iPad idea, not the product, is important

It’s out and everyone is in love. Are you?

: Image via CrunchBase

We started with keyboards, then joysticks. Then mice. Then game controllers. Then force feedback. Then wireless controllers. Then the Wii. Then the iPhone. Now we have the iPad.

We’ve been interfacing with computers the same way for years. Keyboard, mouse/trackpad and MAYBE some fairly simple voice commands.

Then came the iPhone, which enabled us to touch what we were doing. Our hands were able to make whatever we wanted to happen. We started to connect.

The iPad is the more-evolved version of the same. We’re starting to interact with computers like we interact with every thing else. We touch. We feel. We make a gesture, something directly related happens.

The link between the iPhone, iPad and the Macbook are obvious. But they are all primitive. They are too new and too young to really be judged. The iPad will change the way we consume content. It will change the way content is created. It will change the way we interact with computers.

When the day comes that I don’t have to point and click (or swipe) to make something unrelated to that swipe happen, we’ll know we’re done.

We have a long way to go.