Introduction to the iPad Project Book
- What the iPad is For
- What This Book is For
- A Note About Conventions
We saw our first iPad in a theater in Hollywood, California, in the summer of 1968. It appeared in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the iPad (called a Newspad in the Arthur C. Clarke novel on which the movie is based) made its debut when astronaut Dave Bowman used it to view the news while having a horrific-looking meal of puréed space food. We didn’t want any of that food, but boy, did that Newspad look appetizing.
It took only 42 years (interesting number, 42) for the iPad to make it from Hollywood to the Apple Store.
Even more entertaining than the movie was the consternation and confusion among technology pundits when the iPad was announced in 2010. Very few of them could figure out what the device was for, and all too many of them were convinced that it wouldn’t be popular.
The iPad turned out to be very popular, and the public immediately figured out what it was for.
What the iPad is For
What is the iPad for? It’s for fun. It’s for work. It’s for convenience. It’s for doing whatever a legion of app developers can make a sleek, bright, big-screen, handheld, touch-driven device do—reading books, playing games, looking at photos, looking up at the stars, doing budgets, sending and receiving email, browsing the Web, reserving plane tickets, watching movies or TV, listening to music, writing novels or sonnets, drawing pictures, and so on.