It doesn't have optical zoom, which brings you back to the absolute basics of photography, especially if you follow the get-it-right-in-camera school. Which you'd want because the captured pixels are ... well, dreadful. Not only is it a pinhead sized sensor, but I have a strong suspicion that the actual captured input is also slightly smaller than the resulting output size.
Then the lens is also relatively wide, which means you have to get up close and personal for any reasonable portraitshot with the inevitable exaggeration of facial features. On the other hand, such lens is probably desirable for most landscape photography although the optical qualities aren't exactly creme-de-la-creme.
One of the major downsides is colormanagement. The output of the camera is simply considered sRGB. Whether they actually do a reasonable attempt at true colormatching in that respect remains to be tested. Considering the rather dreadful appearance of the display and lack of colormanagement in its output, I have very little faith.
What would be seriously cool though is pairing this slate up with a more sophisticated capture and lens combo. Like Ricoh's GXR module for example! I can totally imagine a physical frame where you slide the iPad into the back and attach one of those modules to the front and presto, you have an absolute brilliant view-camera-look-a-like photodevice.
And that is probably my conclusion for the iPad in general. It can be a great sophisticated controller for a number of devices, including photographic equipment, and especially in combination with wireless technology, but the current on-board camera doesn't exactly do it justice. Maybe useful for project managers visiting construction sites or something similar, but in most other cases your phone is going to do a better job with more reasonable expectations.
