Steve Jobs’ promise of an iPad failed

This week, 10 years ago, Steve Jobs stood on the stage to introduce the iPad. At the time, Jobs called Apple’s new hardware “a revolutionary and magical device” and it would “define a whole new category of devices.” Indeed, over the past 10 years, the iPad has become an important device for Apple and is often thought to be higher than the MacBooks in the Apple ecosystem.

But does the iPad convey the mission and excitement Steve Jobs promised to the tablet? It’s hard to say the iPad has done that.

At that time, Steve Jobs once said: ” If there is a third type of device, it will have to be better than laptops and smartphones for these types of tasks, otherwise it has no reason to exist. . ”

That was true in 2010 with the successful launch of the iPad. The success of the iPad was so great that people started talking about the deaths of laptops and PCs.

The success of the iPad also comes from the fact that Google has never made Android really fit to the tablet interface, as it did with the phone interface. Even current Android tablets are still devices with long lines of information rolled up, rather than the window environment that fits the tablet.

But will the iPad really create a new line of devices that can replace other devices like laptops or phones? The answer is definitely not.

Although Android tablets aren’t impressive, the real answer for Android for the iPad is simple: make phones bigger. The success of the Samsung Galaxy Note series and the rise of phablet devices has replaced most of the previous small-screen smartphones.

Not creating impressive tablets, but Samsung’s Galaxy Note series has opened the way for Android to attack the iPad.

The success of the Galaxy Note series was so great that in 2014, Apple itself had to join this trend with the iPhone 6S Plus. Until now, small smartphones like the iPhone 5 have become a rarity.

Smartphones have a way out for themselves and so are laptop manufacturers. Perhaps the iPad inspired the idea of ​​a touch-based console on laptops, from Windows 8 to Windows 10. Even now users can control the laptop with a stylus.

Not only the input and control interface, the shape and design of the laptop also change in many new directions. A series of tablets and laptops that have been released over the last few years have reduced their size and weight to become more portable and more convenient. Most notably among them is Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3, launched in 2014.

The most remarkable thing for iPad is its sales. After peaking in 2013, iPad sales never returned to that peak anymore and continued to decline in the following years. While it is still a product that brings financial success to Apple and has sales that make competitors dream of, will smartphones meet Steve Jobs’s expectations for it? Is not.

By 2020, the iPad is no longer so good compared to the iPhone. Smartphone screens have become bigger and bigger, so the iPad’s screen size is no longer a huge advantage compared to before. Even depending on your use case, the iPhone is a much better option than the iPad.

So is the iPad really better than a laptop? In terms of flexibility, the iPad is probably superior to Windows 10 laptops, even if it comes with both a separate Smart Keyboard and an Apple Pencil, an iPad will be almost a laptop. Even so, it is neither and nor is it better than a laptop.

Apple’s separation of iPadOS from iOS is giving the iPad a new opportunity to become something bigger than it is today. Perhaps Apple once again wants to realize Steve Jobs’ vision of the iPad, turning it into a truly revolutionary and marvelous device as promised by the late Apple CEO.

Reference Forbes