Dudes, the iPOD is the number #1 music player not because it plays mp3's. Its because Apple convinced music companies to sell their music through itunes. You can buy iTunes recharge cards at the supermarket, how more ubiquitous and mainstream than that can you get?
Murdoch the media king has repeatedly said that he wants us to pay for reading content on his news websites. With the iSlate, Apple will do for newspapers, magazines and books what the ipod did for music. People will download the daily newspaper, the weekly/monthly magazine or the latest release book-for a price- and view it with the iSlate, turning the pages with finger gestures.
The keyboard is here for the odd time you may want to type a short message, fill in a form. You wont be typing out your PhD thesis with it. Ofcourse a Windows touchpad, even kindle reader (but not in color, important for magazines) COULD do all of this, but MS doesn't have the iTunes Store.nor the track record of iTunes.
Apple is set to be the number one media distribution company in the world, selling music, movies and print in electronic form. And the iPod touch isn't a bad little games player, so they're moving in on games as well.
