I was blown away at the price like literally blown away and I waited on line at launch to play with one. This is probably the fist apple device that I didn't wait on the third gen rule to buy. I bought the iPad 2 because I couldn't stand not owning one anymore.
Now that I own one, I really think apple needs to push iPad further in terms of software. This is a space google really doesn't care about, and Microsoft might actual innovate with metro.
I remember those landmark stevenotes.
First, the iPhone one. The thing that blew my mind was the multitouch, the inertial scrolling, and the type-checking (NOT spell checking) keyboard.
I remember the exact reveal as Jasoco put it - where he revealed the iPod, the Phone and the "Internet Communicator". I remember everyone screaming at the iPod part, then even louder for the Phone part, and then sort of a muted golf clap for the internet communicator - obviously, it was because no-one really knew what this meant. Irony would have it that, actually, that part of it is the most important.
And I, a lame duck, didn't immediately get that they were all one thing.
Still, I've watched that keynote a dozen times myself.
I also took a morning off work to see the iPad reveal. I was actually in the US at the time, and I had my computer set up with a live stream, probably from TWIT.
I was initially a bit bummed that it was 'just' a big iPhone. I mean, remember all the speculation of how Apple would 'solve' the input problem? And as it turned out, it was just a big iPod touch?
But the price was a huge megaton. So much so, I preordered one and got one on launch day. And as I came to learn.... they had solved the problem....in the original iPhone. It's like the iPad was designed first, but tech and time had it so they poured all of it into the iPhone first.
And it also became obvious that while it is 'just' a big iPod touch....that the size difference alone actually makes it a very different product with very different use-case scenarios.
Remember how Steve introduced it as fitting in between a laptop and mobile phone? (And taking the awesome shot at netbooks being better at nothing, just cheaper?). Well, that has turned out to be so true.
I have an iPhone, an iPad, and a laptop. And they each have their own uses they excel at, and none of the others can replace.