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iPad Launched 10 Years Ago Today, App Developer Reflects on Getting Access to a Top-Secret Prototype

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On the 10th anniversary of the iPad launching in stores, Agile Partners co-founder Jack Ivers has shared an interesting story about how his company managed to get in Apple's good graces and ultimately gain access to prototype iPads.

Steve-Jobs-iPad.jpg

The story begins in 2008, when Agile Partners released GuitarToolkit as one of the first iPhone apps on the App Store. The app used the iPhone's microphone to detect musical notes in an incoming audio stream to see the real-time pitch of a guitar string. Apple has long had an interest in music, so the app quickly caught its eye.

In 2009, Apple covertly reached out to Agile Partners about featuring GuitarToolkit in a worldwide advertising campaign:
We began receiving calls that went as follows:

Apple: We need you to internationalize GuitarToolkit for the following languages: Japanese, simplified Chinese, German, French, and Spanish. By next week please.

Agile: Ummm ... why?

Apple: Sign this NDA.

Agile: Here you go. So tell us more.

Apple: We're considering featuring GuitarToolkit in an advertising campaign, but no promises. Will you do the internationalization?

Apple was asking us to jump, and it didn't take too much reflection to respond, "how high?" GuitarToolkit ended up being featured in a series of worldwide print and TV campaigns, including one that appeared on the back cover of many of the most prestigious magazines in the U.S. and around the world.
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GuitarToolkit ended up being featured on the back cover of many popular magazines:

rollingstone.jpg

Then, in February 2010, just days after Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad, an Apple executive reached out to Agile Partners requesting a quick conversation about something "important." After signing a very strict NDA, Agile Partners ended up being invited to Apple's headquarters to develop an iPad version of their GuitarToolkit app.

Agile Partners was provided with access to prototype iPads to develop its app and, unsurprisingly, they were located in a "locked, nondescript, unlabeled room on the second or third floor on the building that housed the Infinite Loop cafeteria."
The room had blackout curtains hanging inside the door so that, even when the door was open, you couldn't see inside. The room had three or four sturdy industrial tables, each with an iPad prototype chained to it. Each iPad was completely encased in what appeared to be Kevlar, with just the screen and home button exposed. Almost none of the industrial design was visible - bezels, back, edges, even the iPad's thickness, were all obscured by the bulky case.

Each table also had a Mac with a special Xcode that could build to the iPad. We spent the day tweaking app settings for the new screen dimensions, getting past beta glitches, and finally successfully building TabToolkit on the prototype iPads.
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Agile Partners eventually became VIP attendees at WWDC 2010, where its iPad app received an Apple Design Award.

Article Link: iPad Launched 10 Years Ago Today, App Developer Reflects on Getting Access to a Top-Secret Prototype
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/03/prototype-ipad-story/
Serious question... do NDAs expire or how can they be talking about it now, especially when they mention they signed "a very strict NDA"?
 
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auralux said:
I don’t understand what the hype was all about. It was literally nothing more than a large iPhone. Without the phone.
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You were in good company with many forum members here saying the same thing, panning the device.
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kiensoy said:
Serious question... do NDAs expire or how can they be talking about it now, especially when they mention they signed "a very strict NDA"?
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That would be in the NDA.
 
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To be fair all of those "it's just a big iPod touch" were not far off. I was probably one of those who thought that way since I never bought the first one, actually none of the first generations until they introduced the Apple Pen. Now that it has a pen, keyboard, trackpad and the software has matured (to some extent) it doesn't feel like a big iPod anymore.
 
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kiensoy said:
Serious question... do NDAs expire or how can they be talking about it now, especially when they mention they signed "a very strict NDA"?
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yes NDA’s van expire.Obviously I don’t know apple’s policies, but I’m sure theirs is strict but I’m sure it expired if he’s talking.
 
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kiensoy said:
Serious question... do NDAs expire or how can they be talking about it now, especially when they mention they signed "a very strict NDA"?
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I think it's typical for it to be unenforceable once the information in question is available to the general public, if that's through no fault of the NDA recipient. (This does not constitute legal advice, yadda, yadda...)
 
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I still remember going into the first store I could to find and hold one of these and being amazed and I very fondly remember my, in retrospect ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE, gen 1 iPad. She was outdated, speed-wise, by the 2nd gen as soon as it came out and that killed it's life span, but what a marvellous device that was at the time.
 
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The iPad has come a long way even though iOS still looks essentially the same at the home screen level. I just picked up a couple of iPad 7th gens for distance learning and they are fantastic devices for the majority of people especially at their price point (even more so when they are on sale). They aren’t Pros but deliver 90% of the experience of my 12.9 2nd Gen iPad at a substantial discount.

With the Pencil, keyboards, and now trackpad/mouse support they can be the main computing device for many. And their battery life is amazing.

Thanks Apple.
 
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auralux said:
I don’t understand what the hype was all about. It was literally nothing more than a large iPhone. Without the phone.
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The iPad is clearly very polarizing, and it seems like some people just have no use for it, but it has some very specific use cases around media consumption, note-taking, web browsing, etc. where portability is paramount. For those of us who routinely leverage the modular advantages, it's irreplaceable. All that said, I do hear your opinion fairly often.
 
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rdy0329 said:
try one now. It’s a totally different beast.
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For a while it was a big iPhone to me lol. I got the first iPad on launch day and sold it a few months after. I didn’t find it useful. But now I love my iPad Pro. One of the best gadgets I’ve used with pencil. I’ve done legal documents and presentations on it. It’s really useful.
 
I remember the first iPad launch clear as day.

I recall watching the keynote, tbh critiquing it at the time, saying it was just a big iPod.
I remember seeing it for the first time in person, in an absolutely packed Apple Store.
After a wait in line, I finally had a play about with one, I thought it was so cool, but the thing that blew me away was maps, just being able to pinch and flick your way around the world. At that moment I just had to have one.
It took a while to scrape enough money together as I was only 15, but finally got the baseline 16gb WiFi model.

Since then I’ve used an iPad in some form every day, I rock an 11” pro, but I still have my old iPad lying around somewhere, it turns up now and again. Scratched and dinged but what a tank!
 
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kiensoy said:
To be fair all of those "it's just a big iPod touch" were not far off. I was probably one of those who thought that way since I never bought the first one, actually none of the first generations until they introduced the Apple Pen. Now that it has a pen, keyboard, trackpad and the software has matured (to some extent) it doesn't feel like a big iPod anymore.
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I don’t understand the “it’s just a big iPod touch” argument.

The experience is TOTALLY different on a larger screen. Consuming content, reading, watching movies... Yeah it may have the same apps, but you could fit way more on the screen.
 
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I love stories like these. :)

Reminds me of the story about this one company who was contacted by Apple to remove ads on their website temporarily. The reason being so that it could be used as one of the slides in one of the keynotes and I think the site was featured in some promos as well.
 
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I remember lining up at my local Apple Store! First Apple product launch I ever attended. They had a guy playing bagpipes. Quite ceremonial with the applause and excitement.

What an incredible product, and it continues to improve immensely.
 
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This was not my original thought but I apologize for not being able to find the original source: but I remember someone saying the criticism of the iPad being just a "big phone" would be completely moot if instead, the iPad came out first. Then people would have said "Wow, that iPhone is amazing - it's like they were able to compress an iPad's interface into a smaller device!"

Of course - considering what we've learned now that the iPad development started before the phone and lead to the phone and THEN the iPad, this makes even more sense.
 
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I still have mint condition 1st gen iPad top model running iOS 3 and great battery health. :)
 
When the first iPad came out, I wasn't too impressed. I thought it was cute, but I considered it to be a toy -- something you might buy for your kids if you didn't want to buy them a more-expensive Mac. Over the course of the year, though, I had several friends and coworkers tell me, "You have to use it to appreciate it. Trust me: you'll love it." I vowed to buy an iPad 2 when it was released. Alas, when the day came (and all of the following week), the iPad 2 was sold out everywhere. Then my cell-phone provider, AT&T, deeply discounted the iPad 1. I figured it was an inexpensive way to give the iPad a try. If I really liked it, I'd upgrade to the iPad 3 in a year. If I didn't like it, well, I wouldn't have wasted much money.

I knew within two days of purchase that I'd never be without an iPad again. My friends were right: once I started using it, I was able to appreciate that it wasn't just a bigger version of my iPhone or a dumbed-down version of my MacBook Pro. I upgraded to the iPad 4 when it came out, and then to the 2018 9.7" iPad, which is still going strong. Barely a day has gone by in the past decade that I haven't pulled out my iPad to check my email, surf the web, view my photos, listen to music, watch streaming video, read an ebook, and/or use one of my many apps.

I still use my 2019 iMac and 2015 MacBook Pro for the heavy lifting. For me, an iPad Pro can't replace a Mac. However, when the time comes to replace my MBP, I'll seriously consider an iPad Pro/Magic Keyboard/Apple Pencil combination. If I had to replace my MBP today, I'd get a MacBook Air. In a couple years, though, who knows?
 
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