Apple’s iPad changed the tablet game 10 years ago today

“They’re slow, they have low quality displays, and they run clunky old PC software,” said Jobs, mocking the PC industry’s obsession with netbooks. “They’re not better than a laptop at anything, they’re just cheap laptops. ” Apple had an answer to the netbook: a 9. 7-inch tablet that allowed you to hold the internet in your hands.

Central to the iPad and Jobs’ marketing pitch was the ability to have a full browser that you could manipulate with your fingers. Apple’s iPhone had been pushing the boundaries of the mobile web at the time, but Jobs boasted that the iPad was “the best browsing experience you’ve ever had. ” Apple was also looking to create a third category of device that was better at certain tasks than a laptop or smartphone. The iPad was designed to be better at web browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and ebooks.

“If there’s going to be a third category of device it’s going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone, otherwise it has no reason for being,” said Jobs. Rumors about the iPad had been persistent in the build-up to Apple’s press event in January 2010. CES attendees were anticipating some type of slate device, and Microsoft employees who I spoke to at the time laughed off the rumors. Microsoft had just launched Windows 7, and it had some minor improvements to touch capabilities.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO in 2010, used his keynote at CES to demonstrate “slate PCs” from manufacturers like Pegatron, Archos, and HP. These devices were running the “clunky old PC software,” that Jobs mocked days later, and Ballmer struggled to navigate the HP Slate device to demonstrate Kindle software and video playback. It was just Windows 7 squeezed onto a new form factor, with very little changes. Microsoft had originally attempted to launch the idea of tablet PCs back in 2001, with a Windows XP Tablet PC Edition derivative, and even special ultra-mobile PCs in 2006 — but both initiatives flopped.

Apple’s iPad presented something new a decade ago, something that looked like a significant challenge to netbooks, laptops, and even Windows itself. The idea of a third category of devices, namely tablets, was difficult for many to process at the time. The iPad was widely mocked for its name in the days after the announcement, and some analysts had already predicted it would flop before it was even announced.