What’s Next For the iPad? A Tabletop iPad, According to Xerox PARC Circa 1991

Leander Kahney ()

What’s Next For the iPad? A Tabletop iPad, According to Xerox PARC Circa 1991

A 50-inch multitouch screen from Samsung shown off at CES in 2009. These devices will soon be common, according to a visionary, 20-year-old report from Xerox PARC. Image: Engadget.

Way back in 1991, just as Apple was transitioning from 68k to PowerPC chips, the braniacs at Xerox PARC were predicting it’s entire iPod, iPhone and iPad strategy. And next up for the iPad is a blackboard-sized device.

Nearly 20 years ago, just as personal desktop computers were taking off, researchers at Xerox started thinking about the next stage: ubiquitous computers and the cloud.

They envisioned a range of always-connected devices that came in three basic form-factors: Tabs, Pads, and Boards. They are described thus in a Scientific American article:

“Ubiquitous computers will also come in different sizes, each suited to a particular task. My colleagues and I have built what we call tabs, pads and boards: inch-scale machines that approximate active Post-It notes, foot-scale ones that behave something like a sheet of paper (or a book or a magazine), and yard-scale displays that are the equivalent of a blackboard or bulletin board.”

The inch-scale “tabs” are Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, plus smartphones from Google and Palm. The foot-scale “pads” are the iPad and the 50-odd tablets coming out this year. And next up are yard-scale “boards,” which will act a big-screen hubs in the home and interactive workspaces in the office. Microsoft’s Surface table is the best current example, but more big-screen devices are inevitable as component prices come down thanks to the flat-screen TV industry.

What’s amazing is how twenty years later PARC’s vision describes Apple’s transition into a “mobile” company with a range of devices accessing the cloud. It’s fitting that the vision that should come for the same lab that invented more-or-less personal desktop computing.

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Via Adam Rosen: Ubiquitous Computing 2010 – Tabs, Pads, Books and Clouds.

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Apple Tablet, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Music, Tablet, Top stories |

  • http://nerdvittles.com NerdUno

    Now that’s not fair. Just because Xerox had the idea doesn’t mean Apple shouldn’t get the patent.

  • http://www.docmurdock.com Michael Murdock

    Patents are granted to those who take action. XEROX had the opportunity to act on these, but the cost back then for them to file for these were substantial as well as keeping all that documentation on file at the time would have taken warehouses of space they did not have.

    With Apple, they can prove usage rights as well as territorial being that they expanded the computer industry substantially. Apple has never said that they did not go to PARC. They’ve never denied any of that. What they did was expand and take the ideas to many levels beyond what the labs did. They’ve never forgotten where they’ve come from.

    Others have.

    M

  • firesign3000

    since the mac was pretty much born out of what jobs and woz saw at xerox parc with the alto (and patents purchased from xerox much to the dismay of some people there if i remember correctly) this should surprise no one. xerox pretty much gave away the farm with what was developed at parc. xerox’s management stance back then was that they were a copier company and didn’t have much use for this stuff. if things had been different we might all be using xerox computers.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    @firesign3000,

    If there is no Apple, people will not be using xerox computers, as without Apple, xerox was unlikely to have released the product to the public.

    In addition, Mac was not “pretty much born out of what jobs and woz saw at xerox parc.” Here’s a long article on the myth: http://goo.gl/fb/rUQy

  • CubsFanRon

    @Michael -

    You don’t get a patent just because you build something first. Patents are granted to those who innovate (and actually file for a patent). It is sufficient to merely describe the innovation. Just because Company A files for a patent because they built something while Company X didn’t file for a patent (or build something) doesn’t mean that Company A will get a patent. If the Patent Office finds prior art (including prior art from Company X that is 20 years old), it can deny Company A’s patent application.

    The current rules for granting patent claims are so tilted against the new innovator that it is possible for 3 or 4 pieces of prior art to be combined to reject a claim.