Today Marks the 10th Anniversary of Steve Jobs Unveiling the iPad

Best iPad ever made that is still supported to this day, with no known issues and at the same price points as the original iPad.

I remember that everybody made fun of the name, saw memes of attachable magnifying glasses for your iPhone to turn it into an iPad and the general feeling of “why would you buy this, this is just a large iPhone you can’t even call with”.

And as always, Apple proved us all wrong and i love my iPad for exactly the reasons Steve Jobs had told us we would love it for.

That’s vision!

Still my favourite Apple device so far. Thank you Steve!!

I remember watching this keynote and feeling so sad at how frail Steve Jobs looked. But when he sat on that couch and demonstrated his latest brainchild, he seemed so content, calm, and full of life.

No doubt about it: Steve changed the world. ?

Can't believe it's already been 10 years!

I waited in line at the Apple Store in Boston to get that iPad

Even back then the apps were incredible! They have improved immensely since..

Maybe it is just me but the development for the iPad is not as fast as I would have liked it to be. They really dropped the ball on software progress somewhere around the iPad Air / iPad Air 2 time.

Glad to see that it is getting better since the iPad Pro era, but so far they have fallen short on the future of computing promise.

10 years on and the iPad still hasn't got out of first gear.

I have a completely different experience. I regularly use my 2018 12.9 Pro when on the road. It is my meeting notebook; a great device for reviewing and updating documents; and can be used to run two windows at the same time in a usable way, especially when paired with a good physical keyboard.

It isn’t a full replacement for my laptop, but that is more due to limits the app developers apply rather than any fundamental limit within iPadOS or the hardware. If Microsoft made their iOS apps feature-matched to the desktop apps then I could ditch the laptop completely.

Now, I know that there will be people who are coders or have other needs that there is no app available to do what they do. That’s cool, the iPad isn’t going to replace their laptop or desktop. But for many people it will do everything they need.

Waiting for the snobby “it’s just a toy” posts

It's not a toy. It's just a different class of computing device that is better at some things and worse at others.
The "its just a giant iPhone that can't make calls" brigade just hadn't sat down and thought what you could do with a giant iPhone without needing to make calls.

I browsed this thread on my iPad sitting in a comfy chair. To reply, I fired up my iMac, because selecting and quoting bits of text, typing and editing text on an iPad is like kicking a dead whale along a beach. Yes, you can do it which is great if you're on the road and don't want to lug a full laptop (and if you're just jotting text without editing or revising it, its not so bad), but given the choice...

BTW... I've been watching old reviews of those "other" tablets and it's crazy that "has Flash" was one of their biggest selling points back then.

I still remember the Blackberry tablet add 'And it has flash to play games' I completely except consumers not to have a vision for the future but giant tech companies?

...it was a superficially sensible decision given the huge amount of Flash games and other rich internet content out there at the time. What few people realised was how much of that was barely usable on a tablet due to the small screen and touch-only interface - ranging from the buttons/icons simply being too small to some drag/drop logic simply not working with touch (limited processing power didn't help). Even today I don't think many people really "get" the different affordances of multitouch vs. Keyboard/mouse/pointer.

The inconvenient truth that Apple "got" was that tablets and phones need custom-designed apps, not warmed-over desktop apps.

Somehow, though, Android has managed to produce a credible competitor to iPhone, but Android tablets are relegated to the bargain bucket or subsidised Amazon cash-register market - though they're perfectly good as an armchair web-browser.

[S]The only non-iPad with significant marketshare*[/S] seems to be the MS Surface Pro, but that's basically a laptop PC where the keyboard costs extra. Apple seem to be the only ones developing tablet as a serious computing device - which is fine and dandy as long as they realise its not a replacement for "full-size" laptops or desktops.

(* Edit: I retract the above brainfart about market share - but I'd say it was the most heavily-promoted pro - i.e. aimed at content creation rather than consumption - tablet other than the iPad)

It’s important to remember that Apple used to compete fiercely on price, and without sacrificing any of the elegance for which its products are known.

The first iPad launched at $499 for the entry model.

The current day entry level iPad is $329.

Nostalgia is a beautiful animal to slay.

Hard to believe this was only 10 years ago. I still have a classic iPad 2 running iOS 6 - still a brilliant device even if it can’t run most modern apps, or websites.

If Apple release an iPad OS with support for multiple users, I’d buy a new one.