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A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a
mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physica ...
, typically with a
mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...
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 In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals ...
(I/O) abilities that others have. Modern tablets largely resemble modern
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s, the only differences being that tablets are relatively larger than smartphones, with screens or larger, measured diagonally, and may not support access to a
cellular network A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver (typically th ...
. Unlike laptops which have traditionally run off operating systems usually designed for desktops, tablets usually run
mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...
s, alongside smartphones. The touchscreen display is operated by
gestures A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, o ...
executed by finger or digital pen (stylus), instead of the mouse, touchpad, and
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
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 Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
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 Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
depicted fictional tablets in the 1968 science fiction film ''
A Space Odyssey ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' is a 1968 science fiction novel written by Arthur C. Clarke and the 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is a part of Clarke's ''Space Odyssey'' series, the first of four novels and two films. Both the nov ...
'') and prototyped and developed in the last two decades of that century. In 2010,
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
released the
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
, the first mass-market tablet to achieve widespread popularity. Thereafter, tablets rapidly rose in ubiquity and soon became a large product category used for personal, educational and workplace applications. Popular uses for a tablet PC include viewing presentations, video-conferencing, reading e-books, watching movies, sharing photos and more. As of 2021 there are 1.28 billion tablet users worldwide according to data provided by Statista. The market for tablets is split relatively evenly between Apple's iPad and Android tablets, with iPads capturing slightly more global market share.


History

The tablet computer and its associated operating system began with the development of pen computing. Electrical devices with data input and output on a flat
information display A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal th ...
existed as early as 1888 with the telautograph, which used a sheet of paper as display and a pen attached to electromechanical
actuator An actuator is a component of a machine that is responsible for moving and controlling a mechanism or system, for example by opening a valve. In simple terms, it is a "mover". An actuator requires a control device (controlled by control signal) a ...
s. Throughout the 20th century devices with these characteristics have been imagined and created whether as blueprints,
prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...
s, or
commercial product In marketing, a product is an object, or system, or service made available for consumer use as of the consumer demand; it is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy the desire or need of a customer. In retailing, products are ofte ...
s. In addition to many academic and research systems, several companies released commercial products in the 1980s, with various input/output types tried out.


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. Examples include: * Isaac Asimov described a Calculator Pad in his novel '' Foundation'' (1951) * Stanisław Lem described the Opton in his novel '' Return from the Stars'' (1961) * Numerous similar devices were depicted in Gene Roddenberry's '' Star Trek: The Original Series'' (1966) *
Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...
's newspad was depicted in
Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
'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 science fiction TV series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' featured tablet computers which were designated as
PADD In the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe, LCARS (; an acronym for Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) is a computer operating system. Within ''Star Trek'' chronology, the term was first used in the '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' serie ...
s, notable for (as with most computers in the show) using a touchscreen interface, both with and without a stylus (1987) * A device more powerful than today's tablets appeared briefly in '' The Mote in God's Eye'' (1974) * The Star Wars franchise features ''datapads'', first described in print in the 1991 novel ''
Heir to the Empire The ''Thrawn'' trilogy, also known as the ''Heir to the Empire'' trilogy, is a trilogy of novels set in the '' Star Wars'' universe, written by Timothy Zahn between 1991 and 1993. The first book marked the end of what ''Star Wars'' fandom calls "T ...
'', and depicted on screen in the 1999 feature film, ''
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace ''Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' is a 1999 American Epic film, epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Dan ...
'' Further, real-life projects either proposed or created tablet computers, such as: * In 1968, computer scientist Alan Kay envisioned a KiddiComp; he developed and described the concept as a Dynabook in his proposal, ''A personal computer for children of all ages'' (1972), 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. 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 () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...
consisting of Masao Hotta, Yoshikazu Miyamoto, Norio Yokozawa and Yoshimitsu Oshima, who later received a US patent for their idea. * In 1992,
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
showed developers the Stylus, later renamed ST-Pad. The ST-Pad was based on the TOS/GEM
Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...
platform and prototyped early handwriting recognition.
Shiraz Shivji Shiraz Shivji (born 1947 in what is now Tanzania) was the primary designer of the 1985 Atari ST computer, and one of the engineers of the Commodore 64. Biography Shiraz Shivji, born 1947 in what is now Tanzania, was of Indian Ismaili heritage. ...
's company ''Momentus'' demonstrated in the same time a failed x86
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
based Pen Computer with its own
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, ins ...
(GUI). * In 1994, the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
initiated the NewsPad project, inspired by Clarke and Kubrick's fictional work. Acorn Computers developed and delivered an ARM-based touch screen tablet computer for this program, branding it the "NewsPad"; the project ended in 1997. * During the November 2000 COMDEX,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
used the term Tablet PC to describe a prototype handheld device they were demonstrating. * 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 A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
, and
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
as its
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
.


Early tablets

Following earlier tablet computer products such as the Pencept PenPad, and the CIC Handwriter, in September 1989, GRiD Systems released the first commercially successful tablet computer, the
GRiDPad GRiDPad was a trademarked name for a series of pen computing tablets built by Grid Systems Corporation. The GRiDPad 1900, released in 1989, is regarded as the first commercially successful tablet computer. Jeff Hawkins went on to use the GRiD ...
. All three products were based on extended versions of the
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
operating system. In 1992, IBM announced (in April) and shipped to developers (in October) the ThinkPad 700T (2521), which ran the GO Corporation's
PenPoint OS The PenPoint OS was a product of GO Corporation and was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants. It ran on AT&T Corporation's EO Personal Communicator as well as a number ...
. Also based on PenPoint was
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...
'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 The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started ...
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 Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's ...
. The operating system and platform design were later licensed to
Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 199 ...
and
Digital Ocean Digital Ocean, Inc., was a maker of wireless products from 1992 to 1998. The company was founded in May 1992 by Jeffery Alholm and headquartered in Lenexa, Kansas. Several contracts with Apple Inc., AT&T, Aironet Wireless Communications (later ...
, who went on to manufacture their own variants. Pen computing was highly hyped by the media during the early 1990s.
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
, the dominant PC software vendor, released Windows for Pen Computing in 1992 to compete against PenPoint OS. The company launched the WinPad project, working together with OEMs such as
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
, to create a small device with a
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
-like operating system and handwriting recognition. However the project was abandoned two years later; instead
Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
was released in the form of "
Handheld PC A handheld personal computer (PC) is a miniature computer typically built around a clamshell form factor and is significantly smaller than any standard laptop computer, but based on the same principles. It is sometimes referred to as a ''palmto ...
s" in 1996. That year, Palm, Inc. released the first of the
Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is pro ...
based
PalmPilot The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics, later 3Com). These devices were launched on March 10, 1997. Accessories and pricing Pa ...
touch and stylus based PDA, the touch based devices initially incorporating a
Motorola Dragonball Motorola/Freescale Semiconductor's DragonBall, or MC68328, is a microcontroller design based on the famous 68000 core, but implemented as an all-in-one low-power system for handheld computer use. It is supported by μClinux. It was designed by Mot ...
(68000) CPU. Also in 1996 Fujitsu released the Stylistic 1000 tablet format PC, running Microsoft
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
, 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 processor-based touchscreen tablet computer in 1999, under the name WebPAD. It was later re-branded as the "Intel Web Tablet". In 2000, Norwegian company Screen Media AS and the German company Dosch & Amand Gmbh released the "FreePad". It was based on Linux and used the
Opera browser Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
.
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Interne ...
was provided by DECT DMAP, only available in Europe and provided up to 10Mbit/s. The device had 16 MB storage, 32 MB of RAM and x86 compatible 166 MHz "Geode"-Microcontroller by
National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...
. The screen was 10.4" or 12.1" and was touch sensitive. It had slots for SIM cards to enable support of television set-up box. FreePad were sold in Norway and the Middle East; but the company was dissolved in 2003.
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
released its Airboard tablet in Japan in late 2000 with full wireless Internet capabilities. In the late 1990s, Microsoft launched the
Handheld PC A handheld personal computer (PC) is a miniature computer typically built around a clamshell form factor and is significantly smaller than any standard laptop computer, but based on the same principles. It is sometimes referred to as a ''palmto ...
platform using their Windows CE operating system; while most devices were not tablets, a few touch enabled tablets were released on the platform such as the
Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...
PenCentra 130 or
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
's
SIMpad The SIMpad is a portable computer developed by the company Keith & Koep by order of Siemens AG, with an 8.4" TFT touchscreen. Commonly used with wireless network cards, it was marketed as a device to browse the World Wide Web. Initially announced ...
. Microsoft took a more significant approach to tablets in 2002 as it attempted to define the Microsoft Tablet PC as a mobile computer for field work in business, though their devices failed, mainly due to pricing and
usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a sof ...
decisions that limited them to their original purpose – such as the existing devices being too heavy to be held with one hand for extended periods, and having legacy applications created for desktop interfaces and not well adapted to the slate format.
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
had plans for an Internet tablet since before 2000. An early model was test manufactured in 2001, the Nokia M510, which was running on EPOC and featuring an
Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
browser, speakers and a 10-inch 800×600 screen, but it was not released because of fears that the market was not ready for it. Nokia entered the tablet space in May 2005 with the Nokia 770 running
Maemo Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
, a Debian-based Linux distribution custom-made for their Internet tablet line. The
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
and
application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user inter ...
layer, named
Hildon Hildon is an application framework originally developed for mobile devices (PDAs, mobile phones, etc.) running the Linux operating system as well as the Symbian operating system. The Symbian variant of Hildon was discontinued with the cancel ...
, was an early instance of a software platform for generic computing in a tablet device intended for internet consumption. But Nokia did not commit to it as their only platform for their future mobile devices and the project competed against other in-house platforms and later replaced it with the
Series 60 The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface) was a software platform for smartphones that runs on top of the Symbian operating system. It was created by Nokia based on the 'Pearl' user interface from Symbian Ltd. It was introduced at ...
. Nokia used the term ''internet tablet'' to refer to a portable information appliance that focused on Internet use and media consumption, in the range between a
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in part ...
(PDA) and an
Ultra-Mobile PC An ultra-mobile PC, or ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), is a miniature version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this d ...
(UMPC). They made two mobile phones, the N900 that runs Maemo, and N9 that run Meego. Before the release of iPad, Axiotron introduced an aftermarket, heavily modified Apple MacBook called Modbook, a
Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...
-based tablet computer. The Modbook uses Apple's
Inkwell An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing. The artist or writer dips the brush, quill, or dip pen into the inkwell ...
for handwriting and gesture recognition, and uses digitization hardware from Wacom. To get Mac OS X to talk to the digitizer on the integrated tablet, the Modbook was supplied with a third-party driver. Following the launch of the
Ultra-mobile PC An ultra-mobile PC, or ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), is a miniature version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this d ...
, Intel began the
Mobile Internet Device A mobile Internet device (MID) is a multimedia capable mobile device providing wireless Internet access. They are designed to provide entertainment, information and location-based services for personal or business use. They allow 2-way communica ...
initiative, which took the same hardware and combined it with a tabletized Linux configuration. Intel codeveloped the lightweight Moblin (mobile Linux) operating system following the successful launch of the Atom CPU series on netbooks. In 2010, Nokia and
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to form MeeGo, a Linux-based operating system supports netbooks and tablets. The first tablet using MeeGo was the Neofonie WeTab launched September 2010 in Germany. The WeTab used an extended version of the MeeGo operating system called WeTab OS. WeTab OS adds runtimes for Android and
Adobe AIR Adobe AIR (also known as Adobe Integrated Runtime and is codenamed Apollo) is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile applic ...
and provides a proprietary user interface optimized for the WeTab device. On September 27, 2011, the
Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Addi ...
announced that MeeGo would be replaced in 2012 by
Tizen Tizen () is a Linux-based mobile operating system backed by the Linux Foundation, mainly developed and used primarily by Samsung Electronics. The project was originally conceived as an HTML5-based platform for mobile devices to succeed MeeGo. ...
.


Modern tablets

Android was the first of the 2000s-era dominating platforms for tablet computers to reach the market. In 2008, the first plans for Android-based tablets appeared. The first products were released in 2009. Among them was the Archos 5, a pocket-sized model with a 5-inch touchscreen, that was first released with a proprietary operating system and later (in 2009) released with Android 1.4. The Camangi WebStation was released in Q2 2009. The first LTE Android tablet appeared late 2009 and was made by ICD for
Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
. This unit was called the Ultra, but a version called Vega was released around the same time. Ultra had a 7-inch display while Vega's was 15 inches. Many more products followed in 2010. Several manufacturers waited for
Android Honeycomb Android Honeycomb is the codename for the third version of Android, designed for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets, however has been unofficially ported to the Nexus One. It is the third major release of Android and is no ...
, specifically adapted for use with tablets, which debuted in February 2011.
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
is often credited for defining a new class of consumer device with the
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
, which shaped the commercial market for tablets in the following years, and was the most successful tablet at the time of its release. iPads and competing devices were tested by the US military in 2011 and cleared for secure use in 2013. Its debut in 2010 pushed tablets into the mainstream.
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
's
Galaxy Tab The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a line of Android-based and Windows-based tablet computers produced by Samsung Electronics. The first model in the series, the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, was presented to the public on 2 September 2010 at the IFA in ...
and others followed, continuing the trends towards the features listed above. In March 2012, ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the presen ...
'' reported that 31% of U.S. Internet users owned a tablet, used mainly for viewing published content such as video and news. The top-selling line of devices was Apple's iPad with 100 million sold between its release in April 2010 and mid-October 2012, but iPad
market share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...
(number of units) dropped to 36% in 2013 with Android tablets climbing to 62%. Android tablet sales volume was 121 million devices, plus 52 million, between 2012 and 2013 respectively. Individual brands of Android operating system devices or compatibles follow iPad with Amazon's
Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...
with 7 million, and Barnes & Noble's Nook with 5 million. The
BlackBerry PlayBook The BlackBerry PlayBook is a Tablet computer#Mini tablets, mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry (company), BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM).
was announced in September 2010 that ran the
BlackBerry Tablet OS BlackBerry Tablet OS is an operating system from BlackBerry Ltd based on the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system designed to run Adobe AIR and BlackBerry WebWorks applications, currently available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet compute ...
. The BlackBerry PlayBook was officially released to US and Canadian consumers on April 19, 2011.
Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
announced that the
TouchPad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
, running
WebOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...
3.0 on a 1.2 GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon's central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM architecture. A single SoC may include ...
CPU, would be released in June 2011. On August 18, 2011, HP announced the discontinuation of the TouchPad, due to sluggish sales. In 2013, the
Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
announced a prototype tablet model with
Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
which ran on Firefox OS. Firefox OS was discontinued in 2016. The
Canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical examp ...
hinted that
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
would be available on tablets by 2014. In February 2016, there was a commercial release of the BQ Aquaris Ubuntu tablet using the Ubuntu Touch operating system. Canonical terminated support for the project due to lack of market interest on April 5, 2017 and it was then adopted by the UBports as a community project. As of February 2014, 83% of mobile app developers were targeting tablets, but 93% of developers were targeting smartphones. By 2014, around 23% of B2B companies were said to have deployed tablets for sales-related activities, according to a survey report by Corporate Visions. The iPad held majority use in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and most of the Americas. Android tablets were more popular in most of Asia (China and Russia an exception), Africa and Eastern Europe. In 2015 tablet sales did not increase. Apple remained the largest seller but its market share declined below 25%.
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
vice president Gary Riding said early in 2016 that tablets were only doing well among those using them for work. Newer models were more expensive and designed for a keyboard and stylus, which reflected the changing uses. As of early 2016, Android reigned over the market with 65%. Apple took the number 2 spot with 26%, and Windows took a distant third with the remaining 9%. In 2018, out of 4.4 billion computing devices Android accounted for 2 billion, iOS for 1 billion, and the remainder were PCs, in various forms (desktop, notebook, or tablet), running various operating systems (Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, etc.). Since the early 2020's various companies such as
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
are beginning to introduce foldable technology into their tablets.


Types

Tablets can be loosely grouped into several categories by physical size, kind of operating system installed, input and output technology, and uses.


Slate

The size of a slate varies, but slates begin at 6 inches (approximately 15 cm). Some models in the larger than 10-inch (25 cm) category include the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 at 12.2 inches (31 cm), the Toshiba Excite at 13.3 inches (33 cm) and the Dell XPS 18 at 18.4 inches (47 cm). As of March 2013, the thinnest tablet on the market was the
Sony Xperia Tablet Z The Xperia Tablet Z is a touchscreen Android tablet designed and manufactured by Sony and was first announced in Japan in January 2013. It was then announced globally in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress on February 25, 2013. The tablet i ...
at only 0.27 inches (6.9 mm) thick. On September 9, 2015, Apple released the iPad Pro with a screen size, larger than the regular
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
.


Mini tablet

Mini tablets are smaller and weigh less than slates, with typical screen sizes between . The first commercially successful mini tablets were introduced by Amazon.com (
Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...
),
Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 ...
(
Nook Tablet The Nook Tablet (sometimes styled NOOK Tablet) is a tablet e-reader/media player that was produced and marketed by Barnes & Noble. It followed the Nook Color and was intended to compete with both e-book readers and tablet computers. Barnes & N ...
), and
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
(
Galaxy Tab The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a line of Android-based and Windows-based tablet computers produced by Samsung Electronics. The first model in the series, the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, was presented to the public on 2 September 2010 at the IFA in ...
) in 2011; and by Google ( Nexus 7) in 2012. They operate identically to ordinary tablets but have lower specifications compared to them. On September 14, 2012, Amazon, Inc. released an upgraded version of the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Fire HD, with higher screen resolution and more features compared to its predecessor, yet remaining only 7 inches. In October 2012, Apple released the iPad Mini with a 7.9-inch screen size, about 2 inches smaller than the regular
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
, but less powerful than the then current iPad 3. On July 24, 2013, Google released an upgraded version of the Nexus 7, with FHD display, dual cameras, stereo speakers, more color accuracy, performance improvement, built-in
wireless charging Inductive charging (also known as wireless charging or cordless charging) is a type of wireless power transfer. It uses electromagnetic induction to provide electricity to portable devices. Inductive charging is also used in vehicles, power too ...
, and a variant with 4G LTE support for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. In September 2013, Amazon further updated the Fire tablet with the
Kindle Fire HDX The Fire HDX, formerly named Kindle Fire HDX, was a high-end model in Amazon Fire line of tablet computers. It was announced on September 25, 2013 and was available in two models, 7 inch and 8.9 inch. The 7 inch WiFi model was rele ...
. In November 2013, Apple released the iPad Mini 2, which remained at 7.9 inches and nearly matched the hardware of the iPad Air.


Phablet

Smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s and tablets are similar devices, differentiated by the former typically having smaller screens and most tablets lacking
cellular network A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver (typically th ...
capability. Since 2010, crossover touchscreen smartphones with screens larger than 5 inches have been released. That size is generally considered larger than a traditional smartphone, creating the hybrid category of the ''
phablet A phablet (, ) is a mobile device combining or straddling the size formats of smartphones and tablets. The word is a portmanteau of ''phone'' and ''tablet''. Phablets feature large displays that complement screen-intensive activity such as mo ...
'' by
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
and other publications. "Phablet" is a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsSamsung Galaxy Note series (newer models of 5.7 inches), the
LG V10 The LG V10 is an Android smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics as part of the LG V series. Announced in September 2015 and released in October 2015, the device shares many similarities with the earlier LG G4. Its main feature is a customiza ...
/ V20 (5.7 inches), the
Sony Xperia XA Ultra The Sony Xperia XA Ultra is an Android smartphone manufactured by Sony Mobile Communications. It was announced in May 2016 and was released in July 2016. Specifications Hardware The device features a 1080p screen, also features a 64-bit 2.0&n ...
(6 inches), the Huawei Mate 9 (5.9 inches), and the Huawei Honor (MediaPad) X2 (7 inches).


2-in-1

Nowadays In spite of this
touchscreen gaming laptop
are becoming more popular among professional workers, such as graphic designers, who also require a lot of storage and a powerful processor. They can be used as a tablet and laptop both. A 2-in-1 PC is a hybrid or combination of a tablet and laptop computer that has features of both. Distinct from tablets,
2-in-1 PC A 2-in-1 PC, also known as convertible laptop, 2-in-1 tablet, 2-in-1 laptop, 2-in-1 detachable, laplet, tabtop, laptop tablet, or simply 2-in-1, is a portable computer that has features of both tablets and laptops. Before the emergence of ''2- ...
s all have physical keyboards, but they are either concealable by folding them back and under the touchscreen ("2-in-1 convertible") or detachable ("2-in-1 detachable"). 2-in-1s typically also can display a virtual keyboard on their touchscreens when their physical keyboards are concealed or detached. Some 2-in-1s have processors and
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
s like those of laptops, such as
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...
, while having the flexibility of operation as a tablet. Further, 2-in-1s may have typical laptop I/O ports, such as
USB 3 USB 3.0, released in November 2008, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as ' ...
and
DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...
, and may connect to traditional PC peripheral devices and external displays. Simple tablets are mainly used as
media consumption Media consumption or media diet is the sum of information and entertainment media taken in by an individual or group. It includes activities such as interacting with new media, reading books and magazines, watching television and film, and li ...
devices, while 2-in-1s have capacity for both
media consumption Media consumption or media diet is the sum of information and entertainment media taken in by an individual or group. It includes activities such as interacting with new media, reading books and magazines, watching television and film, and li ...
and content creation, and thus 2-in-1s are often called ''laptop'' or ''
desktop replacement computer A desktop replacement computer (DTR) is a personal computer that provides the full capabilities of a desktop computer while remaining mobile. They are often larger, bulkier laptops or in some cases 2-in-1 PCs with a tablet-like form factor and ...
s''. There are two species of 2-in-1s: * Convertibles have a
chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpar ...
design by which their physical keyboard may be concealed by flipping/folding the keyboard behind the chassis. Examples include 2-in-1 PCs of the
Lenovo Yoga Lenovo Yoga (stylized as Lenovo YOGA or simply YOGΛ) is a line of consumer-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, named for their ability to assume multiple form factors due to a hinged screen. 2012 L ...
series. * Detachables or Hybrids have physical keyboards that may be detached from their
chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpar ...
, even while the 2-in-1 is operating. Examples include 2-in-1 PCs of the Asus Transformer Pad and Book series, the iPad Pro, and the Microsoft Surface Book and
Surface Pro The Surface Pro is a first generation 2-in-1 detachable of the Microsoft Surface series, designed and manufactured by Microsoft. The device ran a 64-bit version of Windows 8 Pro operating system with a free upgrade possibility to Windows 8.1 ...
.


Gaming tablet

Some tablets are modified by adding physical
gamepad A gamepad is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers (especially thumbs) are used to provide input. They are typically the main input device for video game consoles. Features Gamepads generally feature a set o ...
buttons such as
D-pad A D-pad (short for directional pad or digital pad; officially referred to by Nintendo as a +Control Pad) is a flat, usually thumb-operated, often digital, four-way directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern vid ...
and thumb sticks for better gaming experience combined with the touchscreen and all other features of a typical tablet computer. Most of these tablets are targeted to run native OS games and
emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...
games.
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
's
Shield Tablet The Shield Tablet, later relaunched as the Shield Tablet K1, is a gaming tablet, developed by Nvidia and released on July 29, 2014. It was Nvidia's second portable gaming device that uses Android. Compared to the Shield Portable, the controller ...
, with an display, and running Android, is an example. It runs Android games purchased from
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
store.
PC game A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-det ...
s can also be streamed to the tablet from computers with some higher end models of Nvidia-powered
video card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer m ...
s. The
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...
hybrid console is also a gaming tablet that runs on Nintendo Switch system software, features detachable
Joy-Con Joy-Con are the primary game controllers for the Nintendo Switch video game console. They consist of two individual units, each containing an analog stick and an array of buttons. They can be used while attached to the main Nintendo Switch con ...
controllers with motion controls and three gaming modes: table-top mode using its kickstand, traditional docked/TV mode and handheld mode. While not entirely an actual tablet form factor due to their sizes, some other handheld console including the smaller version of Nintendo Switch the Nintendo Switch Lite and
PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international terri ...
are treat as an gaming tablet or tablet replacement by community and reviewer/publisher due to their capabilities on browsing the internet and multimedia capabilities.


Booklet

Booklets are
dual-touchscreen A dual-touchscreen is a computer or phone display setup which uses two screens, either or both of which could be touch-capable, to display both elements of the computer's graphical user interface and virtualized implementations of common input dev ...
tablet computers with a clamshell design that can fold like a laptop. Examples include the
Microsoft Courier Courier was a prototype concept by Microsoft for a dual-touchscreen tablet. The device was conceived as being a digital notebook, consisting of two 7-inch touchscreens hinged together like a book, and running a custom operating system built prim ...
, which was discontinued in 2010, the
Sony Tablet P The Sony Tablet P (former code name ''Sony S2'') is a tablet computer that was manufactured by Sony as part of the Sony Tablet series. Description It was released as the Android version of the Sony Vaio P who also had a wide screen. It has tw ...
(considered a flop), and the Toshiba Libretto W100.


Customized business tablet

Customized business tablets are built specifically for a business customer's particular needs from a hardware and software perspective, and delivered in a
business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when: * A business is sourcing materials for their production process for output (e.g., a ...
transaction. For example, in hardware, a transportation company may find that the consumer-grade GPS module in an off-the-shelf tablet provides insufficient accuracy, so a tablet can be customized and embedded with a professional-grade antenna to provide a better GPS signal. Such tablets may also be ruggedized for field use. For a software example, the same transportation company might remove certain software functions in the Android system, such as the internet browser, to reduce costs from needless cellular network data consumption of an employee, and add custom package management software. Other applications may call for a
resistive touchscreen In electrical engineering, a resistive touchscreen is a touch-sensitive computer display composed of two flexible sheets coated with a resistive material and separated by an air gap or microdots. Description and operation There are two diffe ...
and other special hardware and software. A table ordering tablet is a touchscreen tablet computer designed for use in casual restaurants. Such devices allow users to order food and drinks, play games and pay their bill. Since 2013, restaurant chains including
Chili's Chili's Grill & Bar is an American casual dining restaurant chain. The company was founded by Larry Lavine in Texas in 1975 and is currently owned and operated by Brinker International. History Chili's first location, a converted postal stati ...
,
Olive Garden Olive Garden is an American casual dining restaurant chain specializing in Italian-American cuisine. It is a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants, Inc., which is headquartered in Orange County, Florida. As of 2012, Olive Garden restaurants accounted ...
and
Red Robin Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc., more commonly known as Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews or simply Red Robin, is an American chain of casual dining restaurants founded in September 1969 in Seattle, Washington. In 1979, the first franchised ...
have adopted them. As of 2014, the two most popular brands were Ziosk and Presto. The devices have been criticized by servers who claim that some restaurants determine their hours based on customer feedback in areas unrelated to service.


E-Reader

Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an
E-reader An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals. Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...
. While traditionally E-readers are designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals, modern E-readers that use a mobile operating system such as Android have incorporated modern functionally including internet browsing and multimedia capabilities; for example Huawei MatePad Paper is a tablet that uses e-ink instead of typical LCD or LED panel, hence focusing on the reading digital content while maintaining the internet and multimedia capabilities. Some E-reader such as PocketBook InkPad Color and ONYX BOOX NOVA 3 Color even came with colored e-ink panel and speaker which allowed for higher degree of multimedia consumption and video playback. Kindle line from Amazon mostly retain on the E-reading capabilities, however the recent update to their Kindle firmware had allowed the Kindle reader line to browse the internet and audio playback that can be substitute to traditional tablet due to more readable e-ink panel and battery life, while still allowing user to access to wider multimedia capabilities compared to the older model.


Hardware


System architecture

Two major architectures dominate the tablet market,
ARM Ltd. Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England. Its primary business is in the design of ARM processors (CPUs). It also designs other chips, provides software development tools under the DS-5, RealView ...
's
ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
and Intel's and AMD's x86. Intel's x86, including
x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
has powered the "IBM compatible" PC since 1981 and Apple's Macintosh computers since 2006. The CPUs have been incorporated into tablet PCs over the years and generally offer greater performance along with the ability to run full versions of Microsoft
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
, along with Windows desktop and enterprise applications. Non-Windows based x86 tablets include the JooJoo. Intel announced plans to enter the tablet market with its
Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...
in 2010. In October 2013, Intel's foundry operation announced plans to build FPGA-based quad cores for ARM and x86 processors. ARM has been the CPU architecture of choice for manufacturers of smartphones (95% ARM), PDAs, digital cameras (80% ARM),
set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of s ...
es, DSL routers, smart televisions (70% ARM), storage devices and tablet computers (95% ARM). This dominance began with the release of the mobile-focused and comparatively power-efficient 32-bit ARM610 processor originally designed for the
Apple Newton The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started ...
in 1993 and ARM3-using Acorn A4 laptop in 1992. The chip was adopted by Psion, Palm and Nokia for PDAs and later smartphones, camera phones, cameras, etc. ARM's licensing model supported this success by allowing device manufacturers to license, alter and fabricate custom SoC derivatives tailored to their own products. This has helped manufacturers extend battery life and shrink component count along with the size of devices. The multiple licensees ensured that multiple fabricators could supply near-identical products, while encouraging price competition. This forced unit prices down to a fraction of their x86 equivalents. The architecture has historically had limited support from Microsoft, with only
Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
available, but with the 2012 release of Windows 8, Microsoft announced added support for the architecture, shipping their own ARM-based tablet computer, branded the
Microsoft Surface Microsoft Surface is a series of touchscreen-based personal computers, tablets and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft, running the Microsoft Windows operating system, apart from the Surface Duo, which runs on A ...
, as well as an x86-64 Intel Core i5 variant branded as Microsoft Surface Pro. Intel tablet chip sales were 1 million units in 2012, and 12 million units in 2013. Intel chairman Andy Bryant has stated that its 2014 goal is to quadruple its tablet chip sales to 40 million units by the end of that year, as an investment for 2015.


Display

A key component among tablet computers is touch input on a touchscreen display. This allows the user to navigate easily and type with a virtual keyboard on the screen or press other icons on the screen to open apps or files. The first tablet to do this was the
GRiDPad GRiDPad was a trademarked name for a series of pen computing tablets built by Grid Systems Corporation. The GRiDPad 1900, released in 1989, is regarded as the first commercially successful tablet computer. Jeff Hawkins went on to use the GRiD ...
by GRiD Systems Corporation; the tablet featured both a
stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision ...
, a pen-like tool to aid with precision in a touchscreen device as well as an on-screen keyboard. Jeff Hawkins: The system must respond to on-screen touches rather than clicks of a keyboard or mouse. This operation makes precise use of our
eye–hand coordination Eye–hand coordination (also known as hand–eye coordination) is the coordinated control of eye movement with hand movement and the processing of visual input to guide reaching and grasping along with the use of proprioception of the hands to ...
. Touchscreens usually come in one of two forms: *
Resistive touchscreen In electrical engineering, a resistive touchscreen is a touch-sensitive computer display composed of two flexible sheets coated with a resistive material and separated by an air gap or microdots. Description and operation There are two diffe ...
s are passive and respond to pressure on the screen. They allow a high level of precision, useful in emulating a pointer (as is common in tablet computers) but may require calibration. Because of the high resolution, a stylus or fingernail is often used. Stylus-oriented systems are less suited to
multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University ...
. * Capacitive touchscreens tend to be less accurate, but more responsive than resistive devices. Because they require a conductive material, such as a fingertip, for input, they are not common among stylus-oriented devices but are prominent on consumer devices. Most finger-driven capacitive screens do not currently support pressure input (except for the iPhone 6S and later models), but some tablets use a pressure-sensitive stylus or active pen. * Some tablets can recognize individual palms, while some professional-grade tablets use pressure-sensitive films, such as those on
graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a spec ...
s. Some capacitive touch-screens can detect the size of the touched area and the pressure used.Buxton, Bill
Multitouch Overview
Since mid-2010s, most tablets use capacitive touchscreens with
multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University ...
, unlike earlier
resistive touchscreen In electrical engineering, a resistive touchscreen is a touch-sensitive computer display composed of two flexible sheets coated with a resistive material and separated by an air gap or microdots. Description and operation There are two diffe ...
devices which users needed styluses to perform inputs. There are also
electronic paper Electronic paper, also sometimes electronic ink, e-ink or electrophoretic display, are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional flat panel displays that emit light, an electronic paper display ...
tablets such as Sony Digital Paper DPTS1 and reMarkable that use E ink for its display technology.


Handwriting recognition

Many tablets support a stylus and support handwriting recognition. Wacom and N-trig digital pens provide approximately 2500 DPI resolution for handwriting, exceeding the resolution of capacitive touch screens by more than a factor of 10. These pens also support pressure sensitivity, allowing for "variable-width stroke-based" characters, such as Chinese/Japanese/Korean writing, due to their built-in capability of "pressure sensing". Pressure is also used in digital art applications such as
Autodesk Sketchbook Sketchbook (formerly StudioPaint, Autodesk SketchBook), is a raster graphics software app intended for expressive drawing and concept sketching also for making animations (Jelly Boo, Teatralka). The software was first developed by Alias Systems C ...
. Apps exist on both iOS and Android platforms for handwriting recognition and in 2015 Google introduced its own handwriting input with support for 82 languages.


Other features

After 2007, with access to capacitive screens and the success of the iPhone, other features became common, such as multi-touch features (in which the user can touch the screen in multiple places to trigger actions and other
natural user interface In computing, a natural user interface (NUI) or natural interface is a user interface that is effectively invisible, and remains invisible as the user continuously learns increasingly complex interactions. The word "natural" is used because most ...
features, as well as
flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...
solid state storage and "instant on" warm-booting; external USB and
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
keyboards defined tablets. Most tablets released since mid-2010 use a version of an ARM processor for longer battery life. The ARM Cortex family is powerful enough for tasks such as internet browsing, light creative and production work and
mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone ( feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...
s.The Coming War: ARM versus x86
Mirror for: ''The Bright Side of News'' April 8, 2010
Other features are: High-definition, anti-glare display, touchscreen, lower weight and longer
battery life An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its negati ...
than a comparably-sized laptop, wireless local area and internet connectivity (usually with
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
standard and optional
mobile broadband Mobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access via mobile networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a tablet/ smartphone (possibly tethered) or other mobile device. The fir ...
),
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
for connecting peripherals and communicating with local devices, ports for wired connections and charging, for example USB ports, Early devices had IR support and could work as a TV
remote controller In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...
,
docking station In computing, a docking station or port replicator (hub) or dock provides a simplified way to ''plug-in'' a mobile device, such as a laptop, to common peripherals. Because a wide range of dockable devices—from mobile phones to wireless mou ...
, keyboard and added connectivity, on-board
flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...
, ports for removable storage, various
cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is ty ...
services for backup and syncing data across devices, local storage on a
local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a large ...
(LAN). *
Speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...
Google introduced voice input in Android 2.1 in 2009 and voice actions in 2.2 in 2010, with up to five languages (now around 40).
Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer qu ...
was introduced as a system-wide personal assistant on the
iPhone 4S The iPhone 4S (originally styled as iPhone 4 S, retroactively stylized with a lowercase 's' as iPhone 4s as of September 2013) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, succ ...
in 2011 and now supports nearly 20 languages. In both cases, the voice input is sent to central servers to perform general speech recognition and thus requires a network connection for more than simple commands. * Near field communication with other compatible devices including ISO/IEC 14443 RFID tags.


Software


Current tablet operating systems

Tablets, like conventional PCs, use several different
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
s, though dual-booting is rare. Tablet operating systems come in two classes: *
Desktop computer A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
operating systems *
Mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...
s Desktop OS-based tablets are currently thicker and heavier. They require more storage and more cooling and give less battery life. They can run processor-intensive graphical applications in addition to
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
s, and have more ports. Mobile-based tablets are the reverse, and run only mobile apps. They can use battery life conservatively because the processor is significantly smaller. This allows the battery to last much longer than the common laptop. In Q1 2018, Android tablets had 62% of the market, Apple's iOS had 23.4% of the market and Windows 10 had 14.6% of the market. In late 2021, iOS has 55% use worldwide (varies by continent, e.g. below 50% in South America and Africa) and Android 45% use. Still, Android tablets have more use than iOS in virtually all countries, except for e.g. the US and China.


Android

Android is a
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
-based
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
that Google offers as
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
under the Apache license. It is designed primarily for mobile devices such as
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s and tablet computers. Android supports low-cost ARM systems and others. The first tablets running Android were released in 2009. Vendors such as
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...
and
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related se ...
delayed deployment of their tablets until after 2011, when Android was reworked to include more tablet features. Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), released in 2011 and later versions support larger screen sizes, mainly tablets, and have access to the
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
service. Android includes operating system,
middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement ...
and key applications. Other vendors sell customized Android tablets, such as
Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...
and Nook, which are used to consume mobile content and provide their own app store, rather than using the larger
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
system, thereby fragmenting the Android market. In 2022 Google began to re-emphasize in-house Android tablet development — at this point, a multi-year commitment.


=Android Go

= A few tablet computers are shipped with
Android Go Android Go, officially Android (Go Edition), is a stripped-down version of the Android operating system, designed for low-end and ultra-budget smartphones (but is also used by some tablets). However, it is intended for smartphones with less tha ...
.


=Fire OS

= As mentioned above, Amazon Fire OS is an Android-based mobile operating system produced by Amazon for its Fire range of tablets. It is forked from Android. Fire OS primarily centers on content consumption, with a customized user interface and heavy ties to content available from Amazon's own storefronts and services.


ChromeOS

Several devices that run
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfa ...
came on the market in 2017–2019, as tablets, or as 2-in-1s with touchscreen and 360-degree hinge.


HarmonyOS

HarmonyOS (HMOS) () is a
distributed operating system A distributed operating system is system software over a collection of independent software, networked, communicating, and physically separate computational nodes. They handle jobs which are serviced by multiple CPUs. Each individual node holds a ...
developed by
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various sma ...
to collaborate and interconnect with multiple smart devices on the
Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...
ecosystem. In its current multi-kernel design, the operating system selects suitable kernels from the
abstraction layer In computing, an abstraction layer or abstraction level is a way of hiding the working details of a subsystem. Examples of software models that use layers of abstraction include the OSI model for network protocols, OpenGL, and other graphics libr ...
for devices with diverse resources. For
IoT The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...
devices, the system is known to be based on LiteOS kernel; while for smartphones and tablets, it is based on a
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...
layer with AOSP libraries to support APK apps using ART through the Ark Compiler, in addition to native HarmonyOS apps.


iPadOS

The
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
runs on
iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for its iPad line of tablet computers. It is a rebranded variant of iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones, renamed to reflect the diverging features of the two product ...
. Prior to the introduction of iPadOS in 2019, the iPad ran iOS, which was created for the iPhone and
iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a musi ...
. The first iPad was released in 2010. Although built on the same underlying
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
implementation as
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
, its user interface is radically different. iPadOS is designed for touch input from the user's fingers and has none of the features that required a stylus on earlier tablets. Apple introduced
multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University ...
gestures, such as moving two fingers apart or together to zoom in or out, also termed ''pinch to zoom''. iPadOS and iOS are built for the
ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
.


Kindle firmware

Kindle firmware is mobile operating system specifically design for Amazon Amazon Kindle e-readers, it is based on custom Linux kernel however it is entirely closed-source and proprietary, and only runs on Amazon Kindle line up manufactured under Amazon brand.


Nintendo Switch system software

The Nintendo Switch system software (also known by its codename Horizon) is an updatable firmware and operating system used by the Nintendo Switch hybrid video game console/tablet and Nintendo Switch Lite handheld game console. It is based on a proprietary microkernel. The UI includes a HOME screen, consisting of the top bar, the screenshot viewer ("Album"), and shortcuts to the Nintendo eShop, News, and Settings.


PlayStation Vita system software

The PlayStation Vita system software is the official firmware and operating system for the
PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international terri ...
and
PlayStation TV The PlayStation TV (abbreviated to PS TV), known in Japan and other parts of Asia as the PlayStation Vita TV or PS Vita TV, is a microconsole, and a non-handheld variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. It was released in Japan on ...
video game consoles. It uses the LiveArea as its graphical shell. The PlayStation Vita system software has one optional add-on component, the PlayStation Mobile Runtime Package. The system is built on a Unix-base which is derived from FreeBSD and NetBSD. Due to it capabilities on browsing the internet and multimedia capabilities, it is treat as an gaming tablet or tablet replacement by community and reviewer/publisher.


Ubuntu Touch

Ubuntu Touch is an open-source ( GPL) mobile version of the
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
operating system originally developed in 2013 by
Canonical Ltd. Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...
and continued by the non-profit UBports Foundation in 2017. Ubuntu Touch can run on a pure GNU/Linux base on phones with the required drivers, such as the Librem 5 and the PinePhone. To enable hardware that was originally shipped with Android, Ubuntu Touch makes use of the Android Linux kernel, using Android drivers and services via an
LXC Linux Containers (LXC) is an operating-system-level virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a control host using a single Linux kernel. The Linux kernel provides the cgroups functionality that allows ...
container, but does not use any of the Java-like code of Android. As of February 2022, Ubuntu Touch is available on 78 phones and tablets. The UBports Installer serves as an easy-to-use tool to allow inexperienced users to install the operating system on third-party devices without damaging their hardware.


Windows

Following Windows for Pen Computing for Windows 3.1 in 1991, Microsoft supported tablets running Windows XP under the Microsoft Tablet PC name. Microsoft Tablet PCs were pen-based, fully functional x86
PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
with handwriting and voice recognition functionality.
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...
provided pen support. Tablet support was added to both Home and Business versions of
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
and
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
. Tablets running Windows could use the touchscreen for mouse input, hand writing recognition and gesture support. Following Tablet PC, Microsoft announced the
Ultra-mobile PC An ultra-mobile PC, or ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), is a miniature version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this d ...
initiative in 2006 which brought Windows tablets to a smaller, touch-centric form factor. In 2008, Microsoft showed a prototype of a two-screen tablet called
Microsoft Courier Courier was a prototype concept by Microsoft for a dual-touchscreen tablet. The device was conceived as being a digital notebook, consisting of two 7-inch touchscreens hinged together like a book, and running a custom operating system built prim ...
, but cancelled the project. In 2012, Microsoft released
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
, which features significant changes to various aspects of the operating system's user interface and platform which are designed for touch-based devices such as tablets. The operating system also introduced an
application store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
and a new style of application optimized primarily for use on tablets. Microsoft also introduced
Windows RT Windows RT is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a version of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 built for the 32-bit ARM architecture (ARMv7). First unveiled in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show, the Windows RT 8 operat ...
, an edition of Windows 8 for use on ARM-based devices. The launch of Windows 8 and RT was accompanied by the release of devices with the two operating systems by various manufacturers (including Microsoft themselves, with the release of Surface), such as slate tablets, hybrids, and convertibles. Released in July 2015, Windows 10 introduces what Microsoft described as " universal apps"; expanding on
Metro-style app Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps (formerly Windows Store apps and Metro-style apps) are Application software, applications that can be used across all compatible Microsoft Windows devices, including personal computers (PCs), tablets, smar ...
s, these apps can be designed to run across multiple Microsoft product families with nearly identical code‍ – ‌including
PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
, tablets,
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s,
embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded ...
s,
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
, Surface Hub and
Windows Holographic Windows Mixed Reality is a platform introduced as part of the Windows 10 and 11 operating system, which provides augmented reality and virtual reality experiences with compatible head-mounted displays. Its flagship device, Microsoft HoloLens ...
. The Windows user interface was revised to handle transitions between a mouse-oriented interface and a touchscreen-optimized interface based on available input devices‍ – ‌particularly on
2-in-1 PC A 2-in-1 PC, also known as convertible laptop, 2-in-1 tablet, 2-in-1 laptop, 2-in-1 detachable, laplet, tabtop, laptop tablet, or simply 2-in-1, is a portable computer that has features of both tablets and laptops. Before the emergence of ''2- ...
s; both interfaces include an updated
Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...
. Windows 10 replaced all earlier editions of Windows.


Hybrid OS operation

Several hardware companies have built hybrid devices with the possibility to work with both Android and
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...
operating systems (or in rare cases
Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
, as with the, by now cancelled,
Asus Transformer Book Duet The Transformer Book Duet TD300, was a 13.3 inch tablet computer that was developed by Asus. The device used two operating systems interchangeably: Windows 8.1 by Microsoft, and Android 4.1 by Google. The device featured a tablet screen and a ...
), while
Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...
stated: "dual-OS devices are always terrible products. Windows and Android almost never cross-communicate, so any dual-OS device means dealing with separate apps, data, and storage pools and completely different UI paradigms. So from a consumer perspective, Microsoft and Google are really just saving OEMs from producing tons of clunky devices that no one will want."


Discontinued tablet operating systems


BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry 10 BlackBerry 10 is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system for the BlackBerry line of smartphones, both developed by BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion). BlackBerry 10 is based on QNX, a Unix-like operating system that was ...
(based on the QNX OS) is from
BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...
. As a smartphone OS, it is closed-source and proprietary, and only runs on phones and tablets manufactured by BlackBerry. One of the dominant platforms in the world in the late 2000s, its global market share was reduced significantly by the mid-2010s. In late 2016, BlackBerry announced that it will continue to support the OS, with a promise to release 10.3.3. Therefore, BlackBerry 10 would not receive any major updates as BlackBerry and its partners would focus more on their Android base development.


BlackBerry Tablet OS

BlackBerry Tablet OS BlackBerry Tablet OS is an operating system from BlackBerry Ltd based on the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system designed to run Adobe AIR and BlackBerry WebWorks applications, currently available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet compute ...
is an operating system from BlackBerry Ltd based on the QNX Neutrino
real-time operating system A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which m ...
designed to run
Adobe AIR Adobe AIR (also known as Adobe Integrated Runtime and is codenamed Apollo) is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile applic ...
and
BlackBerry WebWorks The BlackBerry PlayBook is a mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM).
applications, currently available for the
BlackBerry PlayBook The BlackBerry PlayBook is a Tablet computer#Mini tablets, mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry (company), BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM).
tablet computer. The BlackBerry Tablet OS is the first tablet running an operating system from QNX (now a subsidiary of RIM). BlackBerry Tablet OS supports standard BlackBerry
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
applications. Support for Android apps has also been announced, through sandbox "app players" which can be ported by developers or installed through sideloading by users. A BlackBerry Tablet OS Native Development Kit, to develop native applications with the
GNU toolchain The GNU toolchain is a broad collection of programming tools produced by the GNU Project. These tools form a toolchain (a suite of tools used in a serial manner) used for developing software applications and operating systems. The GNU toolchai ...
is currently in closed beta testing. The first device to run BlackBerry Tablet OS was the
BlackBerry PlayBook The BlackBerry PlayBook is a Tablet computer#Mini tablets, mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry (company), BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM).
tablet computer.


Application store

Apps that do not come pre-installed with the system are supplied through online distribution. These sources, termed ''
app store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
s'', provide centralized catalogs of software and allow "one click" on-device software purchasing, installation and updates. Mobile device suppliers may adopt a "walled garden" approach, wherein the supplier controls what software applications ("apps") are available.
Software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific ...
s are restricted to approved software developers. This can be used to reduce the impact of
malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depr ...
, provide software with an approved
content rating A content rating (also known as maturity rating) rates the suitability of TV shows, movies, comic books, or video games to this primary targeted audience. A content rating usually places a media source into one of a number of different categories, ...
, control application quality and exclude competing vendors.
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
,
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
, Microsoft and
Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 ...
all adopted the strategy. B&N originally allowed arbitrary apps to be installed, but, in December 2011, excluded third parties. Apple and IBM have agreed to cooperate in
cross-selling Cross-selling is a sales technique involving the selling of an additional product or service to an existing customer. In practice, businesses define cross-selling in many different ways. Elements that might influence the definition might include ...
IBM-developed applications for iPads and iPhones in enterprise-level accounts. Proponents of open source software say that the iPad (or such "walled garden" app store approach) violates the spirit of personal control that traditional personal computers have always provided.


Sales

Around 2010, tablet use by businesses jumped, as business began to use them for conferences, events, and trade shows. In 2012, Intel reported that their tablet program improved productivity for about 19,000 of their employees by an average of 57 minutes a day. In October 2012, display screen shipments for tablets began surpassing shipments for laptop display screens. Tablets are increasingly used in the
construction industry Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and co ...
to look at blueprints, field documentation and other relevant information on the device instead of carrying around large amounts of paper. As of the start of 2014, 44% of US online consumers own tablets, a significant jump from 5% in 2011. Tablet use has also become increasingly common among children. A 2014 survey found that mobiles were the most frequently used object for play among American children under the age of 12. Mobiles were used more often in play than video game consoles, board games, puzzles, play vehicles, blocks and dolls/action figures. Despite this, the majority of parents said that a mobile was "never" or only "sometimes" a toy. As of 2014, nearly two-thirds of American 2- to 10-year-olds have access to a tablet or
e-reader An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals. Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...
. The large use of tablets by adults is as a personal internet-connected TV. A 2015 study found that a third of children under five have their own tablet device. By 2017, tablet sales worldwide had surpassed sales of desktop computers, and worldwide PC sales were flat for the first quarter of 2018. In 2020 the tablet market saw a large surge in sales with 164 million tablet units being shipped worldwide due to a large demand for
work from home Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...
and online learning. 2010 to 2014 figures are estimated by
Gartner Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its client ...
. 2014 to 2018 figures are estimated by IDC.


By manufacturer

Note: Others consists of small vendors with mostly less market share. 2017 and 2018 Data now breaks out Amazon, Huawei, and Lenovo: added into Others for consistency


By operating system

According to a survey conducted by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) now called Digital Content Next (DCN) in March 2012, it found that 72% of tablet owners had an iPad, while 32% had an Android tablet. By 2012, Android tablet adoption had increased. 52% of tablet owners owned an iPad, while 51% owned an Android-powered tablet (percentages do not add up to 100% because some tablet owners own more than one type). By end of 2013, Android's market share rose to 61.9%, followed by iOS at 36%. By late 2014, Android's market share rose to 72%, followed by iOS at 22.3% and Windows at 5.7%. As of early 2016, Android has 65% marketshare, Apple has 26% and Windows has 9% marketshare. In Q1 2018, Android tablets had 62% of the market, Apple's iOS had 23.4% of the market and
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...
had 14.6% of the market.


Use


Sleep

The blue wavelength of light from back-lit tablets may impact one's ability to fall asleep when reading at night, through the suppression of
melatonin Melatonin is a natural product found in plants and animals. It is primarily known in animals as a hormone released by the pineal gland in the brain at night, and has long been associated with control of the sleep–wake cycle. In vertebrat ...
. Experts at
Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is cons ...
suggest limiting tablets for reading use in the evening. Those who have a delayed body clock, such as teenagers, which makes them prone to stay up late in the evening and sleep later in the morning, may be at particular risk for increases in sleep deficiencies. A PC app such as
F.lux f.lux (pronounced "flux") is a cross-platform computer program that adjusts a display's color temperature according to location and time of day, offering functional respite for the eyes. The program is designed to reduce eye strain during nigh ...
and Android apps such as CF.lumen and Twilight attempt to decrease the impact on sleep by filtering blue wavelengths from the display. iOS 9.3 includes Night Shift that shifts the colors of the device's display to be warmer during the later hours.


By plane

Because of, among other things, electromagnetic waves emitted by this type of device, the use of any type of electronic device during the take-off and landing phases was totally prohibited on board commercial flights. On November 13, 2013, the
European Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) with responsibility for civil aviation safety. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs investigation and monito ...
(EASA) announced that the use of mobile terminals could be authorized on the flights of European airlines during these phases from 2014 onwards, on the condition that the cellular functions are deactivated ("airplane" mode activated). In September 2014, EASA issued guidance that allows EU airlines to permit use of tablets, e-readers, smartphones, and other portable electronic devices to stay on without the need to be in airplane mode during all parts of EU flights, however each airline has to decide to allow this behavior. In the US, the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...
allowed use of portable electronic devices during all parts of flights while in airplane mode in late 2013.


Tourism

Some French historical monuments are equipped with digital tactile tablets called "HistoPad". It is an application integrated with an iPad Mini offering an interaction in augmented and virtual reality with several pieces of the visit, the visitor being able to take control of their visit in an interactive and personalized way.


Professional use for specific sectors

Some professionals – for example, in the construction industry, insurance experts, lifeguards or surveyors – use so-called rugged shelf models in the field that can withstand extreme hot or cold shocks or climatic environments. Some units are hardened against drops and screen breakage. Satellite-connectivity-equipped tablets such as the Thorium X, for example, can be used in areas where there is no other connectivity. This is a valuable feature in the aeronautical and military realms. For example, United States Army helicopter pilots are moving to tablets as
electronic flight bag An electronic flight bag (EFB) is an electronic information management device that helps flight crews perform flight management tasks more easily and efficiently with less paper providing the reference material often found in the pilot's carry- ...
s, which confer the advantages of rapid, convenient synchronization of large groups of users, and the seamless updating of information. US Army chaplains who are deployed in the field with the troops cite the accessibility of Army regulations, field manuals, and other critical information to help with their services; however power generation, speakers, and a tablet rucksack are also necessary for the chaplains.


See also

*
Comparison of tablet computers This is a list of tablet computers, grouped by intended audience and form factor. Media tablets Multimedia tablets are compared in the following tables. Larger than screen Following two tables compare larger than screen multimedia tablets rele ...
* History of tablet computers *
Lists of mobile computers Lists of mobile computers By product type * Comparison of tablet computers * Comparison of smartphones * Comparison of e-readers Lists that include currently available products * List of open-source mobile phones * List of iOS and iPadOS dev ...
*
Mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physica ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control American inventions Classes of computers