Well, since you ask...

Make it a customizable start page.

Phase 1:
Allow users to design icons, set orientation, and assign commands to icons

Phase 2:
Grid-based framework allowing resizable icons and a drag-and-drop editor for arranging icons.

Phase 3:
Extend framework to allow generic plug-ins for thing such as RSS feeds, weather, stock ticker, wi-fi status, etc...

Phase 4:
Develop a default horizontal home screen with 3 (wide) x 4 (tall) grid containing icons for:
-- World Wide Web
-- E-mail
-- IM
-- Calendar
-- To-Do
-- Address book
-- Movies
-- Pictures
-- Music
-- Phone (e.g. Skype)
-- GPS
-- Calculator

Next to this grid include a clock plug-in and an RSS reader showing the latest Tablet news. Convince Nokia to sell tablets with this start page. :-)

What do you think?

Holy crap, something constructive, thank you! Those are great, I believe I will start on those alongside a new project I may take up. Thanks again for the suggestions, perfect

No problem -- I hope other people chime in. For the record, I don't own a tablet. I'm just thinking of things that would make me want to buy one.

The more I think of this, the more I think the plug-ins would be something like desktop applets. The differences would be:

1) You wouldn't have the left-hand side bar and status icons up top. I understand they can be useful for power users, but they take up screen space and add to clutter. I like the idea of letting the user decide what are the important things to put on the screen.

2) Grid-based arrangement simplifies aligning icons and eliminates wasted space between applets. If you want to get fancy, you could let the user set the resolution of the grid.

3) There would not have to be a window around an applet / plugin. Instead, plugin backgrounds would be transparent (like icons). For example, the background for the "clock" applet might be transparent, so it just looks like the time is naturally displayed on the tablet-top.

It might be worth considering a white background, but is a black background better for battery life?

Aisu, another constructive proposition (I've been meaning to say it since the very start but somehow it escaped me...) : maybe wait for Canola V2 to come out in a few days, and see if the powerful graphic framework it introduces would not be a good foundation to build upon ?

I'm with the majority here. It's useless and unnecessary.

What I'd like to see would be a replacement for the standard applications menu on the home screen.

It would display a row of catagory icons (Internet, Music, Applications, Utilities, etc) down each side and an area in the center where the applications in that group would reside with kinetic scrolling (Stopping at the top/bottom). You'd select the group and then the application.

Allow the user to specify their own icons for the groups and applications (to replace the small icons that sometimes come with the program). Assuming 10 application group tabs and 9 applications displayed per group would allow 90 programs with two presses.

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. The first thing I am working on is the user customizable commands and icons. The simplified command release should be on my site by the weekend (slow due to school) and the icons should follow suit soon. Then, will come the grid work *sigh* a pain.

And the Canola foundation sounds nice, but this is just a project for me to learn, and hopefully some of you guys to enjoy. I want to build everything myself

You're useless and unnecessary. Thanks for stating what I already said. It will be practical, though, as I learn more and spend more time with it. Just, don't be so negative

what i really want to see is more preset icons, and make it a little easier to set up the icons and what they go to, but this is great, its a laugh, and i will enjoy... probably more than i should