Yep, the iPad has hit the street today.

And the intertubes are going wild.

Techcrunch’s articles are virtually all about the iPad, iPad apps and so on. Same all over the place

It’ s madness.

But it’s interesting: Will the hype (strong opinions – pro/con on the tubes even before writers had touched a physical iPad) match the reality?

In this case – and I’m one of the few geeks in our galaxy that hasn’t purchased an iPad – I think the iPad will exceed the hype. Honest.

It’s the ultimate consumption machine, and that’s what most of us do (even geeks; more downloads than uploads). Yes, I’m blogging (creating/uploading) content, but I – currently a non-journalist – spend far more time, for example, reading about the iPad than writing about same.

Now that the iPad has broken “out of the laboratory,” it’ll be fascinating to see what people do with this evolutionary (not revolutionary) tool, what killer apps emerge.

Hint: Killer apps will include Kindle killers (*sigh* including Amazon’s own Kindle app) and apps that leverage location.

This is going to be interesting.