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When Jobs entered, there were leather sofas and round tables and coffee tables behind him. It’s hard not to notice this weird press conference display. Most of the time, Jobs is more inclined to use a simple black square table to display products. Against the black background of the stage, as long as he gently lights up the screen, he can draw everyone’s attention.

But there are some exceptions. For example, in 2005, the small and exquisite first-generation iPod nano was hidden in the small pocket of his jeans pocket. In 2008, he slipped out of the kraft envelope, the world’s thinnest laptop, the MacBook Air.

This time around, it’s also a special product. Jobs called it a device “between the iPhone and MacBook.” Without further explanation, he lifted the black cloth on the sofa, held up the iPad, and lit the screen in front of the audience, “That’s what it looks like.” In the following demonstrations, he sat on the sofa, naturally raised his legs, and began to browse the web, send and receive emails, and manage photos in a way that no one had seen before.

At this press conference in early 2010, Jobs presented the iPad for the first time to the world. “Web pages, emails, photos, videos, music, games, e-books,” he said, iPad handles these needs more than iPhone and MacBook.

A decade later, the iPad has broken away from these most basic needs and transformed into a brand new computing device.

“Enlarged version” iPhone

The first-generation iPad was an easy-to-understand product. It was essentially a “magnified version” of the iPhone.

The iPad’s hardware design idea is completely born of the iPhone, with an integrated body. On the front is a complete screen plus a Home button, and an approximate power and volume key layout. The A4 processor it uses is iteratively based on the Samsung SoC on the iPhone 3GS. This chip was later used on the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. From a hardware perspective, the biggest difference is only the screen size.

At first iPad and iPhone were running almostThe same iPhone OS system, so in addition to carrying Apple’s own Safari browser, photos, email and other native iPad apps, it is also compatible with running all iPhone apps. Six months later, at WWDC, iPhone OS was officially renamed iOS.

At first, most third-party apps have not been adapted for iPad. They can only display a small interface in the middle of the iPad’s huge screen. Users can also manually zoom in to this interface twice, but the rendering resolution The rate doesn’t change, so it looks a bit fuzzy. Some “stubborn” apps have not been adapted for iPad to this day, such as Instagram, which has more than 1 billion active users.

In 2010, the third year after the iPhone was launched, more and more consumers began to be interested in this “multi-touch interaction”, and the development ecosystem based on the iPhone OS has also grown rapidly. Compared to the iPhone, the iPad has the advantage of touch interaction because it is larger. Users can simply swipe the menu with their fingers, zoom in and out on pictures and maps, and cut five fruits with one stroke in the Fruit Ninja game.

The final killer of iPad is price. Compared to the latest iPhone 3GS at the time, the original iPad had a more “advanced” metal case, a more advanced chip, and a larger screen, but the price was only $ 499, which was $ 100 cheaper than the iPhone. iPad sacrifices only two functions: cellular network and camera. And iPad is a device with a certain “share” attribute. An iPad can let the whole family experience the beauty of “smart devices”.

This catered to the needs of users at the time. In 2010, most ordinary people were still standing outside the gates of the “mobile Internet” era. The iPad gave them a chance to “see the future” and became the first stop for many people to “enter the apple.” In those years, the iPad was even the only “computer” in many homes. It was the first “smart device” that many people came into contact with after 00.

The iPad is the fastest successful product in the history of Apple and even the entire consumer electronics industry. In April 2010, the first-generation iPad was released, and sales in just eight months exceeded $ 8 billion. In 2011, this number more than doubled to 20.4 billion, and in 2012, 30.1 billion. It took only three steps to reach its peak.

Prosperity Crisis

iPad sales are skyrocketing, and its update iterations are amazingly fast.

In March 2011, Apple introduced the iPad 2Thickness and weight, and it is equipped with two front and rear cameras. A year later, the third-generation iPad with Retina screen came out, and only half a year later, the iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad appeared simultaneously. In three years, five new products, the iPad has gradually risen in continuous evolution.

In October 2013, Apple changed its name to the iPad series, launched the iPad Air, narrowed the screen bezel, further strengthening its thin and light performance, and also introduced the iPad mini 2 with a Retina screen and the latest A7 at the time. The processor makes the iPad mini 2 an extremely long-lasting “generator”.

In 2013, iPad sales totaled US $ 32 billion, which is by far the best iPad sales ever. Since then, the “good days” for the iPad are over.

One of the important reasons for the success of the iPad is the development of the mobile Internet. But with the development and popularity of smart phones, tablet computers can only be a supporting role in this era.

Smartphones have become the” protagonists “of the mobile Internet era | Apple

In the fall of 2014, Apple released the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and began experimenting with the “big screen strategy” on the iPhone. This strategy was a huge success, and iPhone sales ushered in a wave of explosive growth, especially in Greater China.

That was the peak period for the fastest development of smartphones. The iPhone’s performance is getting stronger, the screen is getting bigger, and it is becoming more and more popular. With the advent of the 4G era, people are increasingly used to using mobile phones to obtain information and consume content, whether it is text, sound or video.

This caused iPad, the “content consumer device,” to begin to lose its edge. Because for most people, a 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus is enough to watch videos and play games, and every member of the family has started to own their own smartphone. They do not need a 7-inch or 9.7 Inch iPad.

Since 2014, iPad sales have declined year after year. By 2017, annual sales had fallen to $ 19.2 billion, less than two-thirds of its peak.

Productivity and education

In Jobs’s initial presentation, the iPad was a device that was mainly used for “content consumption.” You could use it to read books, watch movies, and listen to music on a larger screen for a better experience. The increasing popularity of large-screen mobile phones has eroded this part of the demand, and iPad must find a new way out.

Apple responded quickly. In June 2015, at WWDC, iPad ushered in the most important software update since its birth, iOS 9.

Apple has designed a new “multi-tasking” interaction mechanism for iPad on iOS 9. Users can operate two apps at the same time through the “split screen display”, and can also slide out another app from the right side of the screen. The “drag & drop” method drags text, pictures, videos and other content to different apps, allowing data to move smoothly between apps.

This became the basis for iPad’s unique software interaction. If the previous iPad was just a “magnified version of the iPhone” at the software level, starting with iOS 9, the iPad has a more suitable software for itself.

Split screen feature is the starting point for iPad productivity on the software | Geek Park

Three months later, in September 2015, the iPad Pro was launched.

Everything can be explained. Why did Apple make a set of iOS 9 with high performance requirements and considerable complexity? Because iPad Pro has transformed from a “content consumption” device to a “content production” device. Between the iPhone and the MacBook, the iPad has always been closer to the iPhone. The advent of the iPad Pro marked the beginning of its development in another direction.

The iPad Pro with Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil has become a brand new device, a “touch screen”, “can graffiti, draw”, “run iOS software”, a new computer.