TABLET AND IPAD
A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile computer with a touchscreen display, circuitry and battery in a single device. Tablets come equipped with sensors, including cameras, a microphone and an accelerometer, and the touchscreen display uses finger or stylus gestures substituting for the use of computer mouse and keyboard. They usually feature on-screen, pop-up virtual keyboards for typing. Tablets may include physical buttons for basic features such as speaker volume and power, and ports for network communications and battery charging. Tablets are typically larger than smartphones or personal digital assistants at 7 inches (18 cm) or larger, measured diagonally. Tablets can be classified into several categories according to the presence and physical appearance of keyboards. Slates and booklets do not have a physical keyboard and typically feature text input performed through the use of a virtual keyboard projected on a touchscreen-enabled display. Hybrids and convertibles do have physical keyboards, although these devices typically also make virtual keyboards available.

As of July 2015, the tablet use in the world is nearly split evenly between the iPad and Android tablets with about half the world using the latter, with the iPad holding majority use in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia and Android tablets are more popular in most of Asia (China an exception), Africa and Eastern Europe.

History of tablet computers
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 existed as early as 1888 with the telautograph,[16] which used a sheet of paper as display and a pen attached to electromechanical actuators. Throughout the 20th century devices with these characteristics have been imagined and created whether as blueprints, prototypes, or commercial products. In addition to many academic and research systems, several companies released commercial products in the 1980s, with various input/output types tried out.

Early devices
Following their earlier tablet-computer products such as the Pencept PenPad and the CIC Handwriter, in September 1989, GRiD Systems release the first commercially available tablet-type portable computer, the GRiDPad. All three products were based on extended versions of the MS-DOS operating system.
In 1991, AT&T released their first EO Personal Communicator, this was one of the first commercially available tablets and ran the GO Corporation's PenPoint OS on AT&T's own hardware, including their own AT&T Hobbit CPU.

In 1992, Atari showed the Stylus, later renamed to ST-Pad prototype to developers, this one was based on the TOS/GEM Atari ST Platform and included already an early handwriting recognition. Shiraz Shivji's company Momentus demonstrated in the same time a failed x86 MS-DOS based Pen Computer with its own GUI.
Apple Computers launched the Apple Newton personal digital assistant in 1993. It utilised Apple's own new Newton OS, initially running on hardware manufactured by Motorola and incorporating an ARM CPU, that Apple had specifically co-developed with Acorn Computers. The operating system and platform design were later licensed to Sharp and Digital Ocean, who went on to manufacture their own variants.

Android was the first of today's 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. 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, specifically adapted for use with tablets, which debuted in February 2011.

Features
Today's tablets use capacitive touchscreens with multi-touch, unlike earlier stylus-driven resistive touchscreen devices. After 2007 with the access to capacitive screens and the success of the iPhone, multi-touch and other natural user interface features, as well as flash memory solid state storage and "instant on" warm-booting; external USB and Bluetooth keyboards defined tablets. Some have 3G mobile telephony applications.

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 production work and mobile games.

As with smartphones, most mobile tablet apps are supplied through online distribution, rather than boxed software or direct sales from software vendors. These sources, known as "app stores", provide centralized catalogs of software and allow "one click" on-device software purchasing, installation and updates. The app store is often shared with smartphones that use the same operating system.

Hardware
High-definition, anti-glare display

Wireless local area and internet connectivity (usually with Wi-Fi standard and optional mobile broadband)

Front- and/or back- facing camera(s) for photographs and video

Lower weight and longer battery life than a comparably-sized laptop

Bluetooth for connecting peripherals and communicating with local devices

Early devices had IR support and could work as a TV remote controller.

Docking station: Keyboard and USB port(s)

Special hardware: The tablets can be equipped with special hardware to provide functionality, such as camera, GPS and local data storage.

Software
Mobile web browser

E-book readers for digital books, periodicals and other content

Downloadable apps such as games, education and utilities

Portable media player function including video and music playback

Email and social media

Mobile phone functions (messaging, speakerphone, address book)

Video-teleconferencing

Data storage

On-board flash memory

Ports for removable storage

Various cloud storage services for backup and syncing data across devices

Local storage on a LAN

Additional inputs

Besides a touchscreen and keyboard, some tablets can also use these input methods:

Character recognition to write text on the tablet, that can be stored as any other text in the intended storage, instead of using a keyboard.
Near field communication with other compatible devices including ISO/IEC 14443 RFID tags.

Looking to buy quality IPAD, search no further as we stock them in quality at Deluxe online store. Log on now to www.deluxe.com.ng