Interface, design, the App Store infrastructure, and a company that's able to negotiate with book publishers as it has with music and movie rights holders. The whole package smaller and not much heavier than a glossy magazine.
Henry Ford didn't invent the internal combustion engine, Gutenberg didn't invent the written word, Philo Farnsworth didn't invent the cathode ray tube or radio waves, Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent hypertext.
That's what Apple does. It takes existing technology and makes it usable. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, and the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone; they were just the first that weren't a chore to use.
You're quick to dismiss that, but why hasn't Microsoft, HP, Dell, Toshiba, or any other Windows-based version managed it in more than a decade of tablet PCs? It took the company that first popularized the mouse/pointer interface paradigm to realize that mobile devices needed a new one.
Any other manufacturer would have their head handed to them for offering a product that WILL be really useful...eventually.
Utter nonsense. The personal computer was something that would be useful eventually. The CD-ROM was something that would become useful as soon as there was software published on it (I still remember installing software that came on a tall stack of floppies). DVD and Blu-ray players would become useful when movies became available to buy or rent. Webcams would become useful when the people you wanted to talk to also had webcams. E-mail became useful when your friends got e-mail addresses.
Windows-based tablet computers would become useful when ... actually, we're still waiting for that. When they come up with a close-enough approximation of the iPad, I suppose.
OK, few things. You admit there is nothing revolutionary whatsoever in the iPad. At least we agree on that. It’s a large format iPhone (without the phone) or iPod touch. That’s pretty much it.
Try composing a document on one (far cry from texting using the display ‘keyboard’). Try working on a spreadsheet. Try editing a movie.
It’s a device designed more to “receive” than to “send” or “produce”. Any other characterization of it is ....well, nonsense.
PC’s, other technologies you mentioned ...had clear uses, clear purposes. True, software and ancillary devices had to catch up, but they quickly did so for devices/platforms that offered true utility, true productivity.
Again, the iPad is kinda of a neat gadget, but I find the slobbering over it just silly. Apple could have made a revolutionary product; what they did was create yet another tablet with it’s whiz-bang touch interface that is so popular, all while offering far fewer features and capabilities than other, existing tablets.