And the internet went wild. Apple have released their long rumored multitouch tablet device. A device much hyped and much written about, despite the fact that apple had never officially mentioned the product before today. In only 12 hours it has been slammed online by millions of bloggers for not being... well, revolutionary.

I don't know what everyone was really expecting. This device has been rumored for so long it was never going to to please everyone. It has been criticized for being nothing more than a scaled up iPod touch, or for not being a proper replacement for a laptop.

But there in lies it's beauty to me. It's a completly new platform, one that's there to be used by developers to create something truly revolutionary. We don't yet know what this device can do, but it's an amazing platform for developers to explore. It's a much bigger canvas and a much more powerful system than developer have had in the iPhone. 

The iPhone has revolutionized the world as a mobile Internet device rather than as a phone, but it wasn't until it's second year when the App store launched and developers began writing apps that it truly started to revolutionize mobile handsets. That was eighteen months ago.

There's going to be things to criticise about the iPad, least of which is a name open to ridicule. Lack of a camera and confusion over tethering are two seeming oversights, but apple need to hold something back for the next generation. It's two months to release, that's two months for programmers to play with the SDK and start to unlock some of it's potential. Give it a year or two and we'll see what kind of impact it has.

I for one am looking forward to have a 10" Sonos or control4 app.

Oh and by the way, this was written and uploaded from my iPhone in the waiting room of the red cross blood bank. I never thought I'd be writing that 5 years ago.