I'm pretty sure the camera kit workaround got hosed and no longer works after iOS firmware version changed to 4.00+ early this year.
Nope. Not true. It still works even up to 5.0 beta 6.
Edit: some "cameras" (read: phones) try to charge off of USB, so they may not work. But if you can enable storage-only or PictBridge, they'll work.
Alternatively, if you have a powered USB hub handy... (which is quite pointless given that you'd need some sort of external power for it), then pretty much anything, even phones, would work.
Yes, that's what I meant when I said "from the cloud." An iPad can download photos stored on the Internet - true - but not directly from an external camera.
IMHO, if you have to upload the pictures from the camera to a cloud site, then download them to an iPad - why bother unless that's all you have. For that matter, all photos stored in the cloud can be viewed on anything that has Internet access.
And yes - photos can be off loaded to an iPad using the camera kit connector which plugs into the iPad's docking plug.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC531ZM/A
That is a decent Apple work around. Costs about another $25.
iPad can still download photos directly from a camera... unless the "camera" is a phone trying to pair via Bluetooth. In any case, USB port from CCK (camera connection kit) still works
And the CCK is not a workaround. It's a full USB port and a full SD card reader adapter. Both of them work only on the iPad.
Apple just purposefully tries to limit power draw from the USB port to minimize impact on the iPad battery life due to some devices trying to charge from the port, otherwise, it works with pretty much anything that has basic USB functionality such as keyboards (the musical instrument), MIDI controllers, and synth pads.
Also works for external USB drives and even hard drives when jailbroken.