When Apple launched their much-hyped iPad device a few weeks ago, the first thing naysayers asked — after they finished giggling over the silly name — was “What makes the iPad anything more than an expensive netbook without a proper keyboard?” Well, party-poopers, Apple COO Tim Cook has your answer: “Magic.”

“The netbook is not an experience people are going to continue wanting to have,” Cook told investors. “When they play with the iPad and experience the magic of using it … I have a hard time believing they’re going to go for a netbook.”

Granted, the iPad certainly is sleeker and more attractive than your typical netbook — those usually resemble laptops that have been run through Myron Reducto’s shrink ray — but will the iPad’s design be enough to make the sorta-tablet the game-changers that the iPod and iPhone have been?

One area where the iPad might falter when put up against netbooks is software. If Apple continues their iPhone model, which requires users and developers to use the App Store as the sole outlet for new software, will they be able to keep up with netbooks, where there’s virtually no limit to software options?

Tim Cook talks iPad, Apple [Macworld]

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