Evolution of the iPad (Part 1)

It's been more than 10 years since Apple released the original iPad. Before their launch, netbooks, which were basically a cheap alternative to laptops, were all the rage and when Apple came along, they swept away the competition and r

evolution

ized portable computing devices forever. This is the first

part

of the

evolution

of the iPad! Seeing how popular they are now, you might be surprised to learn that Steve Jobs was initially against making a tablet. In a 2003 interview, Jobs said: “And we think it's going to fail. Do you think the tablet is going to... Yes, we think so. What about the tablet as a reading device?

It's really true if you have a group of rich people who can afford to buy a third computer. You know they have a desktop computer, a laptop and now they will have one of these to read, that is your market.” Well, fortunately he changed his mind in the following years. In large

part

thanks to the creative genius of Jony Ive, former Apple design director. I have set out to create a thinner and lighter tablet compared to those available at the time. He presented his creation to Jobs and the rest as they say is history. It was also a great idea to give the project the green light, since as of September 2020, more than 500 million iPads have been sold worldwide and the iPad continues to dominate the tablet market.

There are currently four versions of the iPad, each with numerous releases spanning different generations. There's the standard iPad, the iPad Mini, the iPad air, and the iPad Pro. But let's start at the beginning, and look at the iPad that started it all! On April 3, 2010: “And we call it: 'the iPad'.” In Apple's press release for the first iPad, they praised it as a revolutionary device for browsing the Web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books, and much more. Weighing only 680 grams or 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inches thick, it was indeed lighter and thinner than any other laptop or netbook at the time.

Apple settled on a 9.7-inch model after experimenting with many different sizes. Apple thought about adding handles to the iPad, but it's probably a good thing they scrapped this idea or else it would have looked like a kid's toy or a TV food tray. Of course, the highlight was the high-resolution responsive multi-touch display that allows users to physically interact with apps and content. Compared to today's models, its specifications may not seem as impressive, but back then they were. Its price was also reasonable: it cost $499 to own a 16-gigabyte version at launch. The 32 gigabyte and 64 gigabyte models cost $599 and $699 respectively, 300,000 iPads were sold on the first day of their launch and sales increased in less than a month. reached more than 1 million units.

To put this in context, it took more than twice as long for the iPhone to break the million mark. By the end of 2010, almost 15 million iPads had been sold! Fun fact: It took someone less than a day to jailbreak the iPad. Jailbreaking is the practice of modifying or removing restrictions placed on a device by the manufacturer or carrier. Basically, Twitter user "musclenerd" hacked the iPad on the day it was released and posted evidence of it on social media. Impressive as it may seem, it must have caused a slight panic at Apple and made them scramble for a patch on the first day in March 2011. a follow-up to the iPad that hit stores In addition to the black model, a white model was now also available The iPad 2 was 15% lighter and 33% thinner It featured a 0.3-megapixel front camera and a 0.7-megapixel rear camera While the original had no camera It was also faster thanks to the dual-core A5 processor which increased the speed of the CPU up to two times and the GPU up to nine times compared to the A4 chip in the original iPad.

Although the iPad 2 had improved specifications including double the RAM to 512 megabytes and the two added cameras, the price remained the same. People could try iPads in Apple stores, which helped sell them. “The main reason people come to our stores is to try a product they have heard about but have never experienced firsthand. And the iPad is a product that you have to hold, you have to touch to really understand how magical it is.” Like the first iPad, the iPad 2 also became a huge success, selling more than 2 million units in a month. "Today we announced the new iPad and it is incredible." Considered the new iPad, the third-generation iPad was released in March 2012.

It was the first iPad to have a retina display that significantly increases screen resolution. “It has a resolution of 2048 by 1536, that is, 3.1 million pixels. Four times more than the previous iPad And more than a million more than what is called high definition on other devices And we have packed all these pixels into a screen that is only 9.7 inches, but designing it was not as simple as simply inserting more pixels . The pixel is made up of red, green and blue subpixels. With a signal that tells each one when and how much to light up. This is how colors are created, but when you squeeze pixels four times into the same space, signals can cross, colors become distorted, and images become distorted. to get blurry to solve this we had to raise the pixels to a different plane and separate them from the signals.

It's a breakthrough. And it's the key to making pixels so small and so close together that the human eye can't even tell them apart. The font looks very sharp and you will see details and photographs that you never knew were there.” It also had a significantly better rear camera, boosted to 5 megapixels and capable of capturing images in 1080p at 30 frames per second. The iPad 3 had a new A5X chip that increases the GPU by up to two times compared to the A5 chip. Memory was also doubled to 1 Gigabyte. Although annoying for people who bought the iPad 3, it had the shortest lifespan of any iPad model.

It was discontinued just seven months after its launch. With the iPad 4 and later models adding the Lightning connector, this meant that the iPad 3 was the last to use the old 30-pin dock connector. The iPad 4 came out in November 2012 with the same pricing structure as previous iPad releases. However, in January 2013, a 128-gigabyte model went on sale for $799. In addition to the Lightning connector, the fourth-generation iPad had an improved CPU and the front camera was upgraded to 1.2 megapixels. Fun fact: Although it's hard to imagine now before the launch of the iPad, many thought the name sounded like a feminine hygiene product.

Hence the nickname "iTampon", which even became a trend on Twitter. People made jokes like: "The iPad protects your data from embarrassing incidents" And my favorite: "The 64GB iPad will always be known as the heavy-duty model." Released alongside the iPad 4 in November 2012, it was the first iPad mini As its name suggests, it was a smaller model with a screen that measured 7.9 inches compared to the 9.7 inches of the iPad 4. “The biggest challenge we faced was packing all these great features into a much larger device. smaller and lighter. To do this, each piece had to be custom designed, starting with the screen.

The glass on the front and back is only 0.2mm thick. The touch subsystem is only 0.12 mm thick. It weighs half as much as any other we've had. done before." As the iPad mini had less space in its model The specifications were lowered and it did not have a retina display It had the same CPU as seen in the iPad 2 The iPad Mini was cheaper than the iPad 4. With a starting price of $329 for 16 gigabytes of storage. “Thinner, lighter, more powerful than ever, and incredibly new and exciting in so many ways that it deserves a new name. In November 2013, the iPad air launched and began a new iPad line.” I'm sure you've seen before and after photos of people losing weight.

Well, the iPad air is exactly that. It's a thinner, lighter version of the standard iPad. “The iPad air is very capable and powerful, yet. “With its revolutionary size and weight, it is the thinnest, lightest and most advanced iPad we have ever built.” It measured only 7.5 millimeters thick and its weight was reduced to just 470 grams, making it a 38 % lighter than the iPad 4. The iPad air retained the 9.7-inch screen seen on previous iPad models, but Apple reduced the bezels surrounding the screen by 43%. The device included all the high-end features and apps seen in the models that preceded it.

Although Apple's then-new A7 chip allowed for faster autofocus, higher video frame rates, and faster photo capture, among other things. Apple claimed that the A7 chip is twice as fast and has up to twice the graphics power compared to its predecessor. The rest of the specifications were the same as those of the iPad 4 including the launch price. A year after the release of Apple's first iPad Mini, they released a follow-up that had a retina display that increased the screen resolution to 2048 by 1536 pixels, which at the time was the highest resolution for a device its size. The mini's processor has been upgraded to the A7 chip seen in the iPad air and iPhone 5s, making it much faster than its predecessor, in addition to the improved CPU and resolution.

It also had double the RAM and a 128 Gigabyte storage option. It costs a little more than the first one. However, iPad mini enthusiasts did not have to wait long to see the third installment of the iPad Mini, which hit the market in October 2014. In addition to the previous colors, a gold color was now also available. The most interesting feature was the addition of Touch ID. Allowing users to unlock the device and make purchases using a fingerprint scanner. Other updates were very minor. Although it's fair to say that Apple focused more on the success of the iPad air that year.

We'll talk about that successor and all the other more advanced and recent iPads in the next part, so subscribe and hit the bell icon button