10 Years Of iPad

It’s exactly 10 years since Apple’s breakthrough tablet shipped. And what a decade it’s been...

- Alex Summersby

When Apple unveiled iPad in January 2010, skeptics scoffed. It was just a giant iPod touch, they said. In a way, sure, it was — but it was also a wondrous breakthrough device that became category-defining.

At the launch, Steve Jobs sat back in an armchair and demonstrated how the iPad was great for reading books, watching movies, and browsing the internet. It’s now at the heart of our always-connected lives — it’s how we stay up-to-date with the news, stream music and content of all kinds on demand, keep up with social media and myriad forms of messaging, and control our increasingly smart homes.

So let’s take a look at the evolution of iPad over the decade, its highs and lows, and what may be next for Apple’s revolutionary post–PC device.

Introducing iPad

The original iPad was essentially a handheld 9.7– inch XGA (1024x768 pixel) screen with built–in storage (16GB, 32GB, or 64GB) but little else — not even a camera, at first. It was a mere 13mm thick, weighed just 680g, and had an impressive 10 hours of battery life. It wasn’t the first tablet computer, but it was revolutionary in one key respect: it didn’t require a keyboard or a stylus. Instead, you used your fingers. In this way, as Steve Jobs put it at the time, it created “an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive, and fun way than ever before”.

Want to play piano? The iPad’s a piano. Write a letter? It’s a typewriter

Intuitive and invisible