The suspense is over and we know now it’s for real: the new Apple iPad. Bigger and better than the revolutionary iPhone, it can do all that the phone did. And more stylishly too.
However, we are not going to talk about what the iPad can and can’t do. Much has been said about it and even as we write this, we are sure there are plenty of netizens waxing eloquent about it.
What we want to do here is share a point with you. On how we think the iPad is a culmination of the work of many talented individuals. Of course, what we see today is just one magical instrument and not the many people who played a vital role in its making.
Top of the list is Jef Raskins. Jef, who, did you say? Well that’s the name you need to give credit to for many things – the drag and drop interface that Macs are so famous for. The fabulous packaging. The simple yet brilliant user manuals. And the list runs long.
Raskins was Apple’s 31st employee (we are talking 1978) and guided the Macintosh project, which made the Macs (as we call them) popular and commercially successful. A visionary, Raskins saw the space for a more human interface on the machines. He thought of the ‘information appliance’, a device which had a specific role (like a device for playing music) and was extremely easy to use.
The problem was that there were already such devices in the market. What was not there was a single computing device that could instantly adapt itself to the use you wanted to put it to. Whatever it was – play music, take photos, check mails. All this at the touch of a button. This idea was the forerunner of the iPhone. (Raskins left Apple in the early 80s and then, technology could not support his information appliance idea.)
Much much later Apple acquired Fingerworks – a company that specialised in multi-touch technology. Their patented technology is what made the iPhone such a hit. And it has been taken a step further in the iPad. So, if the iPhone and its successor, the iPad, let you flip, stretch, zoom and rotate objects on the screen using your fingers, you know who’s hard work it is.
It’s because of these reasons we think the iPad is a sort of culmination of many people’s work. No doubt Steve Jobs and Apple deserve credit for it. But then, there are many others who deserve to be in the spotlight too. And we are sure, we’ve heard of only some of them.