Apple`s iPad came out and into the hands of mainstream customers on the 3rd of April, five years ago. People were both enthusiastic and skeptical about it. Journalists and bloggers seemed to be the main target of the product, since the Apple iPad was a computer which did not require a keyboard, it was light and could have been transported more easily than a laptop and could have been used for instant access to the internet. That`s why it looked like the perfect tool for this kind of professions. But not everybody is still so happy with the iPad, analysts predicting some major changes in the new version that will be released by Apple.
But let`s go back to 2010, even before that. In the 2000s, Microsoft released a tablet computer. Back then, Bill Gates was sure that the new type of personal computer will become huge in sales and in popularity. But it seems that he was wrong. Anyways, ten years later, the first tablet produced by Apple was presented and, even if it was not a fantastic hit, at least people bought it in more impressive numbers than Microsoft`s tablet had been sold.
Now, 5 years from its birthday, the iPad is far from being Apple`s biggest star. In fact, tablets are less popular than they used to be in recent years. People started to prefer buying smartphones with large screens instead of a smartphone and a tablet, because these so called `phablets` seem to be more practical. They accomplish a double function and some do it in a spectacular way, it is a field that was highly developed and is still in progress. Some experts say that this reluctance to tablets that is manifested by the mainstream customers is one of the main reasons why Apple has not yet released the next version of iPad.
“It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist’s rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker’s Guide that humankind has yet devised.“
said actor Stephen Fry. His statement reveals how the view upon the iPad changed over these 5 years.
Image Source: AppAdvice