The+Design+Inspiration

iPad Design Inspiration, Motivation, Expectations

**Inspiration: Star Trek TNG's PADD**

23 years ago, Michael Okuda and the staff developing props and graphic design, among other aspects of Star Trek: the Next Generation imagined PADD, or Personal Access Display Device. This prop owes its existence in part to budget constraints on the show, as the work surfaces could not include knobs, buttons, or switches, and the PADD matches the work environments aesthetically. PADD could very easily be "configured" to perform any number of tasks as the show's writers saw fit, including:reading documents, doing research, image viewing. The combination of a smooth, slim, buttonless, versatile reconfigurable display device is remarkably similar to the iPad's design. While other tablet devices preceded the iPad, iPad may have been the first to flawlessly combined all these features, and allow the professionals and home users of today to engage with their work and play in unprecedented ways. Where previous attempts fell short at emulating the seamless work done by Star Trek characters on PADD, the iPad succeeds, and allows us to do the same.

**Motivation: A Third Category of Device**  In his keynote unveiling the iPad, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs described the need for a third category of device, something in between a smartphone and a personal computer. Jobs describes an entirely 'different experience' than either of these, and the iPad represents that experience. Very much an exercise in design thinking, the impressive physical design of the iPad would be nothing without the applications developed for it. Part of the iPad's success is owed to the in-house software development that Apple as both a hardware manufacturer and a software developer. In this way, the products they created are very much about designing the experience of the end user, seamlessly integrating the functions with the physical design.

**Expectations: Really Good Ideas Wrapped up in Other Really Good Ideas**

 Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple, describes Apple's design process as giving consumers a succession of presents, or as he puts it, "really good ideas wrapped up in other really good ideas." What he refers to is the hardware/software integration that has become synonymous with Steve Jobs' second tenure at Apple. Built on the already successful iOs operating system/development platform, many users are already familiar with the basic functionality of iPad, granting another level to Apple's unified vision. Indeed, as Jobs would like, the iPad has proven much better at certain tasks than other existing devices. It has especially exciting applications in business, medicine, and ironically, design. Of note is the current influx of other Tablets, Windows or Android based. None of these has really struck a chord in the same way iPad has, since the software, and moreover in design, the experience is everything.

Sources:  ARS Technica, "How //Star Trek// artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago" BusinessWeek, " Apple's Design Process" Steve Jobs' iPad keynote speech PADD: Memory Alpha Wiki (The Star Trek Wiki)