Tablet computer

A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile

device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen
display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a
single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers, do what
other personal computers do, but lack some input/output (I/O)
abilities that others have. Modern tablets largely resemble
modern smartphones, the only differences being that tablets are
relatively larger than smartphones, with screens 7 inches (18 cm)
or larger, measured diagonally,[1][2][3][4] and may not support
access to a cellular network.

The touchscreen display is operated by gestures executed by Apple's iPad (left) and Amazon's Fire (right), two
finger or digital pen (stylus), instead of the mouse, trackpad, and popular tablet computers.
keyboard of larger computers. Portable computers can be
classified according to the presence and appearance of physical
keyboards. Two species of tablet, the slate and booklet, do not have physical keyboards and usually accept text
and other input by use of a virtual keyboard shown on their touchscreen displays. To compensate for their lack
of a physical keyboard, most tablets can connect to independent physical keyboards by Bluetooth or USB; 2-in-1
PCs have keyboards, distinct from tablets.

The form of the tablet was conceptualized in the middle of the 20th century (Stanley Kubrick depicted fictional
tablets in the 1968 science fiction film A Space Odyssey) and prototyped and developed in the last two decades
of that century. In 2010, Apple released the iPad, the first mass-market tablet to achieve widespread
popularity.[5] Thereafter tablets rapidly rose in ubiquity and soon became a large product category used for
personal, educational and workplace applications,[6] with sales stabilizing in the mid-2010s.[7][8][9] Popular uses
for a tablet PC include viewing presentations, video-conferencing, reading e-books, watching movies, sharing
photos and more.[10]

Contents
History
Fictional and prototype tablets
Early tablets
Modern tablets
Types
Slate
Mini tablet
Phablet
2-in-1
Gaming tablet
Booklet
Customized business tablet
Hardware
System architecture
Display
Handwriting recognition
/
 Other features
Software
Operating system
Android
Chrome OS
iOS
Windows
Hybrid OS operation
Application store
Sales
By manufacturer
By operating system
Use
Sleep
By plane
Tourism
Professional use for specific sectors
See also
References
External links

History
The tablet computer and its associated operating system began with the
development of pen computing.[11] Electrical devices with data input and
output on a flat information display existed as early as 1888 with the
telautograph,[12] which used a sheet of paper as display and a pen attached
to electromechanical actuators. Throughout the 20th century devices with
these characteristics have been imagined and created whether as blueprints,
prototypes, or commercial products. In addition to many academic and
research systems, several companies released commercial products in the
1980s, with various input/output types tried out.

The development of the tablet computer was enabled by several key

technological advances. The rapid scaling and miniaturization of MOSFET
transistor technology (Moore's law), the basic building block of mobile
devices and computing devices,[13][14] made it possible to build portable
smart devices such as tablet computers.[13] Another important enabling
factor was the lithium-ion battery, an indispensable energy source for
1888 telautograph patent schema
tablets,[15] commercialized by Sony and Asahi Kasei in 1991.[16]

Fictional and prototype tablets

Tablet computers appeared in a number of works of science fiction in the second half of the 20th century; all
helped to promote and disseminate the concept to a wider audience.[17] Examples include:

Isaac Asimov described a Calculator Pad in his novel Foundation (1951)

Stanislaw Lem described the Opton in his novel Return from the Stars (1961)
Numerous similar devices were depicted in Gene Roddenberry's 1966 Star Trek: The Original Series
/
 Arthur C. Clarke's NewsPad[18] was depicted in Stanley Kubrick's film
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Douglas Adams described a tablet computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy and the associated comedy of the same name (1978)
The sci-fi TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation featured tablet
computers which were designated as PADDs.[19]
Wireless tablet device portrayed in
A device more powerful than today's tablets appeared briefly in The the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey
Mote in God's Eye (1974).[20] (1968)
The Star Wars franchise features datapads, first described in print in
1991's Heir to the Empire and depicted on screen in 1999's The
Phantom Menace.

Further, real-life projects either proposed or created tablet computers, such as:

In 1968, computer scientist Alan Kay envisioned a KiddiComp;[21][22] he developed and described the
concept as a Dynabook in his proposal, A personal computer for children of all ages (1972),[23] which
outlines functionality similar to that supplied via a laptop computer, or (in some of its other incarnations) a
tablet or slate computer, with the exception of near eternal battery life. Adults could also use a Dynabook,
but the target audience was children.
In 1979, the idea of a touchscreen tablet that could detect an external force applied to one point on the
screen was patented in Japan by a team at Hitachi consisting of Masao Hotta, Yoshikazu Miyamoto, Norio
Yokozawa and Yoshimitsu Oshima, who later received a US patent for their idea.[24]
In 1992, Atari showed developers the Stylus, later renamed ST-Pad. The ST-Pad was based on the
TOS/GEM Atari ST Platform and prototyped early handwriting recognition. Shiraz Shivji's company
Momentus demonstrated in the same time a failed x86 MS-DOS based Pen Computer with its own graphical
user interface (GUI).[25]
In 1994, the European Union initiated the NewsPad project, inspired by Clarke and Kubrick's fictional
work.[26] Acorn Computers developed and delivered an ARM-based touch screen tablet computer for this
program, branding it the "NewsPad"; the project ended in 1997.[27]
During the November 2000 COMDEX, Microsoft used the term Tablet PC to describe a prototype handheld
device they were demonstrating.[28][29][30]
In 2001, Ericsson Mobile Communications announced an experimental product named the DelphiPad, which
was developed in cooperation with the Centre for Wireless Communications in Singapore, with a touch-
sensitive screen, Netscape Navigator as a web browser, and Linux as its operating system.[31][32]

Early tablets

Following earlier tablet computer products such as the Pencept PenPad,[33][34] and the CIC Handwriter,[35] in
September 1989, GRiD Systems released the first commercially successful tablet computer, the GRiDPad.[36][37]
All three products were based on extended versions of the MS-DOS operating system. In 1992, IBM announced
(in April) and shipped to developers (in October) the 2521 ThinkPad, which ran the GO Corporation's PenPoint
OS. Also based on PenPoint was AT&T's EO Personal Communicator from 1993, which ran on AT&T's own
hardware, including their own AT&T Hobbit CPU. Apple Computer launched the Apple Newton personal digital
assistant in 1993. It used Apple's own new Newton OS, initially running on hardware manufactured by Motorola
and incorporating an ARM CPU, that Apple had specifically co-developed with Acorn Computers. The operating
system and platform design were later licensed to Sharp and Digital Ocean, who went on to manufacture their
own variants.

In 1996, Palm, Inc. released the first of the Palm OS based PalmPilot touch and stylus based PDA, the touch
based devices initially incorporating a Motorola Dragonball (68000) CPU. Also in 1996 Fujitsu released the
Stylistic 1000 tablet format PC, running Microsoft Windows 95, on a 100 MHz AMD486 DX4 CPU, with 8 MB
RAM offering stylus input, with the option of connecting a conventional Keyboard and mouse. Intel announced
a StrongARM[38] processor-based touchscreen tablet computer in 1999, under the name WebPAD. It was later
re-branded as the "Intel Web Tablet".[39] In 2000, Norwegian company Screen Media AS and the German
/