Apple Releases the First iPad

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad at a press event on January 27, 2010, introducing it as a device that filled “a third category between a laptop and a smartphone” for use cases including web browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and e-books. The Wi-Fi-only models went on sale April 3, 2010; Wi-Fi + 3G models followed April 30, 2010. Pricing: $499 (16 GB Wi-Fi), $599 (32 GB), $629 (64 GB); Wi-Fi + AT&T 3G models added $130 to each tier. The 3G data plans were offered without contracts — $14.99/month for 250 MB or $29.99/month for unlimited, purchased directly from Apple — the first major smartphone-class device with month-to-month no-contract data. The iPad’s 9.7-inch IPS display at 1024×768 resolution (132 ppi) was the same aspect ratio as the original iPhone’s display but 7.8× larger in area. Apple’s A4 SoC (ARM Cortex-A8 at 1 GHz, PowerVR SGX535 GPU, 256 MB RAM) — designed by Apple’s chip team after its acquisition of PA Semi (April 2008, $278 million) — was the first chip Apple had designed in-house for a shipping product. The A4 was 9.56 mm thick, weighed 1.5 lb (Wi-Fi), achieved Apple’s claimed 10-hour battery life in typical use, and produced no audible fan noise (fanless thermal design inherited from iPhone).

The App Store compatibility was a significant launch advantage: iPhone OS 2.0 apps (any of the approximately 150,000 apps available by April 2010) ran on iPad in a compatibility mode showing the iPhone-sized UI centered on the larger display, with a 2× pixel-doubling option. Apple launched the App Store’s iPad-specific category on iPad launch day with approximately 3,000 native iPad apps submitted by developers using the SDK Apple had provided since January 2010, including Apple’s own iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote at $9.99 each) and the iBooks app with the iBookstore (Apple’s e-book marketplace, competing with Amazon’s Kindle store). The iBookstore launched with approximately 60,000 titles from major publishers (Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette). Amazon released a native Kindle app for iPad on the same day, immediately establishing that iPad would support multiple e-book ecosystems — a decision that distinguished it from dedicated e-readers like Kindle (E Ink, monochrome, $259 in 2010).

Apple sold 3 million iPads in the first 80 days and approximately 15 million in 2010 (9 months of sales), exceeding internal projections. Competing tablets launched quickly: Samsung Galaxy Tab (November 2010, Android 2.2, 7-inch) and Motorola Xoom (February 2011, Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” — the first Android version designed for tablets). None matched the iPad’s sales volume. The iPad 2 (March 2011) added front and rear cameras, Apple’s dual-core A5 chip, and a thinner 8.8mm profile. The iPad’s launch defined tablet computing’s mainstream form — a large touchscreen slate running mobile software — after Microsoft’s Windows-based Tablet PC (2002–2009) had failed to achieve mainstream adoption. The combination of App Store software distribution, multi-touch optimized apps, long battery life, and the iPhone’s existing developer ecosystem gave the iPad a self-reinforcing platform advantage that Microsoft Windows 8/Surface RT (October 2012) and subsequent Android tablets could not replicate at comparable sales scale.