extended periods. By the time the second-gen
model arrived, the App Store had more than
65,000 apps made just for the iPad, ranging
from Twitter and Facebook through to note-
taking and drawing apps designed for artists.
But 2011 also marked the year Steve Jobs died,
and a time when Apple introduced the iPhone
4S, Siri, iCloud, and a decent iPhone camera for
the first time, changing the company’s path.
The iPad was refreshed in 2012 with a new 9.7-
inch Retina display with Siri, cameras, and a
4G antenna, and along came the iPad Mini, an
8-inch tablet designed for children and those on
a budget. 2013 followed and brought with it the
iPad Air, offering a 0.3-inch thick device that was
thinner and lighter than the previous iPad, and
the iPad Mini 2, both upgraded with Apple’s A7
processor, offering up to twice the performance
power of their predecessor iPads.
Apple refreshed its models again in 2014 with
the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, introducing
new colors and Touch ID for the first time,
but those products were released in a slump
when iPad sales fell for the third quarter in
a row. According to Tim Cook, Apple had sold
more than 225 million iPads at the time, and
though Apple was in the lead in the tablet race,
consumers just didn’t have the appetite for a
new iPad every year, unlike an iPhone. That was
both a blessing and a curse; though the firm had
a stronghold on the market, it knew it had to
innovate if it wanted to remain the leader.
And so out came the iPad Pro, with its 12.9-
inch Retina display, Smart Keyboard, and Apple
Pencil. This was Apple’s direct response to
the Microsoft Surface range of tablets and
PCs, working hard to win back professionals