By 'usable', do you mean that your one year old child can browse the app store, find something they like, install it, and use it?
At a new location, can they identify the correct wireless network to use, and enter the password?
Or do they just use an easy subset of what the ipad offers? We don't go "Wow! the toy piano is easy enough for a toddler to use!" and gush over it, because we know the toddler isn't using the piano like some virtuoso.
The iPad isn't a computer, it's a toy. A kid quickly learning how to use a toy is neither new nor outstanding, and least of all a contribution to society.
Cost 600 bucks. How does that help civilization. Oh maybe a few well pampered hipster's children get access to it, but how does that work for the rest of the world that averages 2 bucks a day income levels?
While I'm hardly an Apple apologist, I just wanted to remind that technology that is initially only available to the top-of-the-line models ends up on cheap models a few years from now, but only because its development was paid for by the relatively rich early adopters.
In Ghana, more than 60% of people have a mobile phone, but that wouldn't be possible if the development of the hardware (both for the actual devices and the network infrastructure) hadn't been made cheap by years of development paid by the rich countries.
If we're comparing it to things as ubiquitous as computer technology itself and electric lighting, then I don't think it is unreasonable to point out that the relatively exclusive nature of the ipad puts it at a disadvantage in such a contest.
