The iPad turns five

Updated on December 10, 2021

Apple’s popular iPad tablet celebrated the fifth anniversary of its release on April 3. The Verge has a timeline summing up the various releases since its 2010 debut.

Despite the changes the iPad’s wrought, its anniversary seems to have gone largely quiet in both the media at large and on tech websites. Among other changes since its 2010 debut:

• It was the first widely popular tablet, and despite initial jokes (including by yours truly as a “giant sized iPod Touch”), showed there’s a market for such a device.
• Various creative uses found for the iPad (mall kiosks, signs, etc.).
• The explosion of competing tablets, largely running Android, though Amazon’s Android-derived Kindle has since become somewhat popular.
• The rise of legalized digital comic stores, most prominently Comixology.
• Everyone thinking tablets would replace laptops/desktops, but instead, they’ve just become what the iPad was partly billed as in its debut: filling a niche as a device that’s bigger than a smartphone, but lighter than a laptop. Of course, the iPad did put the final nails in the coffins of 2000s-era netbooks.

My initial reaction to the iPad wasn’t overly flattering, but as the iPad improved/rival cheaper tablets came along, I changed my mind. Quoting from my third anniversary post:

In closing, this is where I’m supposed to predict (read: guess) what the next few years will bring before the iPad’s fifth anniversary in 2015. I assume there’ll be more entrenchment of tablets in society (and the 7-inch size staying popular), but beyond that, I can’t really say.

Since 2013, the iPad’s remained the most popular tablet. Microsoft’s tablet-ish Windows 8 (launched during the aforementioned “tablets are going to replace PCs!” craze) has proved quite unpopular, with the upcoming Windows 10 bringing back a more traditional desktop. The iPad is still somewhat liked in schools, but Chromebooks seem to be displacing iPads in popularity in the educational realm. The iPad Mini (at eight inches) is popular and affordable, along with some 7-inch Android tablets still selling.

There’s been some concern about the six-inch-screen iPhone 6 Plus displacing the need for the iPad Mini, but I think such concern’s misplaced. There’s still enough differences between the 6 Plus and Mini to keep the latter around.

Where will the iPad be in another five years? Still sold by Apple, I’d assume. People aren’t abandoning the iPad, contrary to media reports claiming “the iPad’s at a crossroads” because it’s not growing in sales as large as it first did. Tablets just aren’t devices that (for most people) need to be upgraded as often as phones or computers do… thus the slow down in sales.

As for what the next five years will bring, who knows what other devices and changes might rise up between now and then. Apple Watch/smartwatch dominance? A resurgent Apple TV for cord cutters? Again, all guesses… but I’m sure the reality in 2020 will be interesting.