{"id":23752,"date":"2026-09-24T15:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T14:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/?p=23752"},"modified":"2026-09-24T15:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T14:41:30","slug":"remember-when-the-ipad-was-just-the-ipad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/24\/remember-when-the-ipad-was-just-the-ipad\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember When the iPad Was Just the iPad?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">No Pro. No Air. No mini. No Pencil. No Stage Manager. No Magic Keyboard. Just a big aluminium slab running <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/IOS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iPhone OS<\/a>, sitting somewhere between an <strong>iPhone<\/strong> and a <strong>Mac<\/strong> \u2014 and leaving everyone wondering what on earth they were supposed to <em>do<\/em> with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"953\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1171-1024x953.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-23751\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1171-1024x953.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1171-300x279.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1171-768x714.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1171.jpeg 1205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The moment Steve Jobs used to the iPad in public for the first time &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/bauhausmovement.wordpress.com\/2015\/08\/29\/the-late-steve-jobs-sat-in-le-corbusiers-lc-3-grand-confort-when-he-presented-the-game-changing-ipad-to-the-world-in-2010\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">BauhausMovement<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s been <strong>16 years<\/strong> since the original iPad arrived, and PCMag has been <a href=\"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXcxjWdoJQHKwl4BIiheqeQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">digging back into its first review.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">And reading about that very first iPad today is a proper <em>nostalgia trip.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">Back then, the idea of carrying around a tablet that was essentially a giant iPhone felt a little strange. Apple was creating an entirely new space for itself, but nobody really knew where it would lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">There were no years of iPad history to lean on. No established expectations. No giant app ecosystem built specifically for a tablet. Just this enormous touchscreen device that somehow felt both completely familiar and completely new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">And look at where we are <strong><em>now<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">The iPad has grown into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/ipad\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">its own little universe<\/a>, with different sizes, wildly different hardware, desktop-class chips and accessories that can make the whole thing feel remarkably close to a Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">But the original?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p3 wp-block-paragraph\">That was the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sixteen years later, I guess its just fun to look back at the moment <em>before<\/em> we knew what the iPad would become.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And remember the time when owning a tablet felt like <em>holding the whole world in your hands.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No Pro. No Air. No mini. No Pencil. No Stage Manager. No Magic Keyboard. Just a big aluminium slab running iPhone OS, sitting somewhere between an iPhone and a Mac \u2014 and leaving everyone wondering what on earth they were supposed to do with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2786,174,2028],"tags":[3806,4,2063,3809,15,3507,3654,3805,3808,3807,1349,2584,560,2014],"class_list":["post-23752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-blog","category-blog","category-ipad","tag-16-years","tag-apple","tag-apple-ipad","tag-evolution","tag-hardware","tag-ipad","tag-ipad-mini","tag-ipad-pro","tag-nostalgia","tag-pcmag","tag-review","tag-steve","tag-steve-jobs","tag-tablet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23753,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23752\/revisions\/23753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}