History of Tablets Timeline

In 1986, Hindsight, a startup in Enfield CT, developed the Letterbug, an 8086-based tablet computer for the educational market. Prototypes were shown at trade shows in New England in 1987, but no production models ever came out.

In 1987 Linus Technologies released the Write-Top, the first tablet computer with pen input and handwriting recognition. Around 1500 units were sold.

Image source: Linus Write-Top

In 1988, Apple, as part of the 'Design the Personal Computer of the Year 2000' contest, awarded a project named TABLET, inspired by the Dynabook concept.

In 1988, Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Acorn Computers, with Olivetti established the Active Book Company Ltd to develop an ARM based pen computer with GSM connectivity and a Smalltalk based touch OS. The company was bought by AT&T, and some technology was borrowed for its 1991 EO Personal Communicator.

Image source: Active Network, LLC

In 1989, Grid Systems released the GridPad 1900, the first commercially successful tablet computer.

Image source: Grid Compass

In 1991, AT&T released their first EO Personal Communicator, one of the first commercially available tablets. It ran GO Corporation's PenPoint OS on AT&T's own hardware, including their own AT&T Hobbit CPU.

Image source: EO Personal Communicator

In 1991, the Atari ST-PAD Stylus was demonstrated but did not enter production.

Image source: Atari ST

GO Corporation shipped the PenPoint OS for general availability and IBM announced the IBM 2125 pen computer, the first IBM model named 'ThinkPad', in April 1991.

Image source: GO Corporation

NCR released model 3125 pen computer running MS-DOS, PenPoint OS or Pen Windows, offering flexible operating system support for pen computing.

Image source: NCR Voyix

In 1992, Samsung introduced the PenMaster, adding to the growing lineup of pen-based computing devices.

Image source: Grid Systems

The Compaq Concerto was released in 1993 with a Compaq-modified version of MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1, combining laptop and tablet functionality.

Image source: Compaq Concerto

In 1993, Apple Computer released the Apple Newton, a personal digital assistant with a 6-inch screen weighing about 800 grams.

Image source: Apple Newton

In 1994 media company Knight Ridder made a concept video of a tablet device with a color display and a focus on media consumption, remarkably prescient of later tablets.

Image source: Knight Ridder

In 1994, the European Union initiated the 'OMI-NewsPAD' project (EP9252), requiring a consumer device be developed for receipt and consumption of electronically delivered news and multimedia. The device was supplied for the Barcelona-based trial, which ended in 1997.

Image source: Acorn Computers

In 1996, The Webbook Company announced the first Internet-based tablet, then referred to as a Web Surfboard, that would run Java and utilize a RISC processor.

Image source: Netbook

In 1996, Fujitsu released the Stylistic 1000 tablet format PC, running Microsoft Windows 95 on a 100 MHz AMD486 DX4 CPU with 8 MB RAM, offering stylus input with optional keyboard and mouse.

Image source: Fujitsu Lifebook

In 1999, Intel announced a StrongARM based touch screen tablet computer under the name WebPAD; the tablet was later re-branded as the 'Intel Web Tablet'.

Image source: Tablet computer

PaceBlade developed the first device that met Microsoft's Tablet PC standard and received the 'Best Hardware' award at VAR Vision 2000.

In 2000, Microsoft coined the term 'Microsoft Tablet PC' for tablet computers built to Microsoft's specification and running a licensed tablet-enhanced version of Windows, popularizing the term tablet PC. In 1999 Microsoft had assigned two experts from Xerox PARC to re-institute the decades-old tablet concept.

Image source: Microsoft Tablet PC

In April 2000, Microsoft launched the Pocket PC 2000, utilising their touch capable Windows CE 3.0 operating system.

Image source: Pocket PC

In 2002, original equipment manufacturers released the first tablet PCs designed to the Microsoft Tablet PC specification.

PaceBlade received the 'Innovation des Jahres 2002/2003' award for the PaceBook Tablet PC from PC Professional Magazine at CeBIT.

In 2003, Hitachi introduced the VisionPlate rugged tablet that was used as a point of sale device.

Image source: Hitachi

In April 2008, as part of a larger federal court case, the gesture features of the Windows/Tablet PC operating system and hardware were found to infringe on a patent by GO Corp.

Before the introduction of the iPad, Axiotron introduced the Modbook, a heavily modified Apple MacBook, Mac OS X-based tablet computer at Macworld in 2007.

Image source: Modbook

In January 2009, HP purchased the Palm OS successor webOS to be their proprietary operating system running on the Linux kernel. In March 2011, HP announced plans for a version of webOS within Microsoft Windows for desktops and notebooks in 2012.

Image source: WebOS

In 2010, Nokia and Intel combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to form MeeGo. Maemo, a Debian Linux based graphical user environment, had been developed for Nokia Internet Tablet devices (770, N800, N810 & N900).

Image source: MeeGo

The tablet computer market was reinvigorated by Apple through the introduction of the iPad device in 2010. A WiFi-only model was released in April 2010, and a WiFi+3G model followed about a month later using a no-contract data plan from AT&T.

Image source: IPad (1st generation)

Neofonie released the WeTab, a MeeGo-based slate tablet PC featuring an 11.6 inch multi-touch screen at 1366×768 pixels resolution.

Image source: WeTab

The 5 inch Dell Streak was released in June 2010 as one of the early competitors to Apple's iPad not based on traditional PC architecture.

Image source: Dell Streak

The original 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Fusion5 X220 Tablet PC were both released in September 2010 as early competitors to Apple's iPad.

Image source: Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011, over 80 new tablets were announced to compete with the iPad. Dell also showcased the Streak 7 tablet at CES 2011.

Image source: Consumer Electronics Show

Other than the Motorola Xoom, by the time most competitors released devices of comparable size and price to the original iPad, Apple in March 2011 had already released their second generation iPad 2.

Image source: Motorola Xoom

Hewlett-Packard announced its TouchPad based on the WebOS system in June 2011. HP released the TouchPad and withdrew it in August 2011, a month later. On 18 August 2011, HP announced it would discontinue production of all webOS devices.

Image source: HP TouchPad

In September 2011, Amazon.com announced the Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet deeply tied into their Kindle ebook service, Amazon Appstore, and other Amazon services for digital music, video, and other content.

Image source: Amazon Fire

As of the release of iOS 5 in October 2011, iPads no longer required being plugged into a separate personal computer for initial activation and backups, eliminating one drawback of non-PC architecture-based tablets.

Image source: IOS 5

On 20 May 2010, IDC published a press release defining the term media tablet as personal devices with screens from 7 to 12 inches, lightweight ARM-based operating systems providing broad applications and connectivity. IDC predicted market growth from 7.6 million units in 2010 to more than 46 million units in 2014.

On 2 March 2011, Apple announced that 15 million iPads had been sold in three fiscal quarters of 2010, double the number that IDC then predicted. At the iPad 2 unveiling, Steve Jobs claimed the iPad held more than 90% market share.

Image source: IPad

On 22 September 2011, Gartner lowered their forecast for Android tablet sales by 28 percent, citing high prices, weak user interface and limited apps, while projecting Apple would command over 50% of the market until 2014. On 14 September, IDC reported iPad market share rose to 68.3% in Q2 2011, aided partly by RIM's PlayBook taking 4.9%.

Image source: Gartner

A Strategy Analytics report showed Android's share of tablet computers rose sharply at the expense of Apple's iOS in Q4 2011, accounting for 39% of the global tablet market, up from 29% a year earlier. In August 2011, iPads still outsold rival tablets by eight to one.

According to IDC, Android held 63% of all 'media tablet' sales in 2013 and rising, while Apple's iPad fell from 83% of sales in 2010 to 28% market share in 2013, with Windows also rising in market share.