Of all the early reviews of the iPad, this one by Stephen Fry soars above the rest for me. During his visit to Apple HQ, he gets time with Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs. Fry is shameless and open in his love of all things Apple reminds me of the decision to buy my first Mac.

“We are human beings; our first responses to anything are dominated not by calculations but by feelings. What (Jonathan) Ive and his team understand is that if you have an object in your pocket or hand for hours every day, then your relationship with it is profound, human and emotional. Apple’s success has been founded on consumer products that address this side of us: their products make users smile as they reach forward to manipulate, touch, fondle, slide, tweak, pinch, prod and stroke.”

On Steve Jobs:

“For some, his personal magnetism is almost of a dangerous, Elmer Gantry kind.”

Jobs on Life and Career:

“I don’t think of my life as a career,” he says. “I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That’s not a career — it’s a life!”

Fry’s hand-on review of the iPad:

“It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist’s rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands.”

[via @jonzissou]