Not since the last election has the country (or world) been this divided on an issue.  Some love it, some hate it, while many just don't get it.

Speaking as a consumer of content

I'm excited about it for a lot of reasons.  The main reason is that I read a *lot*.  Books, magazine, blogs, long form essays, etc.  I've been looking for a device for a long time that makes it easier for me to consume that content when I'm away from my desktop and want a screen larger than my iPhone.  I passionately hate the current state of e-ink technology and would never consider a Kindle or Nook as is.  Watching the screen flash black every time I want to turn the page is an affront against everything that is right in this world.  It's a horrible, horrible artifact of a technology that's not ready for prime time.

Is the iPad the most perfect device for reading?  No device will ever be the perfect device for that.  But is it the best one that'll be available in the near future?  Certainly until iPad 2.0 comes out.

My iPhone 1st generation phone was the best phone until the 2nd and then the 3GS.  The next one will be even better than that.  For technology to move forward it has to start somewhere.  I think the iPad is starting from an awesome point.  It promises to do some very specific things extremely well.  That's enough for me to get the 1.0 version.

What about a competitive device?  There aren't any at the moment.  There are promises of devices either mythical Chrome or Android tablets with no specific feature set or price and then there are warmed over tablet PC's heralded as iPad competitors that weigh twice as much, have a third as much battery life and cost three times as much.  At the low end are a group of specious products that promise to be nothing more than netbooks with touch screens instead of keyboards.  I challenge anyone to show me a sub $500 netbook that has ever approached the build quality of anything from Apple.  There's a reason Acer said they plan to sit 2010 out as far as the tablet market goes.  When Apple put the price point at $500 they made a very bold statement about what people should expect for that price.  An underpowered notebook with horrible battery life is a better idea in the abstract than the concrete.

Eventually these devices will get better.  3 years after the iPhone there are some great competitive products out there like the Nexus 1 that give people more choice and Apple a reason to keep innovating.  Meanwhile there's nothing on the horizon that looks like it comes close to the iPad.  The tech blogs are filled with "iPad Killers" that are expected soon but they all suffer from the aforementioned problems: vaporware, too expensive and huge or built by companies that are known only for building crappy cheap products.

As a creator of content

For someone who produces DVDs, blogs, books and applications, the iPad is an exciting new area to create for.  There are a lot of things you can now do in digital publishing that just didn't have an outlet before.  Interactive ebooks, digital magazines, instructional videos, there's a ton of content waiting to happen for this device.

I think the future of magic publishing is going to be on devices like this.  It's also going to help bring back books  (digital ones) as a viable means for publishing content.  As it is now, the magic market is too niche to make publishing a growing market.  The cost of launching a book outweighs the average return most can expect on a title.  Unlike DVDs that have an almost zero launch cost.

As a magician

There's a whole generation out there that's entire exposure to magic is Internet based.  The likelihood that they'll ever pick up a printed book on magic is next to zero.  The iPad is another way to approach this kind of content.  It's a different medium in which to have an experience learning magic.  I know I'd prefer to sit on my couch or dining room table and look at a device like an iPad to learn a new effect whether it be from an ebook or magic video.  I think it'll give us a better way to interact with this kind of content.