"Is there room for a third category of device
in the world, something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone?” Steve
Jobs asked before he introduced the world to the iPad early in 2010.
With a wait time of two to three weeks
for even those who were among the first to order the new iPad, it would
seem the obvious answer is "yes." But just two years ago, it wasn't so.
At the time, Dan Lyons, writing for Newsweek,
said "[F]or some of us who sat in the audience watching Steve Jobs
introduce the device, the whole thing felt like a letdown." It got
criticized for its lack of camera, multitasking, and Flash. Even its name and its looks were fair game.
"It's a nice reader," Bill Gates said.
To be fair, the critics were no more harsh than Steve Jobs once was.
Even while the iPad was being developed at Apple, Jobs was not only
denying its existence, he was denouncing its purpose. "We have no plans
to make a tablet," he said to Walt Mossberg at 2003's D: All Things
Digital Conference. "It turns out people want keyboards. Tablets appeal
to rich guys with plenty of other PCs and devices already."
While it's true that nine months after it was launched, 80 percent of
Fortune 100 companies were in the process of ordering iPads, according
to Apple, the majority of its audience isn't so established. ComScore
has found most iPad users are between 25 and 34 years of age. A survey by Business Insider
revealed that 23 percent of respondents even had more than one iPad at
home. As for whether or not they considered buying an Android tablet,
the thought hadn't crossed the minds of 87 percent of them.
Here's how the iPad made its way into the hearts and minds of consumers.
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