MikeFM

Is Apple going to give me seamless Facetime to POTS calling and POTS to Facetime calling? Is it going to let me send and receive text messages from plain old cellphones? How about let me send/receive faxes as if they were email? If they want to be better than Skype those are the features I want.

Skype really sucks but I've yet to see any real alternative that sucks less. Vonage was pretty good but when I canceled my account they screwed me (canceled just one of my two lines and months later sent me a bill for the other line and refuse to admit that I had canceled both lines). Give me an alternative and I'll be all over it. Simple billing and no contract is a big plus.

JollysFastVNC client by the same developer is by far the best VNC program I've used in these many years too. I'd love to see him write an iPad version.

I agree. Few programs are worth $50 to me (and I'm a developer) and I'd have to see something very compelling to get me to spend that on an iPhone/iPad app. IMO most software is to large and over priced for what most people need and that is one reason I enjoy iPhone apps and do spend money on them. They'd be better off offering the app at a much cheaper price with in-app purchases that could be used to upgrade functionality for those that need it. I'd at least want some sort of free trial edition to test out before I'd spend $50 on the full thing.

Also, I doubt most people know they can simply ask and Apple will refund their money if the app sucks. I think without that knowledge most people would be far less likely to spend $50 in one pop.

I was excited because the iPhone is the device that I'd been trying, with limited success to build for a decade before it came out and having finally laid hands on what I envisioned I immediately started running into cases where a bigger screen would be really nice but it still needed to be portable which laptops and even netbooks really aren't.

Everyone talks about how limited the iPhone and iPad are. Obviously they've never programmed for them. They are fantastic devices with many capabilities and there is a lot of room to program. It's not at all like programming for older Java, WinCE, Linux, etc phones which have always been crippled by bad hardware, bad tools, and restrictive licenses. You say Apple is restrictive - ha you obviously know jack about the mobile market. I can do just about anything on the iPad that I can do with a PC but I might have to do it a little different. That's probably a good thing because the PC and it's software is made of layers of history glued together with plenty of crap. It's a mess that doesn't work well for anyone. Better to take a clean approach and gradually add the functionality we need but in the correct way. Any moron can just throw more code at the problem but then you'll still need a quad-core CPU to play Minesweeper.

It's not quite magical. If they could figure out how to get the iPad to fold into an iPhone form factor when the bigger screen isn't needed without reducing any of it's abilities then THAT would be magical. It certainly has room to grow still and I'd like to see them allow more third party developers to officially use the dock connector. A bluetooth webcam would be a nice addition too.

My sister is handicapped and I was thinking of getting one for her to use. Would it work for mousing around do you think?

Please no physical buttons. Gestures and on-screen buttons work much better. Why waste the real estate on buttons that will wear out, get dirty, and only be placed correctly in a certain orientation. Keep the device as simple as possible.

Support for case based buttons via the dock would be good though. Then you could buy a case that includes game buttons, keyboard, whatever and if they wear out just get a new case.

I'd be sort of surprised if their new tablet had a home button. With Apple's recent push to go buttonless on the touchpads of new MacBooks I expect any new tablet from them would have a small power button and nothing else. I'd like to see the iPhone/iPod/iTablet implement gestures for home and volume control.

My biggest complaint about my iPod Touch is that you have to find the side buttons to control volume and you have to look at it to change tracks when playing music. Not as easy as my Nano to use blind. Gestures would feel more like an iPod and could be done without looking at it.

I'll buy an iTablet if they can keep it under $1000. I love my iPod Touch but I'd like a bigger screen. I hope they make it about the size of a paperback book. Still pocket/purse sized but big enough to use for real web browsing and working with documents.

I'm a resaler of FuelMaker products and there has been plenty of demand. The problems lie with FuelMaker. They take forever to fulfill orders and they won't let us sell outside our zone even in areas where no dealers are zoned. We see the FuelMaker as just another appliance to be sold but they see it as a product to be tightly controlled. What we need is competition.

Looks interesting. I need something that can take 360 degree product photos. I saw them at CES but can't remember what they're called.

My main wish would be for the iPod Touch to have a built-in mic and speaker suitable for using the iPod as a VoIP phone. I'd love to have a phone by Apple but I absolutely will not sign-up to service with Cingular. For my needs a VoIP phone is what I really need anyway. Heck - throw in a web cam and I'll use it to have web video chats from wherever I'm at.