Like a lot of stuff Apple, the iPad launchas galvanized those who believe it’s the “next big thing” from those who trust it’s the “latest stink” — but what about those who, you know, have actually spent time using the thing, and now had a chance to consider it a bit? Sure, some are no doubt Apple enthusiasts easily impressed, while others are jaded journalists almost unattainable to impress. For a mix of both, chase on after the break. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has two long posts up about the iPad, and wins the cleverest analogy award hands-down, comparing the Mac to manual and the iPad to automatic transmissions.

Car enthusiasts (and genuine experts like race car drivers) still drive cars with manual transmissions. They offer more control; they’re more efficient. But the vast majority of cars sold today are automatics. So too it’ll be with computers. Ultimately, the vast majority will be like the iPad in terms of the degree to which the underlying computer is abstracted away. Manual computers, like the Mac and Windows PCs, will slowly shift from the standard to the niche, something of consciousness only to experts and enthusiasts and developers.iPhone to iPad-2

British actor and tech enthusiast Steven Fry also spent time with the iPad and came away positively excited because of its simplicity and Apple’s perfectionist tendencies towards product development. He also called the iPhone a “100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie” (whatever that is) to the Nokia, Samsung, Palm, and Blackberrys of the world, so we’re given to heart him:

There are many issues you could have with the iPad. No multitasking, still no Flash. No camera, no GPS. They all fall away the minute you use it. I cannot highlight enough this point: “Hold your judgment until you’ve spent five minutes with it”. No YouTube film, no promotional video, no keynote address, no list of features can even hint at the surprising feeling you get from actually using and interacting with one of these thrilling objects. You know how everyone who has ever done Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? always says, “It’s not the same when you’re actually here. So different from when you’re sitting at home watching.”? You know how often you’ve heard that? Well, you’ll hear the same from anyone who’s handled an iPad. The moment you know-how it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the reaction, the smooth glide of it, the fortune and detail of the display, the heft in your hand, the rightness of the actions and gestures that you employ, untutored and instinctively, it’s not just a scaled up iPhone or a scaled-down multitouch enhanced laptop – it is a whole new kind of device. And it will change so much. Newspapers, magazines, literature, academic text books, brochures, fliers and pamphlets are going to be transformed (poor Kindle). Specific dedicated apps and enhancements will astonish us.

Existing games ran ridiculously fast and titles optimized for the device make this the ultimate mobile game device. Personally, I’d buy it just for gaming alone. So it’s sounding like, if some aren’t convinced about the utility or place of an iPad in the better computing ecosystem, most who’ve actually used the hardware have come away impressed. Again, these aren’t normal opinions — strictly inside baseball here — so it will be interested to see how people take to it when they can start walking into their local Apple store and trying it out.