The iPad at 10: A New Product Category Defined by Apps

As someone that’s come to rely on tablets heavily, despite avoiding the fruit company for much of the past decade, I kind of like the notion of tablets as a middle category—because that’s where most people’s computing lands.

A long time ago, I preferred laptops to desktops for the portability. Today, I don’t really believe in desktops so much for two main reasons: laptops aren’t as underpowered as they used to be, and rack mounted servers pwn most towers if you’re really going for raw compute power.

Tablets kind of answer the ability to do most of what regular people do with their computer. But aren’t so tied to the concept of a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and tower; laptops both suffer and benefit from rubbing the same software. And tablets would mostly suck for running the same software as desktops, far more than it would from adding a mouse and monitor to today’s tablets.

For better or worse: software often defines are interactions with devices. Think otherwise? Try using Windows 95 without a mouse or keyboard 🤣