History of tablet computers
[2] The first publicly demonstrated system using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard for working with a modern digital computer dates to 1956.
In addition to many academic and research systems, there were several companies with commercial products in the 1980s: Pencept and Communications Intelligence Corporation were among the best known of a crowded field.
Tablet computers appeared in a number of works of science fiction in the second half of the 20th century, with the depiction of Arthur C. Clarke's NewsPad[4] appearing in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the description of the Calculator Pad in the 1951 novel Foundation by Isaac Asimov, the Opton in the 1961 novel Return from the Stars, by Stanislaw Lem, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Douglas Adams 1978 comedy of the same name, all helping to promote and disseminate the concept to a wider audience.
Steve Jobs of Apple envisioned in a 1983 speech an "incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes".
[9] In 1985, as the home-computer market significantly declined after several years of strong growth, Dan Bricklin said that a successful home computer needed to be the size of and as convenient to carry as a spiral notebook.
[10] In 1988, Apple, as part of the "Design the Personal Computer of the Year 2000" contest, awarded a project named TABLET,[11] inspired by the Dynabook.
This tablet included all the features found in "modern" smartphones: camera, video recorder, microphone, speaker, cellular communication, GPS, and more.
[19] In 1991, AT&T released their first EO Personal Communicator, this was one of the first commercially available tablets and ran the GO Corporation's PenPoint OS on AT&T's own hardware, including their own AT&T Hobbit CPU.
In 1994, the European Union initiated the 'OMI-NewsPAD' project (EP9252), requiring a consumer device be developed for the receipt and consumption of electronically delivered news / newspapers and associated multi-media.
[24] The NewsPad name and project goals were borrowed from and inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's 1965 screen play and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
[27][28] In 1996, The Webbook Company announced the first Internet-based tablet, then referred to as a Web Surfboard, that would run Java and utilize a RISC processor.
Again in 1996, Fujitsu released the Stylistic 1000 tablet format PC, running Microsoft Windows 95, on a 100 MHz AMD486 DX4 CPU, with 8 MB RAM offering stylus input, with the option of connecting a conventional Keyboard and mouse.
In 1999, Microsoft attempted to re-institute the then decades old tablet concept by assigning two well-known experts in the field, from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, to the project.
[44] The existing devices were too heavy to be held with one hand for extended periods, the specific software features designed to support usage as a tablet (such as finger and virtual keyboard support) were not present in all contexts,[45][46] and there were not enough applications specific to the platform[47] – legacy applications created for desktop interfaces made them not well adapted to the slate format.
[49] Maemo (rebranded MeeGo in 2010), a Debian GNU/Linux based graphical user environment, was developed for the Nokia Internet Tablet devices (770, N800, N810 & N900).
The Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, as well as the Intel sponsored Moblin project, both have touchscreen support integrated into their user interfaces.
HP has continued to develop the webOS platform for use in multiple products, including smartphones, tablet PCs, and printers.
Intel, following the launch of the UMPC, started the Mobile Internet Device initiative, which took the same hardware and combined it with a Linux operating system custom-built for portable tablets.
Before the introduction of the iPad, Axiotron introduced the Modbook, a heavily modified Apple MacBook, Mac OS X-based tablet computer at Macworld in 2007.
[57] While the iPad places restrictions on the owner to install software[58][59][60] thus deviating it from the PC tradition, its attention to detail for the touch interface[61] is considered a milestone in the history of the development of the tablet computer[44] that defined the tablet computer as a new class of portable device, different from a laptop PC or netbook.
The iPad has been characterized by some as a tablet computer that mainly focuses on media consumption such as web browsing, email, photos, videos, and e-reading, even though full-featured, Microsoft Office-compatible software for word processing (Pages), spreadsheets (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote) were released alongside the initial model.
[63] With the introduction of the iPad 2 Apple also released full-featured first party software for multi-track music composition (GarageBand) and video editing (iMovie).
HP released it a month later in July, only to discontinue it after less than 49 days of sales, becoming the first casualty in the post-PC tablet computer market.
[73][74] Besides the Kindle Fire's low price, reviewers have also noted that it is polished on its initial release, in comparison to other tablets that often needed software updates.
Several manufacturers had to resort to deep discounts to move excess inventory, as what happened with the HP TouchPad (after its announced discontinuation) and the BlackBerry Playbook.
It has been suggested that many companies, in their rush to jump on the "tablet bandwagon", had released products that might have had decent hardware but lacked refinement and came with software bugs that needed updates.
These cases take months or even years to come to court, unless there is no settlement, and if Apple loses it will be liable for the business lost by a competitor due to the injunction.
In a breakdown by platform he showed a chart indicating Apple's iOS at 76%, Google's Android at 17%, HP's webOS at 6%, and RIM's PlayBook OS at 2%.
[85] A report by Strategy Analytic showed that the share of Android tablet computers had risen sharply at the expense of Apple's iOS in the fourth quarter of 2011.
[86] In China, according to an AlphaWise survey of 1,553 Chinese consumers across 16 cities over the summer of 2011, Apple's iPad currently holds a 65% share of that nation's tablet market.
