Another interesting story out of the Steve Jobs biography reveals that the iPad was created to silence a Microsoft employee that kept bragging about how great their tablet (perhaps this one?) was going to be.
[Bill] Gates was annoyed that the guy kept revealing information about the tablet PC he had developed for Microsoft. "He's our employee and he's revealing out intellectual property," Gates recounted. Jobs was also annoyed, and it had the consequence that Gates feared. As Jobs recalled:
This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you're dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, "Fuck it, let's show him what a tablet can really be."
Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, "I want to make a tablet, and it can't have a keyboard or a stylus."
[via CultofMac]
[Bill] Gates was annoyed that the guy kept revealing information about the tablet PC he had developed for Microsoft. "He's our employee and he's revealing out intellectual property," Gates recounted. Jobs was also annoyed, and it had the consequence that Gates feared. As Jobs recalled:
This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you're dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, "Fuck it, let's show him what a tablet can really be."
Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, "I want to make a tablet, and it can't have a keyboard or a stylus."
[via CultofMac]