The iPad turns ten

Ten years ago today, the first iPad went on sales. Chris de Jabet remembers that day very well, and tells his iPad story on Full City Press, ending his piece talking about where the iPad fits in his digital life:

Every day I use my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air in a harmonious dance of devices. My iPhone is primarily my camera and communicator. My MacBook is my workhorse, getting work done quickly with decades of familiarity. My iPad, however, is the device I enjoy the most.

The reason I enjoy my iPad the most is its versatility. The battery lasts forever. It is thin and light. When I want to use it, it is ready to go instantly. I can write, draw, cut together a podcast, browse the web, slice through my inbox like a champ, and when I want to kick back and read for a while I can strip off the keyboard and recline in a chair, holding the iPad like a magazine. Honestly, I can even do most of my job from it these days if I want to.

You should definitely read Chris’s full piece on the iPad, it is very insightful and also exactly how I think I would feel about the device. I’ve been wanting an iPad for 10 years for the same reasons that make him love the device.

Before buying the newest MacBook Air, I seriously considered getting an iPad as my main computer, in the form of the newest iPad Pro. But fourteen years of familiarity with MacOS, the fact that my wife just got an iPad Air, and that new keyboard, eventually convinced me to get the Air, even if this new trackpad thing got me both very curious and very optimistic about the future of iPad.

In March 2012, Apple unveiled what was then called “the new iPad” which was replacing the iPad 2. At the time, I had a column at the French Huffington Post, and I wrote about it and about the future of computing, the “post-PC” era as Apple enjoyed repeating during the keynote. Almost eight years later, I am quite happy with what I wrote back then (you can find the Google Translation here, the same translation is edited for the quote below):

Apple reigns alone for now in a post-PC world, where the iPad is gradually replacing the laptop for 75% of use cases and for more and more users. Not bad for a product which did not exist two years ago and which continues to get better faster than all its competitors, tablets, but also the brand’s own laptops.

I certainly believe that this is still true today. The iPad was the future in 2010, it was even more the future in 2012, and it seems Apple is now completely ready for that future. A future where the iPad is not called a tablet, but a personal computer. Finally, a true PC.