Nothing in the article is much of a surprise, except maybe for the fact that it could be used as a secondary display on Macs. And that Lam gets so excited about anonymous tips that he can’t drive straight.

But I still question the usefulness of such a product. Sure, the CrunchPad sounds neat, cuz it’s gonna be $300 (supposedly). But I’ll bet that the Apple tablet will be $799. Eight hundred flippin dollars for something that’s less useful than a netbook? That’s a hard sell.

Of course tons of Apple zealots will flock to the thing for whatever reason…just to have it and pretend they’re cool, I guess…but seriously, think about it:

• There’s no physical keyboard, and while it’s possible you could in fact type as you would on a virtual keyboard as well as you do on a physical one (since it’d be big enough on this thing, what with a 10″ screen), the screen will be at a goofy angle…either for viewing or typing.
• It’s kind of a pig in terms of size for something that’s not as useful as a full-on computer (even a netbook)
• Playing games on it will be as disastrous, for the most part, as playing games on the iPhone…fun, sometimes, but not for anything twitchy
• You can throw your iPhone in your pocket and still carry a netbook or computer…what do you do with this?
• What does it bring to the table that you can’t do on the iPhone or a normal netbook / laptop?
• I suppose we shall all see, though.

My guess is they’re calling it Emerald. Or Rosetta. Or something else that makes them seem like they’re as important as some of the most interesting artifacts in history. But that’s just a guess (and not a very good one).

Gizmodo