While everyone else in the industry is evaluating the iPad 2 itself, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber took a look at Apple’s event and the way Steve Jobs gave his presentation. As usual, Gruber has some very insightful points.

The biggest difference, though, was this: last year Apple didn’t yet understand the iPad. They knew it was good. They knew it had potential. But they didn’t know what it was. They had a sense that in the conceptual space between an iPhone and a MacBook there was uncharted, fertile territory. And they set for themselves a wise metric: the iPad would only succeed if it could do some of the same things a Mac can do, but do them better. If it wasn’t better in several important ways for several common tasks, it would not succeed.

The Chair [Daring Fireball]