I see how it changes personal computing, in that it turns users into pure consumers of content. I mean, that's it. You can use a few apps to do this or that, but the iPad is primarily about consumption. I don't know that this is a "revolution," but it is certainly a step.
It doesn't change personal computing for me, but I don't passively consume content all that often (being a designer and developer).
So, maybe John Gruber pinned me right on thinking it's a glorified iPod Touch, and I'm not a hater; I just don't see what the big deal is. Maybe I've never found a device that made me breathlessly extol its virtues?
Depending on how you count it, it's the 2nd computing platform where "pure consumption" is slick and worry free. The Web may have been the first. (Though popups were no picnic at first.) There is no reason that content creation isn't possible -- Apple's just not doing that right now.
Check out music related apps. There's a lot of possible use of the iPad for content creation there.
I bet that the mobile device landscape will have a lot of parallels to the early web.
This time Apple "rolled" (what a hipster dufus term btw) much differently.
The sad thing is I think Gruber would be a good writer for all things not Apple. But his ridiculously strong Apple bias makes it hard to stomach. After reading Gruber, Paul Thurrott seems like a bonafide Microsoft hater.
This supports the theory that "Jon Gruber" is a pen name for Steve Jobs. Have the two ever been seen in the same room together?
Then I read this: "As a pundit, I'm supposed to explain how the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. But I can't. The iPad really is The Big One: Apple's reconception of personal computing." To which I thought, "translation: 'my fanboyism gets in the way of rational thought.'"
THEN, I hit the bottom of the article, and realized what I was reading. John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Apple's unofficial mouthpiece, writing another fluff piece for Apple.
This is how Apple fanboys roll.