iPad as a Divergence Product

I know I have been somewhat skeptical of the iPad as a novel product.  Here is an article in Adage which looks at it differently.  Comparing it to the now long ago launch of the tablet computer:  Good thoughts. " ... The tablet computer of 2010 is a divergence product. It's as if Apple took a laptop computer and cut off the keyboard and threw it away, then put a handful of the laptop's more important components into the screen itself.  What remained was a new type of computing device. Lighter, easier to use and almost totally focused on the visual functions of a conventional laptop ... "