Nice to have a post that deals with the concrete details of what the iPad is today, not what it may become. I agree that some of the UI elements look shoehorned in from the iPhone interface, and running iPhone apps on the device just wasn't going to have an elegant solution given the resolution-dependent UIs.
But the revolutionary bit is the multitouch/lack of mouse pointer part. The iPhone was a gentle introduction to this new paradigm. It'll be interesting to watch how people catch on and how quickly other companies adopt it — not to mention how Apple handles its patents around this stuff.
You still have to either hold the thing up somehow, or look straight down at it in your lap / on the table.
If you use it in a dock, you have to hold your arm out straight in front of you to poke at it (no mice, even with a keyboard).
Apple didn't do anything to address Gorilla Arm. They even made the thing weigh 1.5 lbs by stuffing it full of lithium-polymer to get that 10 hour battery life.
It's worst standing but I believe a Gorilla arm "effect" results from any devices which forces the user to do extended input without physical support for his/her arms.
Just see how long you can sit at a chair with your hands in the standard keyboarding position but without the keyboard.
The iPad looks just big enough that any serious input going to require repeated arm-raising whereas the iphone/ipod-touch is small enough you can use it with your hands always resting on a table.
But the revolutionary bit is the multitouch/lack of mouse pointer part. The iPhone was a gentle introduction to this new paradigm. It'll be interesting to watch how people catch on and how quickly other companies adopt it — not to mention how Apple handles its patents around this stuff.