I am perhaps the last person in the CAD world to blog about this because I haven't been as excited about the iPad. I would have to say that I am not alone in this thinking though. I for one really see the iPad as a new way to consume media rather than actually create it and in general I think that is very solid thinking. Now I say that because I am not a great artist, sketcher, or fluidly creative person. I am trained to follow rules of physics, science, programming, and my wife. I have dabbled with the iPod Touch version of Sketchbook and see that as a very, very helpful tool for quick napkin paper sketches of what my engineering mind is trying to spit out. I really can't see myself lugging an iPad around for this use.
Having said all this...I took a step back and asked myself "What if I was an artistic person rather than a experienced Mechanical Engineer?" I found myself in a mysterious world full of imagination and wonderment after all this and had the hankering for an Apple iPad. What I really see being the large benefit to this technology is the convention artist, the animation story boarder, the graphics artist in general. And the fact that this product would not be worth anything without good studios creating software for these purposes. Otherwise, hey it is a larger iPod Touch with just as many drawbacks. I can go on and on about the reasons why this is a worthless product to me but this article sums it up pretty well. If you are an engineer at work, then this is a pass. If you are an artist at home, this may be quite worthwhile with an added purchase of...Sketchbook Pro for iPad.
The upgraded Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk seems to be a very HOT topic with the iPad at the moment though as it is being deemed a Wacom/Photoshop killer in some respects and rightfully so with the new 7.99 iPad version of the app.

Key
Highlights Include:
-
Full-screen 1024 x
768 work space with support for any device orientation
- An innovative
Multi-Touch interface
- 75 brushes with customizable
settings, including synthetic pressure sensitivity and brush modes for both freehand sketching and
creating straight lines, ellipses
and rectangle
- Six full-resolution layers per sketch with complete control over layer order, visibility and opacity
- A built-in, live news page that alerts artists to upcoming news, events, featured artists, etc.
The only other possible benefit I can see for an Engineer in the sense of design and artistry is the usage of the Sketchbook Pro image as a backdrop for part design in Inventor. Those users are out there, but this is not necessarily the work flow for the masses.