Apple iPad.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in a 1983 speech that the company's strategy was simple: "What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes... and we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don't have to hook up to anything and you're in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers."

Apple's first tablet computer was the Newton MessagePad 100, introduced in 1993, powered by an ARM6 processor core developed by ARM, a 1990 spinout of Acorn Computers in which Apple invested. Apple also developed a prototype PowerBook Duo based tablet, the PenLite, but decided not to sell it in order to avoid hurting MessagePad sales. Apple released several more Newton-based PDAs; the final one, the MessagePad 2100, was discontinued in 1998.

Apple re-entered the mobile-computing markets in 2007 with the iPhone. Smaller than the iPad, but featuring a camera and mobile phone, it pioneered the multi-touch finger-sensitive touchscreen interface of Apple's iOS mobile operating system. By late 2009, the iPad's release had been rumoured for several years. Such speculation mostly talked about "Apple's tablet"; specific names included iTablet and iSlate. The iPad was announced on January 27, 2010, by Steve Jobs at an Apple press conference at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.