that you are being told how to use... you are essentially paying $500 to continue to pay more to use software that will most likely only accomplish a fraction of what you need it to, and you will have minimal say on the development of these applications as they are developed in a closed environment. This is a far cry from the open platform that made apple what it is today, and it is depressing only in what it could be. You can't even plug in usb without buying a DONGLE! There is speculation that hackers will be able to figure something out... but here in lies the problem... nothing worse than thinking "hmmm, I could hack this device to do what I need it to do" the second it comes out Apple really missed the mark on this one... and unfortunately if the device pans out we may never see an open platform device that is similar