iPad celebrated its 8th birthday - read 8 interesting facts about its development

Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad on January 27, 2010, during a closely watched keynote. The tablet from Apple celebrated its eighth anniversary two days ago, and due to it, an interesting comment appeared on Twitter from a person who worked at Apple at the time. Such incidents should usually be taken with a grain of salt, as anyone can make them up. However, in this case, the source of the information is confirmed and there is no reason not to trust it. Eight short tweets describe what it roughly looked like during the development of the first iPad.

The author is Bethany Bongiorno, who started working at Apple in 2008 as a software project manager. Shortly after joining, she was tasked with leading the software development section for a new, and at that time, unannounced product. She later found out it was a tablet and the rest is history. However, due to the eight-year anniversary, she decided to publish eight interesting memories that she has from this period. You can find the original twitter feed <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>.

1. Choosing the chair that stood on the stage during the presentation was an incredibly long and detailed process. Steve Jobs had several color variants of the Le Corbusier LC2 chair brought to the stage and examined to the smallest detail how each color combination looked on stage, how it reacted to the light, whether it had enough patina in the right places or whether it was comfortable to sit on is sitting
2. When Apple invited third-party developers to prepare the first few apps for the iPad, they were told that it would be a short visit and that they would arrive essentially "for a spin." As it later turned out, the developers were "stuck" in Apple's headquarters for several weeks, and due to their unpreparedness for such a stay, they had to buy new clothes and other daily necessities at the supermarket.
3. The developers mentioned above were guarded like an eye in the head. They went in groups that were watched over by Apple employees (even on weekends). They were not allowed to bring their mobile phones or use WiFi networks to their workplace. The iPads they worked with were hidden in special cases that did not allow a view of the entire device, only the display and basic controls.
4. At one point during development, Steve Jobs decided he wanted to change the color of some UI elements to orange. However, it wasn't just any ordinary orange, but the shade that Sony used on the buttons of some of their old remotes. Apple managed to obtain several drivers from Sony and based on them, the user interface was colored. In the end, Jobs didn't like it, so the whole idea was dropped…
5. Just before the start of the Christmas holidays in 2009 (that is, less than a month before the presentation), Jobs decided that he wanted to have a wallpaper for the home screen on the iPad. One of the software engineers worked on this feature over Christmas so that it would be ready when he returned to work. This function came to the iPhone with iOS 4 half a year later.
6. At the end of 2009, the game Angry Birds was released. At that moment, few people had any idea how big a hit it would become in the next few years. When Apple employees started playing it on a large scale, they wanted it to be an Angry Birds game that would serve as a demonstration of iPhone-to-iPad app compatibility. However, this idea did not meet with support, as not everyone considered Angry Birds to be something groundbreaking.
7. Steve Jobs had a problem with the way the user interface elements looked when scrolling, for example at the end of an email, at the end of a web page, etc. Jobs did not like the simple white color because it allegedly looked unfinished. The appearance of the UI should have been complete, even in places that users rarely come across. It was on this impulse that the old familiar "cloth" texture was implemented, which was in the background of the user interface.
8. When Jobs introduced the first iPad during the keynote, there were many different shouts and declarations from the audience. A journalist sitting behind the author of these memories reportedly shouted out loud that it was the "most beautiful thing" he had ever seen. Such moments are etched in the memory very deeply, when the environment reacts to the work you have done in this way.

Source: Twitter