Waiting ages for your computer to boot? What are you - living in the 90s? There's this thing called sleep mode, and that's how the iPad works as well. Upgrade to a real OS, and then maybe your article won't sound like retarded drivel.
In my opinion, anything more than instant now feels like waiting for ages. Sure, my netbook comes out of sleep mode within 2 seconds, but it's sure more sluggish for the first several seconds after that. Even Macs aren't fully instant on, unless you perhaps have an SSD. Sorry, I'm running fairly modern PC hardware with Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but there's just no way it's going to feel as fast to grab and check email as my iPad.
Sure. So perhaps it's not a net win or lose either way. The iPad is quicker to get up and going with, perhaps like a car with higher octane fuel. Long haul, the computer's going to win out for sure. But that initial feel of faster, and the way you can just grab it and go instead of sitting down at a desk to check email or get online, will make most consumers prefer tablet computers to full comptuers. Same as oven vs. microwave. It's much faster to bring 10 gallons of water to boil on a stove, but your cold cup of coffee would be reheated much easier in the microwave. Complementary devices, some similar use cases, but for the most part the microwave let us warm food we otherwise would have just eaten cold. The iPad brings computing in an non-intrusive manner to areas we otherwise would have not used computers.
And it's not just the iPad; Android Tablets will play a big part, and HP/Microsoft/RIM/others will as well. But for now, the iPad is the 900 lb. gorilla in the room, pushing tablet computing forward.
