A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet or simply tab, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers, have similar capabilities, but lack some input/output (I/O) abilities that others have. Many modern tablets are based on smartphones, the only differences being that tablets are relatively larger than smartphones, with screens from 7 inches (18 cm) to 13 inches (33 cm), measured diagonally, and may not support access to a cellular network. Unlike laptops (which have traditionally run off operating systems usually designed for desktops), tablets usually run mobile operating systems, alongside smartphones. The touchscreen display is operated by gestures executed by finger or digital pen (stylus), instead of the mouse, touchpad, and keyboard of larger computers. Portable computers can be classified according to the presence and appearance of physical keyboards. Two species of tablet, the slate and booklet, do not have physical keyboards and usually accept text and other input by use of a virtual keyboard shown on their touchscreen displays. To compensate for their lack of a physical keyboard, most tablets can connect to independent physical keyboards by Bluetooth or USB; 2-in-1 PCs have keyboards, distinct from tablets. The form of the tablet was conceptualized in the middle of the 20th century (Stanley Kubrick depicted fictional tablets in the 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey) and prototyped and developed in the last two decades of that century. In 2010, Apple released the iPad, the first mass-market tablet to achieve widespread popularity. Thereafter, tablets rapidly rose in ubiquity and soon became a large product category used for personal, educational and workplace applications. Popular uses for a tablet PC include viewing presentations, video-conferencing, reading e-books, watching movies, sharing photos, and more. As of 2021 there are 1.28 billion tablet users worldwide according to data provided by Statista. Currently Apple holds the largest manufacturer market share followed by Samsung and Lenovo.
History
The tablet computer and its associated operating system began with the development of pen computing. Electrical devices with data input and output on a flat information display existed as early as 1888 with the telautograph, which used a sheet of paper as display and a pen attached to electromechanical actuators. Throughout the 20th century devices with these characteristics have been imagined and created whether as blueprints, prototypes, or commercial products. In addition to many academic and research systems, several companies released commercial products in the 1980s, with various input/output types tried out.
Fictional and prototype tablets Tablet computers appeared in a number of works of science fiction in the second half of the 20th century; all helped to promote and disseminate the concept to a wider audience. Examples include:
Isaac Asimov described a Calculator Pad in his novel Foundation (1951) Stanisław Lem described the Opton in his novel Return from the Stars (1961) Numerous similar devices were depicted in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) Dr Who: The Dominators Educator Balan holds a tablet which he inputs data into using swipe gestures (1967) Arthur C. Clarke's newspad was depicted in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Douglas Adams described a tablet computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the associated comedy of the same name (1978) The science fiction TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation featured tablet computers which were designated as PADDs, notable for (as with most computers in the show) using a touchscreen interface, both with and without a stylus (1987) A device more powerful than today's tablets appeared briefly in The Mote in God's Eye (1974) The Star Wars franchise features datapads, first described in print in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, and depicted on screen in the 1999 feature film, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Further, real-life projects either proposed or created tablet computers, such as:
In 1968, computer scientist Alan Kay envisioned a KiddiComp; he developed and described the concept as a Dynabook in his proposal, A personal computer for children of all ages (1972), which outlines functionality similar to that supplied via a laptop computer, or (in some of its other incarnations) a tablet or slate computer, with the exception of near eternal battery life. The target audience was children. In 1979, the idea of a touchscreen tablet that could detect an external force applied to one point on the screen was patented in Japan by a team at Hitachi consisting of Masao Hotta, Yoshikazu Miyamoto, Norio Yokozawa and Yoshimitsu Oshima, who later received a US patent for their idea. In 1984, Hartmut Esslinger created a touchscreen Macintosh concept, featuring a touch display and a keyboard, a prototype of which sits in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art In 1992, Atari showed developers the Stylus, later renamed ST-Pad. The ST-Pad was based on the TOS/GEM Atari ST platform and prototyped early handwriting recognition. Shiraz Shivji's company Momentus demonstrated in the same time a failed x86 MS-DOS based Pen Computer with its own graphical user interface (GUI). In 1994, the European Union initiated the NewsPad project, inspired by Clarke and Kubrick's fictional work. Acorn Computers developed and delivered an ARM-based touch screen tablet computer for this program, branding it the "NewsPad"; the project ended in 1997. During the November 2000 COMDEX, Microsoft used the term Tablet PC to describe a prototype handheld device they were demonstrating. In 2001, Ericsson Mobile Communications announced an experimental product named the DelphiPad, which was developed in cooperation with the Centre for Wireless Communications in Singapore, with a touch-sensitive screen, Netscape Navigator as a web browser, and Linux as its operating system.
Early tablets
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