iPad is Much More Than a Big iPhone

iPad is much more than a big iPhone, at least it was so promising yet it was not quite there where it should have been. Many can disagree but the statistics do speak a lot. iPhone sold 1.2 billion units in its first 10 years. These statistics actually changed the smartphone and portable music industry certainly.

This year iPad turns 10 years and records say this amazing machine sold over 400 million units. Certainly, the number is not so promising while comparing to the iPhone.

Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad back in 2010. After that, many described it as just a “large iPhone”. But Steve Jobs determined. As per him, it is neither an iPhone nor a keyboard-less MacBook. Certainly, it is in a place between smartphones and laptops.

Many assumed that after the so-called “post-PC era” people will change their way of reading newspapers and books. People will also change their way of consuming and preparing content. Considering the target of Apple, the achievement so far is only 50 percent.

Remembering the first iPad

The first iPad was more than a large iPhone, less than the MacBook. The large 9.7” screen on the tablet had 768 x 1,024-pixel resolution, making it sharper than your typical laptop of the day. The 4:3 aspect ratio was excellent for reading documents and articles on the web. In fact, the tablet was as if saved the newspapers.

Back then, people were even more than happy to use the Netflix app to watch their favorite shows. Though most of them were shot at 16:9. The iPad’s portability and longer battery life were more than making up for the mismatch in aspect ratios.

What is Holding Back iPad!

The iPad was cool and continues to be a brilliant way to consume content. But what it never got right was the way of content creation.

It launched with iOS 3.2 initially. Clearly it just wasn’t ready for the big screen. It lacked basic multitasking, never mind split-screen multitasking. Though Apple did change the layout of the majority of the apps. So that more of the UI would fit on the screen. Hence, the productivity of the iPad was still not remarkable compared to laptops.

The Apple A4 had a single-core CPU and was build up with the only 256MB of RAM. Unlike today’s Apple chipsets, the A4 wasn’t up for heavy multitasking jobs. So replacing laptops for serious work was not even thinkable.

Even if you could accept one app at a time, typing was a real pain. Though the touchscreen keyboard may have been almost full size. But still placing the tablet flat on a table to type was not comfortable anyway.

In the iPad, there was no stylus or pen to use with handwriting recognition either. Eventually, that came later along with the snap-on keyboard covers. If looked up in the present apple website it seems the keyboard and Pencil featured heavily. Though the iPad was meant to beat the laptops with usefulness. Seems like it ended up becoming one of them.

Seems like the Microsoft Surface tablets are the hot seller now. The keyboard covers they introduced have been also adopted by Apple for the iPad. Still, the idea of Windows with a touchscreen never took off to a flyer. Not on phones, tablets or laptops.

The PC industry isn’t doing that great either. First time sales went up in 2019 for the PC business in the last 7 years. But the business prediction by analysts for tablets is not too great either. Apple’s wearable gadget business (the Watch + AirPods) will surpass the combined revenue of iPads and Macs by the end of this year.

Initially, the iPod changed the music industry and made huge profits for Apple. The iPhone also did the same for Apple even on an even larger scale. The iPad, however, is an amazing product but it’s not that “next big thing” Apple expected. Eventually, It looks like the Watch, AirPods, and Gadgets like the next level stylus will be the fuel for Apple to go next level.