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Comment by mitkebes

I remember when the first iPad was in development, there was a lot of speculation about how Apple would solve the "large touchscreen keyboard" problem. Typing on a large touchscreen was hard, just blowing up a iphone keyboard wouldn't cut it. It'd be too large for thumb typing, but you also couldn't type on it like a physical keyboard, it would be awkward hovering over the touchscreen and you couldn't hold it while you typed.

Tech sites and bloggers talked about how Apple cared too much about the user experience to just release a big keyboard, and how we were about to see a revolutionary new keyboard design. There was speculation about split keyboards, radial keyboards, and more. People weren't sure how Apple was going to fix the keyboard issue, but it was going to be magical.

Finally the actual iPad reveal came, and it was just literally a giant iphone keyboard. Jobs showed how to type on it by balancing the ipad on his knees, and hover hand typing onto it.

Honestly that was the point where my opinion of Apple started to decline, it honestly wasn't even that big of a deal, but it changed them in my eyes from a revolutionary tech company into one that just wanted to appear revolutionary. I've never quite been able to separate that initial disappointment from the iPads, and that disappointment is still the first thing that comes to mind whenever I see one or read an article about them.

parent mitkebes 1 year ago

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