Apple Chief Marketing Officer Phil Schiller Reflects on Development of the Original iPad: NYT

Apple chief marketing officer Phil Schiller talked about the development of the original iPad in a new interview.

A broader retrospective on technology of the past decade from The New York Times contains a short quote from Phil Schiller in 2010 in which he explains the origin of the iPad and the role of Steve Jobs in its development.

Schiller told the Times that the impetus for creating the iPad was then CEO Steve Jobs’ desire to sell a computer priced under $500. In order to make a quality computer at that price, Apple decided it needed to remove the keyboard and clamshell concept, moving away from a traditional laptop — hence multitouch was born.

“Well, if we’re going to get to a price point like that, we need to remove things aggressively,” Schiller said. “And so the team started working on multitouch technology. During that process, a human interface designer, Bas Ording, showed us this demo where he pretended to scroll and the whole screen moved up and down with realistic physics. It was one of those ‘holy crap’ moments.”

While Apple initially focused solely on the original iPhone, but when the second-generation iPhone launched, Apple returned to working on the tablet form factor, which eventually became the iPad.

“When we got back to the ?iPad?, it was really easy to imagine what to take from ?iPhone? and what needed to be different to create the product it would be,” Schiller said. “It really helped.”

The story also contains a piece from former Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, who worked closely with Steve Jobs. The former Apple CEO once invited Mossberg over to his house to demonstrate the new iPad ahead of its launch.

Mossberg said that at the time he was very impressed by the thinness of the device, and also mentioned that Jobs was “careful” to show how the tablet “wasn’t just a big iPhone.” Mossberg was, however, most impressed by the price tag of the iPad.

“He gave me this wicked smile, and he said, “You’re going to be really amazed if that’s what you think. It’s way lower than that.”

The report also takes a look at several other technological advancements and changes involving Apple that took place over the course of the last decade, including the development of Siri, Apple’s 2016 fight with the FBI, and the 2011 death of Steve Jobs.

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