Turning the clock back to 2010, the iPad was something of a risky move for Apple.
At that time, netbooks had a strong market presence. Apple was pressured to respond but the company was loath to embrace the chintzy plastic, slow performance, low battery life and particularly the cramped keyboard of the netbook's heyday. Indeed, the iPad was to the netbook what the iPhone was to the BlackBerry -- a rejection of compromised input at the expense of software-defined touch display.
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