Much has been said already, so here are a few non-obvious things from yesterday’s Apple iPad announcement.

Underappreciated and revolutionary:

• OS/Appkit APIs, Controls and Design guidance on building touch Apps – even ones as complex as iWork. (eg: reimagined iTunes volume slider, manipulation of the pie chart)
• Related to that, reducing the number of on-screen toolbar/menu controls even further (compared to the Mac version of an app, say iWork)
• Retiring the mouse as an input device, even as an option. Firmly embracing touch as a primary input mechanism.
• Transitioning the keyboard from a primary input device to an accessory.
• Treating 3G as an option, a different approach than any other device in the market (including theiPhone or iPod Touch).
• Making the file system disappear – embracing the app-centric iPhone model, versus the Finder-centric mac.
• Transitioning even core apps like iWork to the cloud, in terms of pricing, delivery, and presumably file storage.
• Related to that, rethinking the bundling strategy (iWork) and focussing on individual apps.
• Acknowledging it’s not sufficient to control the hardware packaging – core components like the CPU/GPU need to be owned too.

• Jonathan Ive now wants to be called Jony Ive
• Reinterpretation of TV viewing – TV feeds as underlays (viz MLB) vs internet as overlay (viz Yahoo! Widgets)
• New Keynote transitions! The ‘force land’, ‘letters falling off’ and ‘shatter’ effects seem new!

– Amit