Like many other early adopters, I was waiting on pins and needles to get a glimpse of the rumored Apple tablet.  Would this device be a web browsing appliance, a media player, an eBook reader or a gaming device?  As my excitement grew, I began to realize it was actually less about the device itself and more about how I could consume and create all of my content in a new and more convenient way.

Really, what is more convenient than having everything I like to read, watch and play, wherever I am, on whatever device currently is in my hands?  I am not alone in this thinking as it’s becoming increasing clear that consumers do not want their content on separate devices.

This point really drove home with me during a recent vacation.  I received a Kindle for the holidays and began reading a book that I could not put down.  I bought this book not on my PC or in a retail store, but directly from the device when I opened it at my in-laws house.  Did they have an 802.11x network in their house, I don’t know, but it didn’t matter since this Kindle is a connected device and I could buy my book anywhere the 3G network reached.

Later, I discovered an iPhone application that would allow me to continue reading my favorite book even when I didn’t have the Kindle with me. This freedom and connectedness was striking. I could read the first four pages waiting in the car for the kids on my iPhone and close out the chapter at home on my eReader.  What book I was reading and which page I left off on was stored in the cloud. The content was just waiting for me on whichever device I chose to use, as long as the device was connected.

Any user of DropBox, Mobile Me or SugarSync will tell you that once you have synchronized your documents folder between your work laptop, home PC and phone, the game simply changes. You quickly expect that your content follows you—wherever you are.  The concept of that file being “at work” or the latest version only on my laptop simply evaporates. You expect that every file is always available from your connected devices.

So now I wait, like many others, for my 3G iPad, excited to interact with all of my content in a new and different way.  The latest connected device that will keep my content close to me via the pervasive mobile cloud.