Today, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad – the long rumoured, anticipated and expected tablet. He called it “a truly magical and revolutionary product today”. Maybe not so much. We already have iphones, netbooks and laptops so there are no surprises with any one of the things the iPad can do. But to be sure, the magic is in the package of all the things it can do easily, intuitively and at a truly magical price for an apple product.

True, at first glance, it looks like just a giant iPod. But there are many who know way more about Steve Jobs and Apple who will tell you that this is the gadget he has always wanted to build and that he only built the iPhone because that was what the available tech allowed at the time. No argument from me there. The concept that is today the The iPad , was first presented in an Apple concept video as the Knowledge Navigator in 1987. 1987!! That was before the internet folks. These guys understood that there would soon be some ubiquitous network intermediating information exchange. You watch that video, replace the voice commands with commands typed into a keyboard, or maybe not if you have the Google voice search app or similar, and you have the iPad.

There is no shortage of accolades and opinions on the release. The folks over at the Guardian featured a coterie of expert reactions (praise really) ranging from design through tech and functionality.  I have not seen the iPad but I watched Steve Jobs’s presentation. From all indications, Apple hit this one out of the park. Maura Judkis takes a look at some of the outstanding green features of the iPad – it’s BPR-free, PVC-free, has arsenic-free display glass, a mercury-free LCD display, 10 hour battery life and more. Dan Frakes gushes about the iPads best five surprises: It is unlocked (woo hoo!), it has external keyboard support it has Epub support and, listen to this pc users, it has a productivity suite with support for Microsoft office!! (I think this is one big deal that not too many people are talking about).

Probably the most disruptive feature of the iPad is the business model. An apple product with, according to Steve Jobs, magical and revolutionary features is coming out of the gate at, by apple product standards, a measly $499. For a comparison point, an unsubsidized iPhone or Nexus One is more expensive. Not only that, the exclusivity that attends the iPhone is absent.  The Wall Street Journal likes their business model too (caveat, there are many things we know WSJ liked in the past that imploded, but still…).

Here are a few things I can say with absolute certainty about the iPad: a) If you make your living on netbooks, find another line of business. Netbooks as we know them today are dead. Period. b) If you are a product manager for Kindle or a similar product, you have your work cut out for you. Except that for a little bit, the Amazon leverage will prop up the product. I will be curious to see how it survives on functionality. c) If you are an iPhone owner, particularly in the US, you like this. First, there is the cross pollination of functionality that you benefit from. Second, there is a partnership with AT&T which will bring in a whole new set of productivity users who will demand more from AT&T. At some point here very soon, it will finally become clear to AT&T that they will have to outspend the competition beefing up their wireless networks or they will not be in business very long. Customers can only take shit for so long – the more customers there are, the shorter that bullshit window.

Steve Jobs is geek. He is a badass. The boys and girls at Apple are geeks. They are badass. The guys over  at Apple in product management are the badasses I want to be when I grow. But when you think about it, there is no badass who has shown greater badassitude than Steve Jobs. This guys imagined this device, even before the technological components were even possible. He stuck with it, did what he could with the available technology of the times and, today, we have an even better Knowledge Navigator aka the iPad. Steve Jobs = Badassitude!