In the following video, Knight-Ridder predicted an iPad-like tablet in 1994 (of course, with iPad, the stylus is not included, but available if you’d like).
Also, check out the “news” list shown at the 6:59 mark:
[Attribution: TUAW, 9 to 5 Mac, paleofuture. Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Apple uber-analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests the compnay may release a new version of the HomePod as soon as this year…
Demand for iPhone this quarter has remained “surprisingly resilient” despite the widespread supply chain issues, rampant U.S. inflation…
Apple Music has added a new “Essentials Anniversaries” feature that celebrates landmark albums as they reach major anniversaries…
Should you buy Apple stock at these discount prices? Absolutely. Investors who miss the current opportunity in Apple will kick themselves…
Costco has recently begun selling subscriptions to Apple services – Apple TV+, Apple News+, and Apple Arcade – at discounted yearly prices…
I forgot about the shoulder pad look.
I don’t remember hair being that bad back in 1994. This was post-Nirvana.
Be kind, these weren’t the hippest of folks.
Scary.
Lawsuits and claims of apple stealing ideas will sure to show up next.
Watch the video more closely. They use a Newton in there. Obviously, it was an inspiration for their “Tablet.”
sarcasm.
but you know someone will blame apple somewhere…
Actually, released Newton was the smallest of three designs that were planned and designed since 1987.
So yes, while Newton is the first actual PDA in contemporary meaning, it is also the first tablet.
Looks like they all have PowerBook Duo with Duo Dock on their desks. Wow, 1994 was when the very first PowerPC Macs were released; most Macs in use were still “68k.” Pretty good speculation from 17 years ago.
I would call this more than speculation. They do have a working prototype. They were a bit optimistic about customer loyalty to newspaper vendors. This story didn’t only predate iPads, it predates Google and their ad model. You can see that they were anticipating both in this story. This is fascinating.
I read that as Knight Rider, and I was about to get all impressed with David Hasselhoff. What a let down.
Lol I thought same thing.
Well, not the David hasselhoff part.. But KITT.
Same for me. The worst part, if true, it would have been from “Team Knight Rider” that was around 94 not 84. Never seen it? Count your blessings.
That was amazing how not far off they were. The concept of something close to printing but not a PC, post PC. Of course the iPad is much more, however the video almost sounds like iBooks. It is sad that the concept fell apart. MS’s inability to see a tablet as nothing more than a add on to a laptop stifled us for over a decade. Apple had all the vision and knowledge to get it done. I liked seeing all the old Mac’s in the background.
Sad that the “news” is almost the same, those were headlines from that time.
I predicted it in 1983.
Heck we saw them on Star Track 1970 era ….
“…turn pages just like you would with paper”
Yes, clicking a tiny icon with a stylus is just exactly like that. 😉
If they’d only known.
If you see a stylus, they blew it.
So, they ripped off the Knowledge Navigator from 7 years before.
That guy stole Steve Jobs’ glasses.
He also predicted Wolf Blitzer.
haha he looks like him
a few points of interest to me:
– i wonder if steve new about this
– despite this being mid 90’s and supposedly he says they were working with newspapers, newspapers did not see it coming when the ipad appeared
Am I the only that saw the headline and thought ‘holy smokes, Knight Rider. I loved that show’. Of course I was much, much younger when it first aired. 🙂
I love people who don’t read the other comments before posting.
I think she spilled clam sauce on the tablet. Oh, and I loved my Radius rotating monitor back then.
I have a Dell monitor that rotates, attached to my iMac as a second monitor. You have to manually set the rotation settings in system preferences – no sensors in the monitor to tell the OS which way it’s oriented. But at least you can say – I have given up trying that trick with XP!
Saw another vision of the future in 1966 on a show I think called “Star Trek” a communications device eerily similar to today’s cell phones. And the Pad that was used for Kirk’s daily report, although he did use a pen to sign it.
Makes me wonder if Jobs of someone in Apple had seen this before work started on the iPad. Apple isn’t the only ones trying to bring us a great digital future, but they seem to be the leading edge.