I think the geeks have it wrong.  The iPad is a revolutionary device and a game changing one at that.  I believe that the iPad is to computing what the Nintendo Wii is to video gaming.  While it may not have the most amazing graphics, the most powerful CPU (though it just might), the most storage or even all of the features that we want such as multitasking, it does not matter.  I repeat, it does not matter, just as it did not matter for the Wii.

The Nintendo Wii is really just a GameCube in different packaging just like the iPad is just an iPod Touch in bigger packaging.   The “magic” of the Wii is not it’s amazing technical specifications like say the Sony Playation 3.  No, the real magic of the Wii is in its ability to change the way that the game is played; literally and figuratively.

The Wii is appealing because anyone can play the games, old, young, veteran video gamers or newcomers and have fun playing them.  The Wii removes the requirement of being a video gamer to play video games.  There’s no need to master impossible sequences of key presses just to be able to challenge your friend to a game of tennis.  Instead you just pick up the controller and play; it requires no instruction and therefore lowers the barriers to video gaming.  The iPad does the same thing for computing.

The iPad is the first “computer” that I would consider buying my mom (actually the Litl Webook was the first, however, it is now surely doomed).  The trick of the iPad is that it removes the “computer-y” things from the computer.  This one aspect of the iPad is the key thing that absolutely makes it a revolutionary device irrespective of it’s technical specifications or naive feature set.  The iPad allows anyone young, old, tech savvy or not to be able to intuitively use a computer for the first time in history.  This to me is why the iPad is a game changer and is one reason why the iPad will not be a flop.

The iPad is a harbinger of things to come in computing, specifically in human-computer interaction models and I, for one, welcome it.

Awesome hi-resolution image of the inside of the space shuttle’s cockpit.  As my desktop background on my 23″Apple Cinema Display I feel like I’m behind the wheel of the Millennium Falcon.  NASA rocks!