Andy Ihnatko, like so many other pundits, repeats the common wisdom that Apple created the tablet market:
Despite the iPad’s ungodly dominance of a market that Apple pretty much created, the scramble for the biggest piece of that pie is still very much on
But tech historians and nerds will cringe. It’s a repeat of a pattern that probably dates back to the wheel. Apple didn’t create the market. Dr. Alan Kay, the man who coined the term Personal Computer created the modern platonic ideal of the tablet in the late 60s with his paper on the Dynabook. Pencept, General Magic, Palm, Grid, Casio, and Go created the market, and populated it over 20 years years ago. Apple followed with Newton in 1993, then Microsoft tried to eat the market with Windows for Pen Computing and Windows CE (which would eventually morph into Windows Mobile and Windows Mobile Phone 7). DEC and then Compaq entered the market. Eventually Microsoft came out with Tablet versions of Xp, Vista and Windows 7. Motorola, AT&T and Bellsouth entered the market. Sony, HP, and Toshiba entered the market. Sharp who had already been there almost since the beginning, re-entered with a Linux based tablet. Nokia entered the market. Archos entered the market-years before Apple “created” the market. People are still giivng me their old tablets-a few months after I tossed out my my cache of dead Palms, I’ve been given a boot box worth of Palms, Compaqs, HPs, Nokias, and a weird Ericsson.
I’d argue that Apple wasn’t even first to get it right, causing users to flock to them. I think Palm and Archos got it right first, and Palm has the numbers to prove it. The original Palm Pilot had the fastest product roll out since the VHS deck, a record that wasn’t beaten untill the iPad. Hell, my first generation 33mhz Palm based Visorphone was faster to use as a phone then my first generation 486mhz iPhone (but then my iPhone is faster to use as a phone running Android then IOS). The Archos tablets I’ve played with were totally usable, and fun. What Apple got right was integration with desktop apps, integration with an app store and sexiness.
Nothing new here. While most historians date the personal computer revolution to the announcement of the Altair 8800 kit in the January 1975 edition of Popular Electronics magazine in 1975, there had been personal computers before it, and personal computer kits before it. It did explode in the general public’s consciousness, and lead to the founding of a host of computer companies, including Apple in 1976. Apple’s second computer was a huge hit-so big that they later claimed to have invented the personal computer, more then once.
I’m not really upset with Andy, I’m curious as to why some companies get the credit despite not being there first. You can’t blame it on alpha male pheromones, but some weird mechanism is at work here. And I don’t hate the iPad, they’re fun devices to play with, and for a lot of people they’re all the computer they’ll ever need. But I’m very interested in the upcoming HP/Palm pad and the RIM Playbook. I’ve been waiting for real tablet computing since I first heard of the Dynabook, and looks like we’re finally getting close.
