iPad: Magical & Revolutionary?

So the much anticipated Apple tablet has been revealed to the world, and as with most any Apple product about half the people have already dubbed it the iDud and about half the people are fingering their credit cards ready to complete their transaction.

What’d you think?

The word magical seems a bit much. I’m not sure what a gadget would have to do at this point to seem magical, but I’m pretty sure the presentation of that magical device would not include spreadsheets (really, Apple).

The usual suspects have already started rolling in with their hands-on experiences (Gizmodo, Engadget, and ArsTechnica), and menstruation jokes overtake Twitter, but none of it feels magical or all that revolutionary yet.

As with most devices of this ilk, I always wait for the nerds and the fans to provide the real context. On its own a gadget is not magical, it’s what people can do with that’s magic. So far no magic, but that might be only a matter of time.

As a booknerd, I was really excited to hear about the e-book (or iBooks I guess they’re called now) functionality. I thought perhaps Apple could make me eschew books the way the iPod made me stop buying CDs and switch to downloads. So far, no dice. If there’s no multi-tasking or, that I saw, no way to annotate the iBook, I see little sense in switching since I’d still need a paper and pen to make notes. At least it looks better than the Kindle, right?

What’d you think? Are you lining up to get one, or will you wait and hope all those early adopters will bring Apple enough cash that they can announce a better, faster, cheaper version next year?

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