Note: For some very strange reason I'm not allowed to move the cursor to mid-text to correct my typos. This had never happened to me. Please excuse my many typos.
We have to give thanks to Apple for stepping up the smartphone category with a lot of nice screens and marketing, and for giving a much overdue kick-off to the touchscree/cloud computing market, again using eye candy and world class marketing. People that would not have looked at these technologies are considering them now thanks to Apple's efforts. This stimullates economy in general, and many new applications like home automation.
A home automation controller can be differnt things for different people. For a shared controller, the form factor is very good. I prefer the concept of the personal device. My smartphone, or my internet tablet (itouch, n800, etc.) are with me all the time, and fit in my pocket.
My problem with all the iTunes Point of Sale devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) is their current walled-garden nature. As a programmer, you dont know when/if Apple is going to approve your application or even worst, when it is going to pull the plug on you and your customers. Or when they are going to launch a new agreement that kills your system. They might say one day that your sourveillance app is used for vouyerism and you have not way to appel the decision. Apple's way is capricious and unpredictable. This had never been seen in the computing market.
Since this is a DIY forum, it should not be surprise that I prefer a device that provides me full control. That let's me create and distribute my application - even if they are not as good and the distribution channel is not as big as what the iPad provides. But, as I said above, Apple now created the categories, so the market is open and will accept competing devices. It will not be so easy for Apple to create vendor lock-in in the table market as they did in the MP3 market.
The iPad is very inmmature in some areas too. Per instance, my secondary use (in addition to web browsing) would be to read and annotate PDF text books. However, annotation for PDFs is not provided natively by the iPAD and the apps that support it are very inmature. That said, it is probably 18 months ahead of any decent competitor. So, for the next year it is iPad or nothing.
The HP Slate with WebOS is a very good potential candidate. What I really would like to see HP doing is that they launch this device and they refine and develop it as your very special product. This is similar to what Apple does, but different to what most hardware manufacturer do. HTC, Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell...all they launch a product that is just one of the bunch and once you buy it, they most of the time shift focust to another category and your product is left with little to no support. Something similar is happening to the Android devices and could be happening to the Chrome devices.
An 2nd generation of the recently announced EeePad is also a good potential candidate. Install your favorite Windows or Linux apps and you are good to go.
