Happy Birthday iPad!

Dear iPad,

What a turbulent ten years we have had. We've become friends, drifted apart, and became friends again. And today you are my most important, convenient, and overall personal computer.

We met each other exactly ten years ago. On January 27, 2010, Steve Jobs introduced you to the world. In fact, work on the iPad began ten years earlier. Upon his return to Apple, Steve Jobs demanded a radically new computer for under $500.

It was clear that this would require compromises and the removal of tried and tested things. The breakthrough came in Apple's secret labs with a touch screen that could be operated with several fingers at once.

Detour via iPhone

But instead of the iPad, the project first gave birth to the iPhone - that subsequently changed the world. No wonder, after the presentation of the iPad, many were perplexed: "This is just a big iPhone.“ - "Who needs something like that?" - "How can it be the PC of the future?"

I myself was also surprised how simple the Apple tablet was. Nevertheless, I was fascinated. And last but not least I owed him my first fulltime job at the national public radio. I enclosed a radio report about the iPad with my application, in which I explained the tablet and compared its size with that of a mouse mat.

At the end of May, the iPad was launched in Switzerland. To my surprise, I stood firm and waited for the first tests and impressions. It wasn't until a few months later that I gave in and bought my first iPad and thus my first Apple device.

The first impression

The start was bumpy. On the train home, I wanted to start immediately. No chance! The iPad could only be activated from a connected computer with an iTunes account. As an Android user, I couldn't believe it. So that's how it is in the protected Apple garden!

I also had to come to terms with the fact that multiple apps couldn't be open at the same time on the iPad and that there was no Flash (yes, that was still important at the time). Nevertheless, I hardly put the iPad down: Never before had I used such a good reading device. On the train to work, I read countless articles and several books.

Yes, I was so enthusiastic that I seized the opportunity to switch from radio to a traditional newspaper when the Zurich "Tages-Anzeiger" was looking for a producer and editor for a future iPad app.

The future of the newspaper

At that time, there was a gold-rush atmosphere in the industry. The iPad would replace the newspaper and revolutionize and digitalize reading. Many believed. Media billionaire Rupert Murdoch even launched a special newspaper exclusively for the iPad called "The Daily".

Apple was also in gold-digger mood; the first iPad years were characterized by rapid growth. Not even the iPhone made such a rapid start.

My colleagues in the iPad team already worked with the new, thinner and lighter iPad 2. I stayed with the first iPad and waited for the third Generation. That took longer than expected.

Smaller alternative

In 2012 Google launched the Nexus 7, a smaller tablet with Android. To see if there would be room for smaller tablets in the future, I bought one and was thrilled. As a reading device, I liked it very much. Thanks to Android I was able to change something on our website and do many other things the iPad did not allow me to do. The fact that the apps were nowhere near as good was easily forgotten.

In the same year, I switched to an iPad 3 in summer and the high-resolution Retina screen was great. I had no idea that I picked the stupidest moment in the ten-year history of the iPad to buy a new device. The iPad 4 followed a few months later in autumn. I was terribly annoyed. My then-boss, on the other hand, was very happy. Besides the new iPad, there was also an iPad Mini for the first time.

He was not the only one who was happy. The smaller and somewhat cheaper tablet heated up the iPad boom even more. But even the iPad Mini could not hide the fact that iPad newspapers were not a gold mine.

Rupert Murdoch's "Daily" announced a cost-cutting program. About 50 jobs (one third) were cut. In addition, the newspaper was now only published in portrait format. Landscape format was axed.

What sounds ridiculous today was, in fact, a sound cost-cutting measure. Even our significantly smaller team worked until the early morning hours every day to check whether the newspaper looked good in both formats.

Writing about the iPad

All the cost-cutting did not help, and "The Daily" was discontinued at the end of 2012. I myself also switched from the iPad app to the digital desk in 2013. Instead of making iPad newspapers, I would henceforth write about iPads (and of course much more).

One of my first series of articles was a self-experiment in which I worked with tablets instead of a laptop or editorial computer for a week. Admittedly, that was a bit of a stunt, and some readers found it a rather absurd idea. Nevertheless, with some inventiveness, patience and a little trick at the end the experiment succeeded (The PC comes out flat).

To Microsoft

I knew I wanted to work like this. But then it just wasn't possible and only with many compromises. That changed suddenly when the Surface Pro 3 from Microsoft arrived in summer 2014. Finally a tablet with a keyboard, a pen, and an unlimited operating system. I had barely returned the test device I bought one privately for myself. From then on, I was always the guy with the Surface even at Apple events in the sea of Macbooks.

Meanwhile, with the iPad, the air was pretty much out. It was now called the iPad Air, but it had primarily just become thinner and lighter. Also, the sales figures did not look so rosy anymore.

Headlines that Apple was doomed without Steve Jobs (he had passed away in 2011, we made a special edition of the iPad newspaper back then) made the rounds. The iPad shared the blame for this. Apparently, it wasn't as ingenious and useful as people thought at first. Bigger iPhones and the Apple Watch proved immediately that Apple is anything but lost. But the iPad was still in the doldrums.

Pens and keyboards

At that time I experimented a lot with different pens and keyboards for the iPad, but nothing came close to the Surface Pro 3 (We need pen and keyboard).

That didn't change until late 2015 when Apple introduced the iPad Pro. A larger iPad with pen and keyboard. Finally! Even Microsoft played a prominent role in the presentation and showed off its Office apps on the new tablet.

It quickly became apparent that the Microsoft apps on the iPad were faster, nicer and more reliable than on my Surface. At that point, it became obvious that the iPad was clearly outperforming Windows and Android in terms of tablet apps.

Back to the iPad

Even though the iPad Pro was a bit big, I switched back to the iPad camp. Not even a year later Apple launched a smaller iPad Pro, and I finally had the almost perfect iPad for work. The last piece of the puzzle was finally added last fall: The iPad got its own operating system with iPadOS. Since then, the iPad also works with external hard drives, and you can (if you really want to) use a mouse.

However, in recent years a lot has also happened away from the expensive Pro-iPads. In 2017, for the first time after a long break, Apple launched an ordinary iPad without Pro, Air or Mini - and at a very fair price. For under 400 Swiss francs it was hard to beat in terms of value for money. While other manufacturers withdrew from this price segment, the iPad suddenly became a budget tablet.

The ordinary iPad became even better over the years. A pen and a keyboard are now available for it as well. If you only need a tablet or an everyday computer, you can't go wrong with it. Even children and the elderly can get used to it quickly, as I experience again and again in everyday life.

More than just a big iPhone

Whether with the cheapest iPad for 300 Swiss francs or the most expensive for 2000 Swiss francs, you can cut films, draw graphics, create websites, edit photos, control Mac and Windows computers remotely and, of course, write articles like this. The iPad is no longer just the oversized iPhone or the newspaper of the future. It has become a full-fledged computer in the last ten years.

Yes, dear iPad, those were turbulent ten years we spent together. Now I am looking forward to the next ones. You can't rest on your laurels. Microsoft has just launched the first exciting Surface in years and the rest of the competition is not sleeping either. Who knows, maybe soon you'll be foldable or glasses will make you superfluous.

But for now, I just say happy birthday, dear iPad!

This article first appeared in the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger and was later translated into English. You can read the original article here.