If it works, it will go down as classic Apple: let a few other companies fall on their faces trying to bring a good idea to market, then bam, mess everything up by being the first to get it right. I don't know if they got it right, and if they did I don't know if enough people will pay $3,500 for it to matter, but it might be a Very Big Deal.
As an example, all the Apple naysayers seem to forget the environment the original iPhone was released into. The concept of having a mini computer in one’s pocket was already everywhere. Blackberry is remembered, but there was a whole Windows operating system on a handheld with a touchscreen, fold-out keyboard, stylus, color screen phone. There were dozens of similar products on the market and they pretty much all sucked, and usually it was because they were just iterations on what already existed with little to no true innovation.
When the iPhone was introduced, it was clearly going to be something special. They had truly reimagined what a mobile device could be.
This is something like that.