There’s no doubt that Apple’s iPad is a revolutionary computing device that’s ushering in a new era of tablet computing.
But in 1979, an earlier generation of Apple users used a different kind of Apple tablet, back when the word meant something else entirely.
The Apple Graphics Tablet was designed by Summagraphics and sold by Apple Computer Inc. for the Apple II personal microcomputer. (Summagraphics also marketed the device for other platforms as the BitPad.) To be clear, this tablet was not a stand-alone computing device like the iPad. Instead, it was an input device for creating images on the Apple II’s screen, and it predated the Apple II’s mouse by six years.
Interestingly, I’ve heard several designers wishing that the new Magic Trackpad could be used for pen-based input.