Apples' iPad, the Cloud in the palm of your hand?

Unless you've been living under a rock in the past 24 hours, it can't have escaped your notice that after months, if not years of speculation and rumor, Apple has finally announced its tablet device, the iPad.  And let me just say up front that my inner geek is showing definite signs of techno-lust!  Yesterday, as I watched the news come in on my iPhone while travelling, a colleague turned to me and asked 'What I'd use it for?'.  My initial response was, 'Use it for, that's not the point, I just want it.  I'll figure out a use for it later!'.

But later in the day, I sat down to watch the video of the launch event and did start to ask myself, 'What would I use it for?'  During the press event, the phrase 'Internet in the palm of your hand' was used repeatedly by Steve Jobs & co., and that got me thinking.  The way in which you can browse using multi-touch and gesture based input certainly offers an intuitive, simple and natural way to interact with a browser, let alone the native applications. The extra screen real estate of the iPad over the iPhone also makes it a more viable browsing device.  Add 3G into the mix along with Wi-Fi and you have a very viable, portable, gesture based, easy to use, always connected device.  Now doesn't that sound like the ultimate Cloud access device?  So not only do you have the 'Internet in the palm of your hand', you now have the 'Cloud in the palm of your hand'.

So what do you think? Am I simply trying to justify buying another device to add to my already long laundry list of iPhone, MacBook Pro, PSP, PS3, etc, etc...or is the iPad a genuine new class of device, the ultimate Cloud client access device.  Let me know in the comments below.

Mike