This Day, That Year – January 27

This day in history we feature the iPad. The device was announced and unveiled by Steve Jobs on this day in 2010.

Trivia – iPad

The first-generation iPad is a tablet computer designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The device features an Apple A4 SoC, a 9.7″ touchscreen display, and, on certain variants, the capability of accessing cellular networks. Using the iOS operating system, the iPad can play music, send and receive email and browse the web. Other functions, which include the ability to play games and access references, GPS navigation software and social network services can be enabled by downloading apps.

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On April 3, 2010, the Wi-Fi variant of the device was released in the USA, followed by the release of the “Wi-Fi + 3G” variant on April 30. On May 28, 2010, it was released in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. The device received positive reviews from various technology blogs and publications. Reviewers praised the device for its wide range of capabilities and labeled it as a competitor to laptops and netbooks. Some aspects were criticized, including the closed nature of the operating system and the lack of support for the Adobe Flash multimedia format. During the first 80 days, 3 million iPads were sold. By the launch of the iPad 2, Apple had sold more than 15 million iPads. On March 2, 2011, the first generation iPad was discontinued following Apple’s announcement of the IPad 2. Remaining stock of the first iPad were temporarily available from Apple at reduced price. Apple’s first tablet computer was the Newton MessagePad 100, introduced in 1993, which led to the creation of the ARM6 processor core with Acorn Computers. Apple also developed a prototype PowerBook Duo-based tablet, the PenLite, but decided not to sell it in order to avoid hurting MessagePad sales. Apple released several more Newton-based PDAs; the final one, the MessagePad 2100, was discontinued in 1998. Apple reentered the mobile-computing market in 2007 with the iPhone. Smaller than the (not yet announced) iPad and featuring a camera and mobile capabilities, it pioneered the multitouch finger-sensitive touchscreen interface of Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Jobs later said that Apple began developing the iPad before the iPhone, but temporarily shelved the effort upon realizing that its ideas would work just as well in a mobile phone. The iPad’s internal codename was K48, which was revealed in the court case surrounding leaking of iPad information before launch. Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPad from US customers on March 12, 2010. The only major change to the device between its announcement and being available to pre-order was the change of the behavior of the side switch from sound muting to that of a screen rotation lock.

Source – Wikipedia