On this day, 5 years ago, a tablet entered the market which would set, some would argue, the benchmark for all other tablets.
People queued overnight, some for days, to be the first in line to get their hands on a device which had caused years of speculation and rumor. Many speculated about the so-called iTablet or iSlate, but on May 28 2010 all speculation was put to rest as the iPad hit UK Apple stores.
The original iPad is long-gone, with the device now on it’s sixth iteration, with each evolution of the device incorporating new features and new technology.
Saying happy birthday to the landmark device, CBR takes you through the iPad’s key milestones which has seen the device continue to define and lead the tablet market.
1983
The first mention of the Apple iPad came from as far back as 1983, 27 years before the first generation hit the shelve. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in a 1983 speech at the Center for Design Innovation;
"[the company’s] strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes … and we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers."
2010
After 27 years of development, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad on January 27, 2010 at an Apple press conference at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Jobs revealed that the iPad had been in development before the iPhone, with the internal codename of K48, but the tablet was shelved when Apple realised that its ideas would work just as well in a mobile phone.
Pre-orders of the first generation iPad started on March 12 2010, with the iPad officially launched in the UK on May 28 2010. By May 3, 2010, Apple had sold a million iPads, half the time it had taken to sell the same number of first generation iPhones. In total, Apple sold more than 15 million first-gen iPads, reaching 75% of tablet sales at the end of 2010.
2011
The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts set the stage once again for the announcement of the anticipated iPad 2, unveiled by Jobs on March 7, 2012. The much improved iPad 2, 33% thinner than its predecessor and 15% lighter than its predecessor, boasted the twice as fast dual core Apple A5 CPU. The iPad 2 also featured front and back cameras to support Apple’s FaceTime application, in addition to a three-axis gyroscope.
Launched in the UK on March 25 2011, the iPad 2 sold between 2.4-2.6 million units in its first month on sale, with 11.2 million sold in Q3 of 2011.
2012
Debuting the Retina Display with a resolution more than 50 percent more pixels than a standard 1,920×1,080 high definition TV screen, the iPad 3 was launched by CEO Tim Cook at the usual venue of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The iPad 3 featured a quad-core graphics processor, a 5 megapixel camera, HD 1080p video recording, voice dictation, and support for LTE networks in North America.
However, the LTE support did garner brief criticism, as the LTE advertised did not work in some countries. Three million units were sold in the first three days, yet its time at the top was brief as the third-gen iPad was discontinued in October 2012 to make way for the fourth-generation device.
Alongside the launch of the iPad 4, October 2012 also saw the introduction of the iPad Mini. Featuring much of the same features as the iPad 2, the introduction of a device with a 7.9 inch screen and 7.2mm thickness was a move to compete against the emerging smaller tablet sector, against the likes of the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.
2014
Hot off the heels of the iPad Mini 2 and iPad Air launched in November 2013, 2014 saw the introduction of the thinnest and fastest Apple tablet. The sixth generation tablet computer was announced alongside the keynote theme of ‘it’s been way too long’.
Although sharing the same dimensions and design of the iPad Air, notable additions included Touch ID. The fingerprint recognition feature allows users to unlock their device, as well as make purchases in the various Apple digital media stores. For those who like their devices with an added bit of bling, the iPad Air 2 was also offered in gold colour, a feature also shared by the iPad Mini 2. The iPad Mini 2 was , again, very similar to its predecessor in terms of design and hardware, though did include Touch ID.
