'Computer' is such a generic term -especially these days with the varying types of hardware and form-factor- that people really need to be more specific when referring to sales figures or reporting about any usage/manufacturing/sales data related to computing devices.

Having gone through my high school and college years during the early/mid 90's, the first image that comes to my mind when I hear "computer" is a desktop PC.

the niche arguement, as you'd like to put it off is this:

ipad vs rest of the pc industry is a small niche (ie how many ipads were sold vs all other laptops, netbooks, desktops, servers, etc etc)

I think iPad is a tablet

the slate is a tablet

if it fits in jeans pocket, it's a PMP (personal/portable media player)
the ipod touch, archos, etc fit in that category

tablet would be 7-10 or 11" screen, no keyboard, touchscreen, etc etc



that being said, with the success of iPad, i'm looking forward to a ton of innovation in that style of computer

For what it's worth, I bought the iPad as a colour ebook reader. To me, one's usage of an item makes it what it is. Eg. Is it a coat hanger, or is it an antenna? Depends on it's current usage.

I should mention that I'm posting this from my iPad, so to be fair, it's a web tool at this very moment, but it will be returning to it's raison d'être shortly. ;)

But language is an ever changing medium, and there was a time when people were termed 'computers' and 'calculators' as well, though not these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer