On a normal day I wake up, do my showering and hygene junk and stuff so I can look good for the day, and over breakfast I open up my computer to check my email, read my RSS feeds and various favorite websites, all while listening to some awesome god damn music. When I get home from work, I’ll usually check out what’s on Hulu or Netflix. On occasion I’ll also open up Photoshop to get some work done at home. As I thought about all of this over the past month, it struck me that for everything but Photoshop, the iPad can be my home computer.

A few days ago, while watching a number of people on the train to work all playing various games on their iPhones, it struck me: this platform is still very much in its infancy, and game developers have only begun to scratch the surface for what is possible. The games we are currently playing are the Duck Hunts of the platform, and perhaps that’s even too optimistic. We are playing Pong on these things. What will games look like in five years? I am far too excited to find out.

The same is true for this entire device. After my first day of having this in my hands to play with, it truly is the wonderful device we were promised. I sat up late last night watching Netflix streaming video in amazing video quality, and this AM I found an awesome recipe for brussels sprouts that I’m dying to make. All the while it hit me, this shift from mouse + keyboard + monitor as the devices you interact with, to hands + screen is honestly a larger shift that I think I anticipated. The mouse as a pointing device is no longer the abstraction for guiding you way to what you want, now you just touch and do. Interfaces become much more direct now. Current design models for sites out there rely on a user hovering their mouse over elements to create tool tips, drop down menus, and button states… this all needs to be rethought for devices like this. What are interfaces going to look like in fives years? I am far too excited to find out.

This device is far from perfect, but it certainly is awesome. Haters are gonna hate, but deep down, like the iPod nearly ten years ago, this is a huge change in how things are done. And so far, if this is just the first of many devices to come, well, the future is gonna be pretty wild. Marty McFly would be proud.

Now when is someone gonna invent the hoverboard, god damnit!