I was mainly overreacting to the original article which is excessively worshipful. It's hard to argue against Alan Kay's importance, but likewise Donald Knuth, Engelbart, and Kernighan (among the living). All these guys relentlessly pursued pieces of the vision that makes the Macbook Pro I'm typing this on possible. The visible form factor is, I think, almost the least important (and most obvious) pieces of the puzzle. After all, the typewriter and the notepad are the same form factors as my laptop/PC and iPad.