No product development blog worth its digits can go without at least making mention of the Apple iPad. Not that you haven’t already been deluged by official reports since a gaunt Steve Jobs unveiled the sleek new object yesterday.

While some people look at it and think, “Looks like a big iPhone,” that is undoubtedly predicated on the interface rather than the object. Sure, they are both rectangular, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Apple’s design team has taken its minimal chic to a whole new level. Here is a bit of nearly Star Trek-like technology—an object that is 9.56-in. high, 7.47-in. wide, and a mere 0.5-in. thick—with a 9.7-in. (diagonal) LED-backlit display with an oleophobic-coated surface and an aluminum case—that is arguably more affordable than pocket calculators were when Jobs was young. It will allow you to do all manner of things—including all of those apps that have been written for the iPhone—that would otherwise require something that weighs far more than 1.6-lb.—and that’s for the heavy version.

One interesting note is that the team took environmental considerations into account: the iPad has arsenic-free display glass, a mercury-free LCD display, and the device is both PVC- and BFR (brominated flame retardant)-free.

For all that, it is simply a beautiful object. And when there are the knock-offs, as surely there will be, they’ll undoubtedly have the certain clunkiness that is characteristics of derivatives. Originality matters.