On holding the Internet

Some initial thoughts on the iPad, several months after my initial thoughts could possibly be relevant.

This isn’t a gadget. This isn’t a trifle – it’s not a thing you just have, like Flip video cameras and iPod Shuffles have become. This isn’t a piece of trivia.

Most of all, this isn’t a laptop, where the Internet is simply a function of a larger machine, as equal in processing power as the calculator or word processor or camera. This is – and I’m being almost literal, here – the physical manifestation of the Internet itself. Sure, you can pull a few offline productivity type programs into the mix, but the iPad’s importance is tied directly to its ability to condense and simplify the Internet experience, offering such a direct pipeline to information and entertainment that the pipeline itself becomes transparent.

If you could actually hold the Internet – if the Internet were a physical, tangible thing – you’d probably be holding something pretty close to the iPad.

Seriously. It’s smooth. Real smooth.

All that hype? It’s real, you guys.

This was lovingly handwritten on July 11th, 2010