Apple co-founder Steve Jobs announced a revolutionary new device on January 27, 2010 — a combination of a laptop and a smartphone that could excel at things like sending and receiving email, reading e-books, playing games and watching videos all wrapped up in a silver slate. He called it the iPad. The crowd went wild as he showed it off and announced it wouldn’t be $999 like everyone was expecting, but rather $499. Back in 2010, this was a big deal for a personal device with 16 gigabytes of storage.
It’s crazy to think that this month marks the 15th anniversary of one of the very first successful tablets, and it’s definitely had an immeasurable impact on people’s lives for better or for worse (if you’ve heard of “iPad kids,” you know what I mean). I took the liberty of celebrating the occasion by asking several Eastfield students how the iPad has impacted their lives.
When asked to share their first iPad experience, everyone had a different story to tell. Matilda said that her first experience using the iPad was when she got the 2018 Pro model, using it to create artwork in the popular drawing app Procreate. Leslie first used the iPad to play games, and is currently on her second model. Marlin’s first experience was back in 2017 with one of the older iPads, which she shared with her brothers and, similarly to Leslie, also played games on it.
My first experience with the iPad is from when I was a child back in 2013, when my dad’s ex-wife got an iPad and would let me and my brother play on it. My favorite app was a Nick Jr. art app complete with characters like Dora, the Bubble Guppies, Team Umizoomi and Peter Rabbit, just to name a few. I’d spend hours just doodling away and placing these little blocks where, if you touched them, a character would pop out.
The iPad has impacted classrooms in a big way. Matilda and Marlin shared that the user-friendly computer-like functionality of iPad makes it so students don’t need to buy a new laptop. This can result in potential financial savings, as well as just less items to carry around campus. Leslie uses her iPad for note taking and labeling diagrams. My iPad has proven to be an invaluable tool not just in school, but in my professional life as well. I’ve used it for taking notes, doing homework assignments, writing scripts, animating and drawing my comic strip “Point Green” (as seen in The Et Cetera) as well as my fantasy webtoon, “My Blazing Husky.”
During the last 15 years, the iPad has changed our perception of what a computer could be, and it’s become increasingly important to many students and professionals’ workflows. Artists, writers, doctors and engineers alike have all seen major changes to how they work thanks to the innovative technology of the iPad.
There’s just something about the iPad that no other computer has been able to replicate, and I certainly can’t wait to see how it continues to shape productivity in schools, at work and at home.
