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When Bill Gates demoed the Tablet PC in 2001, he\u00a0predicted<\/a>\u00a0it would become the most popular form of PC within five years.\u00a0But by the end of 2006, Tablet PCs still accounted for\u00a0less than 2%<\/a>\u00a0of all laptops shipped, with about 1 million devices sold that year. Tablets seemed destined to remain stuck in\u00a0niche markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then came the iPad in 2010. During\u00a0its first year on the market,\u00a015 million iPads<\/a>\u00a0were sold. After two and a half years, over\u00a0100 million<\/a>\u00a0had been purchased.\u00a0Worldwide shipments<\/a>\u00a0of tablet computers shot up from being 3% of the computer market in 2010 to 25% of the market in 2012. In Apple’s stores,\u00a0iPads now\u00a0outsell<\/a>\u00a0Macs by more than 5x, despite the product being less than three years old.<\/p>\n Gates’ prediction had finally come true, but something was amiss. “It’s just a big iPod Touch!” Analysts didn’t think it fit the\u00a0definition of a PC<\/a>. It appeared to be, at best, just a media consumption device \u2013 not a personal productivity tool. Most technology pundits believed that the iPad would\u00a0fail<\/a>. (Some\u00a0still do<\/a>.)<\/p>\n “Why is the iPad a disappointment? Because it doesn\u2019t allow us to do anything we couldn\u2019t do before. Sure, it is a\u00a0neat form factor, but it comes with significant trade-offs, too.” -David Coursey,\u00a0PC World, 28 January 2010<\/a><\/p>\n The iPad was indeed disappointing to technologists. Compared to a PC, it could hardly do anything. All of the apps were stripped down to the bare minimum features. The web browser didn’t support plugins such as Flash. You could only run one app at a time. It was hard to get data from one app to another. The on-screen keyboard felt awkward. The list went on. In sum:<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a nice reader, but there\u2019s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, \u2018Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.\u2019\u201d –Bill Gates, February 2010<\/a><\/p>\n The surprise was that\u00a0non-technologists saw things very differently. They walked into an Apple Store and found to their delight that the iPad was a computer they could actually understand. It was far simpler and easier to use than a traditional PC (tablet, laptop, or otherwise). Want to do email? Tap the email app. Photos? Tap the photos app. Press the home button at any time and you’re back to a familiar place. No need to worry about window management, battery life, files or folder hierarchies.<\/p>\n In other words, many of the shortcomings that remain infuriating to technologists are precisely what makes the iPad\u00a0delightful<\/a>\u00a0to consumers. Apple’s engineers and designers did many things right, but the most important reason for the product’s widespread appeal is its\u00a0radically simpler user interface.<\/p>\n The iPad is a classic\u00a0disruptive technology<\/a>. It competes on new dimensions of quality and does not appeal to the best customers of traditional PCs. Instead of processor speed, flexibility, and power, it prioritizes simplicity, size, and convenience. But as tablet computers improve, they will incorporate more and more of the features that currently require a PC. For example, new versions of the iPad have already added video chat, limited multitasking, tabbed browsing, basic Microsoft Office integration, and many other improvements. Eventually, traditional PCs will be overkill for most people, most of the time.<\/p>\n “PCs are going to be like trucks. They\u2019re still going to be around, they\u2019re still going to have a lot of value. But they\u2019re going to be used by one out of X people.” –Steve Jobs, June 2010<\/a><\/p>\n