I'm curious to try out the iPad after reading his and Mossberg's review, but can't imagine shelling out a lot of money for what is essentially a leisure device that doesn't fit in my pocket.
I think it's just what he said: people really seem to love or hate the iPad, based mostly on their background.
Personally, the iPad isn't for me. I want less screen time in my life, not more - and the iPad doesn't fill any gaps that warrants me purchasing one for myself.
That being said, I did order one for my grandmother. She's been pestering me about getting the Internet and I felt like it would be a device that was less daunting for her than a mouse/keyboard combination.
Apologies if I've drifted off topic.
I might as well have asked her to do Differential Calculus.
However, I think the iPad will be different. If she's playing say, solitaire and wants to move something - she touches it with her finger and moves it. Easy.
The first issue is whether it is significantly less confusing than a PC. Sure, it is simpler (no multitasking), but when I was teaching my grandmother, multitasking was a 10% problem. She was mostly confused by the concept of hyperlinks, urls (when they weren't correctly formatted in emails, esp.), how to print, how to adjust font sizes, copy/paste, etc. The iPad certainly makes the concept of multiple windows easier to understand (by not allowing them), but there are still tons of issues with learning a computer.
On the negative side, it doesn't seem to be that good for an elderly person who may have some mobility issues. A desktop allows someone to position their head and hands in a reasonably comfortable way (head upright, hands below heart); I'm still not sure how the iPad is supposed to be used in a comfortable way. The iPad also has a significantly smaller screen and moving hands across the device might be a lot harder than using a mouse.