Brett brought up an interesting topic this morning, in discussing whether the iPad is geared more at consumption (pleasure) or productivity (work).  He comments on the iWork suite that Apple *designed* for the iPad and some of it’s short comings.  This brings up a great question which I have to ask…

Are people expecting too much out of a device that I believe is intended to view the internet and compete with Kindle in the book reading arena?  Can a user really be as productive (read: utilizing documents, spreadsheets, databases, file management, etc) with the iPhone / iPad OS as they can be with a tablet running a full blown Windows desktop OS, where not only are there quite a few more than what the iPhone / iPad has available for it, they have a long history of development behind them.  Sure, something like Microsoft Office costs quite a bit in comparison to iWork for the iPad (several hundred dollars version $9.99 per component), but maybe, just maybe, one gets what they pay for?  It’s kind of like comparing Photoshop to GIMP, and so on.  You get the picture, I’m sure.

So, in short, are we expecting too much in terms of productivity from a device aimed at the consumer consumption machine?