It really was a Nextopia moment last night. Expectations were basically met, every spec besides a camera were essentially there. And no one was happy. Screw that. I'm starting to belive it's magnificent. So I'm going to mention three quotes that represent the possibilities. Not the limitations.

Ethan Kaplan compares it to the 1st gen iPhone:

Now, the iPad. The fact that people are spending so much virtual ink about “do we need this, do people need this?” misses the point. People didn’t need a better phone. A phone was a phone. And yet, people need and covet their iPhone. The iPhone has transcended what people judged it on: a PDA and a phone. It has become a general purpose device more in line with the usage of netbooks than phones. The iPad likewise will transcend what people are judging it by.

Rory Marinich talks about magic:

Verizon launched a Droid ad two months ago that essentially let the world know how doomed they were. The ad showed a bunch of “iDon’t”s. iDon’t have 5 megapixels. iDon’t have multitasking. Item after item of flaws in the iPhone that this new technology could solve.

Apple, meanwhile, showed a phone that could speak foreign languages at you, identify birdcalls in the wilderness, guide you through cities. They weren’t selling technical features. They were selling you magic. Real magic. The kind of magic where, thanks to world-class designers and programmers and marketers, it actually comes true.

Stephen Fry on possibilities of simplicity:

It is SO SIMPLE. It is basically a highly responsive capacitative piece of glass with solid state memory and an IPS display. Just as a book is basically paper bound together in a portable form factor. The simplicity is what allows everyone, us, software developers, content providers and accessory manufacturers to pour themselves into it, to remake it according to the limits of their imagination.

Developers are preparing. Just a couple of hours after the keynote we see a prototyped comic book experience on the device. Imagination will turn it into magic.