My two favorite comments about the much-anticipated launch are tied to each other, and I’d like to take tonight’s entry to briefly explain why.

The first comment is from David Pogue, in his New York Times review of the iPad:

“Those are some pretty confident critiques of the iPad — considering that their authors have never even tried it." 

And then Steve Jobs himself told the audience during his announcement of the iPad:

"This is where I have always seen Apple: at the intersection of the Liberal Arts and Technology”

What’s more Liberal Arts than polarized and downright frothing-mouth critiques about something you haven’t seen in action yet? Philosophizing ad absurdium (when all you have to do is wait a week anyway). Steve Jobs is a curator as much as he is a scientist. He’s an artist as much as a businessman. I almost don’t care if it succeeds or fails commercially. It’s already had a cultural impact worth noting (a couple!). And I do feel confident that it will succeed anyway. While there are already 75 million users of iPhone and iTouch, there are almost 100 times as many people who don’t already use them, and if people will be introduced to controlling your browsing experience with your fingers the way that I first was, they will be hooked.

(Disclaimer and healthy dose of irony: I don’t own an iPad, and won’t for at least a while. But I’m confident anyway.)