You have all probably seen the Rock to iPad (via Techcrunch) comparisons (see below) which was originally Rock vs iPhone
Even though this was initially a joke bashing the weaknesses in the iPhone and now the iPad, I actually think there is some merit to the analogy of the iPhone/iPad to a rock or more specifically the 'Hand Axe'; one of man's original inventions.
Stone tools date from somewhere in the 1.5 to 2 million BC range; as found in the Olduvai Gorge; Oldowan stone tools. These stone tools were found in East and South Africa and generally consist of flakes removed from pebbles leaving a ‘core’. The technology advances were slow and there were a few evolutionary jumps that created the Handaxe ~1.4 million years ago. These Handaxes were made by bifacial flaking i.e. flakes were removed alternately from either side creating a sharp tool. These were found in Ethiopia. It took a little longer for these stone tools to advance and actually become more prevalent. Around 100,000 BC stone technology got fairly sophisticated and blades were invented; thin slivers of flint. These blades were found in North Africa in the cave of Haua Fteah and the Amudian from the Near East. But this blade technology didn’t reach a tipping point until around 40,000 BC when blade production began on a systematic scale and became the dominant stone technology throughout the old world.
This seems to me to be a good analogy to
iPods and more recently iPads. Both technologies had been around for a
significant amount of time before Apple came out with their version. Similar to
how the iPhone was a tipping point in MP3 technology, I think the iPad is going
to be a tipping point in tablet technology. Both these seem to mirror the
advances of our original human invention the hand axe; originally invented
around 1.5 million years ago but didn’t really reach a tipping point until
around 40,000 years ago.
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