The Apple iPad have just turned their first fifteen years in the market. Some devices that, without being as revolutionary as the iPhone marketed three years earlier, were also important to start the It was current from the electronic tablet.
The ill -fated Steve Jobs surprised the industry again when on January 27, 2010 he announced the first iPad. According to internal promotion, it was “A revolutionary device to navigate the web, read and send emails, enjoy photos, watch videos, listen to music, play, read electronic books and much more”.
Precedent
Apple did not invent the Tablet segment, although it could seem to those not initiated or those who saw that those of Cupertino defended their patents and designs with nails and teeth in judicial lawsuits against other manufacturers who “inspired” themselves to these iPad to market their own developments.
And it is that in the 50s an electronic device called “Styalad” was presented for electronic writing and later, the Darpa US military research group developed the “Rand Tablet” that advanced similar functions. Stanley Kubrick’s great movie ‘2001: an odyssey in space’ (1968) showed Bowman and Poole astronauts driving an electronic device whose design could perfectly pass through a modern tablet.
Other manufacturers They made their way, such as the Gridpad Pen Computer of Samsung in 1989 and the first Microsoft designs that contemplated interaction functions with touch screens that are basic on current tablets, such as “slide to unlock ” which was precisely the subject of Apple’s debate and demand against Copyright. In 1994, the company Knight Ridderhe presented his own tablet, at the end of the century we met the Intel Web Tablet; The Nokia 510 Webableot arrived in 2001 and the «iPad Digital»LG was presented the same year. None had a real effect on the market.
Alan Kay, programmer and scientist who is recognized by the merit of designing “the first tablet” (the Dynabook created in Xerox in the 1960s) was hired by Steve Jobs for the Apple Computer R&D department. And it was key to the launch of the iPad, although Apple had developed internally in the 1980s a dozen different “tablets” although without marketing them.
And the first Apple iPad arrived
Apple did not invent the “gunpowder” as we have seen, but it is fair to recognize that he worked better than anyone and The launch was “a before and after” In the segment. An effort of Jobs himself, whose vision was evident to open a product category to the mass public that until then was merely testimonial, reduced to professional and/or corporate areas or mere prototypes that did not just be marketed.
As explained by Apple’s CEO in his presentation: «The iPad creates and defines a completely new category of devices that will connect users with their applications and contents in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever ”.
The powerful Apple marketing also pointed strongly for a device that improved everything seen above in the sector, in hardware and also in software. Of course, The sense of opportunity taking advantage of the iPhone pull Marketed three years before, it also worked. And, essentially it was a giant iPhone with spectacularly light and thin design thanks to a chassis unibody of aluminum.
Its 9.7 -inch multitactile IPS screen offered a perfect operation next to the iPhone OS 3.2 operating system, optimized version for tablets that the firm used in the iPhones and as it derived from the Mac OS X. The use of a Design SOC ARM own and low consumption allowed an autonomy of ten hours. It had Wi-Fi and 3G versions and offered accessories such as a dock with keyboard.
Its Price of $ 499 was much lower than the one that had been rumored and its commercial success was resounding, selling 300,000 units on its first day of commercialization, More than 3 million in the first three months and 15 million units When iPad 2 arrived.
More iPad versions
The influence of the iPad on the global development of tablets was enormous, although no one reached Apple’s dimensions and Cupertino’s have been dominating the tablet market share since the launch. In addition to almost annual updates of the general line, Apple added the ‘mini’ versions as reduced price variants.
Already in 2015, he commercialized the versions ‘pro’ For creative and productivity tasks. Promoted as «Replacement for laptops»Cupertino’s firm tried to match the desktop experience with the launch of accessories that enhanced their use, such as keyboard covers and optical pencils, in addition to improving support for peripherals such as mice.
Apple also developed novelties in software to reinforce this product line and here we have to highlight the premiere of the iPados, the first operating system dedicated exclusively to tablets. Created on the basis of iOS 13, it included specific news for the form and functioning factor of the iPads and approached the mobile system to the macOS itself for personal computers.
The tablet market
After the spectacular increase in two -digit sales in the years after the launch of the first Apple iPad, The tablet market has been bleeding With the exception of the two years of Covid pandemic where sales improved again. But it does not seem that the best years return.
IPAD promotion as “A replacement for laptops” It has not finished operating and beyond marketing has been an inspiration for the creation of hybrid computers (detachable, convertible, 2 into 1 …) and there comes a part of the fall in sales, since hybrids offer tablet functions electronics and also those of a portable personal computer.
Another great competition for tablets comes from smartphones. The great versatility of modern smart mobiles and their increase in size and power, has cannibalized the sale of tablets As did with compact cameras or that of portable video game consoles. As mobile phones have increased in size and have approached the diagonals of the low -format tablets, for a good number of users it makes little sense to Buy two devices.
The sales decline is also explained by the replacement cycle of the tablets themselves. The new models do not offer outstanding innovations that convince the user of the need to update, although the improvements in hardware and software follow each other with each generation. And not; Apple did not invent the concept of the tablet, but opened the way for everything that came later. Much of all we owe it to the Apple iPad and the effort of Steve Jobs in its launch.
