40 MACWORLD MARCH 2020
iOSCENTRAL THE iPAD AT 10show that the iPad was a comfortable
device meant to be used casually.
After revealing the iPad itself, Jobs sits
down and spends a very long time walking
the audience through the various bundled
apps on the iPad. He’s sending an
important message, right from the start:
These were apps that we were familiar
with from the iPhone, but they’re all bigger
and better because they’ve been modified
to take advantage of that larger iPad
screen. Safari, of course, but also Calendar
and iBooks and many others.
In the early days of the iPad, the most
cutting criticism (go.macworld.com/ctcr) of
the device was that it was “just a big
iPhone.” Apple’s presentation
demonstrates that while this is technically
true, it misses the point. The iPad was a
much larger canvas, and apps that grew to
fit the larger canvas were not just bigger,
but better.
Scott Forstall talks about the App Store
Steve Jobs introduces the original iPad. during the iPad introduction.
PREPARE FOR THE GOLD RUSH
In the second part of the presentation,
Scott Forstall (then Apple’s software chief)
invoked the App Store, which had already
become wildly successful after less than
two years in operation. It was the App
Store’s Gold Rush era, and Forstall’s
message was clear: There’s a new Gold
Rush coming, and it’s in iPad apps. And if
developers wanted their apps to be
prominently featured on the App Store for
iPad, Forstall pointed out, those apps
would need to be updated to support it.
iPhone-only apps would run, but they’d do
so in a diminished compatibility mode and
be relegated to the back pages of the App
Store.
The iPad was introduced in January,
but it didn’t ship until April (go.macworld.
com/shap)—and Apple released tools for
developers to build iPad apps the very day
the product was announced. The message