Not really, a low end wacom tablet sells for < $100, and will interface with everything between 'paint shop pro', and the gimp all the way up to photoshop, illustrator and autocad.
> (and see how it goes for more hardcore design)
If that works out then you will still have to implement roughly 80% of photoshop before there would be any significant threat from this to the tablet market.
Seriously, I hope your friend gets a kick out of it and I hope that he will be inspired to do great stuff but I really can't see a serious threat here. I can see the 'rough sketch' work, but no way this thing will be used to produce final artwork in the near future.
There are some vertical market applications that are interesting though.
There are a couple of drawing apps which already implement a good portion of it.
Couldn't you just use the iPad as an input device for a desktop PC?
It's a device that is mostly geared towards consumption.
If there is going to be interoperability like that then I'd expect that to come from the same people that right now have 'jailbroken' iphones and other renegade stuff like that.
The day Apple sanctions their tablet to be used strictly as a dumb input device I'll buy you a beer.
It's a good idea though, I'll grant you that, I definitely would like to see that happen. Especially if you could use the bluetooth connection for doing it.
Car pc in the booth, use tablet as the user interface via bluetooth.
That'd be a nice niche. But I'm pretty sure it would require some 'warranty voided' hacking.
If some smart aleck manages to get Ubuntu NBR running on the 3G model it would suddenly be a whole lot more interesting to me.
EDIT: one of my Graphic design buddies says he's hoping to get one for mockups and day to day sketch work (and see how it goes for more hardcore design)