iPad, iTablet or whatever it shall be called

Prices for new products normally start high and come down over time. It's not just Apple. The iPhone was a big drop that was abnormally because it wasn't originally subsidized by AT&T like other phones.

Plus, the $600 cost of the original phone wasn't too high if people were buying them in droves. Simple supply and demand.

As for the iPad, I won't buy one right away for myself, but then I already have a bunch of computers and an iPhone. But I can see buying one for my 90 year old grandmother who could easily figure out how to use this. She could read books and surf the web on it, but there's no way I could teach her how to use a normal computer.

Variable price depending on how much storage space it has and if it has 3G. Anywhere from $499-$829.

Everything you can use an iPod Touch for, but with a bigger screen (that sounds pretty simplistic, but what do people use netbooks for?).

And they added ebooks to the iTunes store. And iWork apps for iPad. And there will be all sorts of apps that are designed specifically to take advantage of the 10" screen.

Frankly, I think this is in large part Apple's answer to the netbook. And they will sell tons of the $500 model. But in the long run, this is the start of mainstream touchscreen computers.

Another interesting idea that I just heard: schools will LOVE this. Instead of buying students a laptop, they'll get them a $500 iPad. The software is more locked down than a laptop so schools can have much more control of what students can do with it. And it's cheap (for what schools normally buy students).