It’s here: The new Apple e-Reader/tablet/giant iPhone thingo that will singlehandedly save the media, revolutionise news and make you a sandwich at the same time — has been unveiled.

Here’s the big reveal:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU6isGR3PaM[/youtube]

So what does it do? Is it worth the hype? Let’s ask the nerds:

The low-down

Techland: Apple’s iPad: The Specs Sheet

Gizmodo: #appleipad

The liveblogs

CrunchGear: Live from the Apple Announcement

Macworld: Live Update: Apple Event

Engadget: Live from the Apple ‘latest creation’ event

Gizmodo: Apple Event Gizmodo liveblog

Techland: Apple “Latest Creation” Liveblog

The analysis

The Daily Beast: Apple’s Mac-Killer Unveiled

Beyond the hype, style, and speculation, the truth is that the iPad is really just another tablet device. A really big PDA, where a touchscreen does what a laptop’s keyboard used to do.

PC World: No Second Coming: Apple’s iPad Just a Big iPod Touch

For the iPad to succeed, it has to reach beyond that tight-knit fraternity, as the iPhone did. Best guess: This may not reach much farther than the Apple TV.

John Birmingham, Brisbane Times: Steve Jobs is my master

Every rumour was true. Every app will run on this thing right out of the box … The Kindle is dead.

CrunchGear: The iPad: our take

I simply don’t get it. It’s not an iPhone replacement because it’s not a phone (duh); it’s not an iPod touch replacement because it’s not portable; and I already have enough “real” computers that I don’t need a tablet.

Mashable: iBooks: Apple answers the Kindle like no other

iBooks offers an impressively beautiful book reading experience.

Guardian: The first review

The big problem I had was in trying to understand what the iPad was for: the answer, it seems, is everything.

Gawker: Print media’s big tablet letdown

… there was not one demo of an i-magazine, just a quick visit to Time.com, complete with a Flash media error (reportedly). No wired version of Wired, no singing verion of Rolling Stone, not even a video-enabled Sports Illustrated.

Gizmodo: 8 things that suck about the iPad

It has some absolutely backbreaking failures that will make buying one the last thing I would want to do.

Stay tuned for more analysis as it comes to hand.

And Crikey‘s favourite take on it all:

The Onion: Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet

Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple’s new tablet computer