Ten years after its launch, Apple’s iPad still has some way to go | John Naughton

Though Steve Jobs's sleek tablet was a worldwide hit, it can still be naggingly awkward to use

Last Monday, the Apple iPad turned 10. On 27 January 2010, Steve Jobs walked on to the stage of a San Francisco auditorium carrying with him the answer to years of fevered speculation. "Everyone at the event that day knew why they were there," wrote John Vorhees, "and what would be announced". Jobs acknowledged as much up front, saying that he had a "truly magical and revolutionary product" to unveil. "Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet," observed the normally sober Wall Street Journal, "it had some commandments written on it."

This was three years on from the launch of the iPhone, the device that really transformed Apple into a tech giant, so everyone thought they knew roughly what the new device would look like - a bigger block of aluminium and glass with a touch-sensitive screen. Over at Microsoft, where the Windows team led by Steve Sinofsky were watching the live stream, they definitely knew what to expect. After all, Microsoft had been experimenting with tablets for years: a tablet, to them, was a portable slab which had a keyboard and a stylus. The tech media, for their part, also "knew" two things: the new device would be Apple's answer to the cheap netbooks that were then the sensation du jour and, knowing Apple, it wouldn't be cheap.