It was 10 years ago to the day that Steve Jobs walked on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to change the world and reveal the iPad.
Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad on January 27th, 2010 and promised its release later in the spring with a $499 USD price tag. For many, the iPad was a bit unorthodox, especially when pertaining to the specific lifestyles tech enthusiasts had in 2010.
Many were content using their smartphones and laptops for their designated uses. However, like many Apple devices in the past, it was the way Jobs described the device and sold its use cases that made the iPad a success.
The iPad would become one of the last major product launches Jobs would be a part of before his death in 2011.
Being reminded of the iPad keynote, Jobs stood on stage and asked a simple question: “Is there room for a third category device in the middle? Something in between a smartphone and a laptop.” Of course, the answer was yes, and Jobs had the confidence in that answer. However, what Jobs could not have known at the time was how impactful the iPad would be on the tech industry moving forward.
In Wired‘s report, they noted that the original iPad had a 9.7-inch display, with a 256 MB DDR RAM. It was on the heavier side, weighing in at 1.5lbs. It ran on Apple’s A4 chip and offered 10 hours of battery life, which was respectable for the time.
10 years later, and the iPad has seen many new iterations release. Although, each new product within the iPad family continues to strive for those core fundamentals that Steve Jobs put in place a decade ago.
