Over on Minimal Mac:

I think if you were using and loving your iPad before today’s news, you can and should do so after it. It is still very much the magical and revolutionary 2 device it was when you woke up this morning. You know, when you launched the iPod app, fired up the latest episode of Enough, streamed it to your Airplay speakers, swiped through the New York Times, while you sipped free-trade coffee, and pondered what a blessed and wonderful life you had. A life filled with things you could only dream about as a kid and still foreign to 95% of the world’s population.

Well, it’s here. It’s a lot faster, a little lighter and has learned some new tricks.

Gary Marshall:

Make no mistake, the iPad 2 we see tomorrow will be a disappointment. But it won’t be a disappointment because it’s a bad device, or because it doesn’t take the iPad forward.

It will be a disappointment because it isn’t the entirely imaginary device the internet has been happily inventing for the last few months.

The iPad 2 may prove to be the best example of this in recent history. The first model was a smash hit. The rest of the computer industry was caught with its pants down, and has been playing catch-up ever since. Even the Xoom, built by the almighty Motorola can’t compete with the sheer force that is the iPad.

I’m sure the new one will be great — and I’m sure AAPL will lose some ground as people’s expectations aren’t met.

In the days, weeks and even months leading up to an Apple keynote, something is different about the Internet.

Rumors get posted and reposted at breakneck speed, often with no logical thought behind them. Cases get leaked, as do blurry photos of computer screens at Best Buys. People sell off their old devices, in hopes the new ones will be worth the hassle. As fast as bloggers can post clues and hints of what is to come, people accept them as fact.

In this feverish, near manic state, the Internet goes bonkers. People have a hard time remembering Apple is just a company, and that no one actually needs what it sells. But no one cares.

When the day rolls around, people open up half a dozen tabs and wait anxiously for things to start rolling.

Then it happens.

The stage goes dark. Steve[1. Or Tim Cook, Phil Schiller or some other Apple executive.] steps out.

As slides flip around on the giant screen, hundreds of bloggers post each detail, minute-by-minute. Features, product demos, graphs and prices are all soaked up by the masses. The genius of Apple’s presentations is almost lost in the hubbub.

Then it happens.

The Internet realizes Feature X — rumored for weeks now all over the Internet — is missing.

The complaints roll in on Twitter. Apple Stores start getting angry phone calls. Bloggers shake their fists at the sky. AAPL slides.

Then, just days later, the cycle starts again.

“Surely the iPad 3 will be the one we’ve been waiting for all this time,” the Internet cries.

That must be right. Right?

[Marshall quote via The Brooks Review]