Tablet computer

A tablet computer, often just called a tablet or tab, is a type of mobile device. It usually has a touchscreen display, a rechargeable battery, and runs on a mobile operating system. Tablets are thin and flat, and they can do many of the same things as other computers, but they are smaller and easier to carry around.

Unlike laptops, tablets do not have a regular keyboard or mouse. Instead, you control them by using your fingers or a special digital pen called a stylus on the screen. Some tablets do not have a physical keyboard at all and use a virtual keyboard that appears on the screen. However, many tablets can connect to separate keyboards using Bluetooth or USB.

The idea of a tablet was first shown in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. But it wasn’t until 2010 that Apple introduced the iPad, which became very popular. Since then, tablets have become common for many uses, such as watching movies, reading books, and doing schoolwork. Today, millions of people around the world use tablets for both fun and work.

History

Main article: History of tablet computers

Tablet computers and their operating systems started with the idea of pen computing. Devices that could use a flat screen for input and output existed as early as 1888, like the telautograph, which used paper and a special pen connected to electric parts. Throughout the 20th century, many ideas for these types of devices were drawn up, tested, or sold, with several companies releasing products in the 1980s trying out different ways to make them work.

Fictional and prototype tablets

Tablet computers showed up in many science fiction stories in the second half of the 20th century. These stories helped make the idea of tablets known to many people. Some examples include:

• Isaac Asimov described a Calculator Pad in his novel Foundation (1951)
• Stanisław Lem described the Opton in his novel Return from the Stars (1961)
• Many similar devices appeared in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)
• Dr Who: The Dominators Educator Balan holds a tablet which he inputs data into using swipe gestures (1967)
• Arthur C. Clarke's newspad was shown in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Douglas Adams described a tablet computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the associated comedy of the same name (1978)
• The science fiction TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation featured tablet computers called PADDs, notable for using a touchscreen interface, both with and without a stylus (1987)
• A device more powerful than today’s tablets appeared briefly in The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
• The Star Wars franchise features datapads, first described in print in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, and shown on screen in the 1999 film, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

Real-life projects also tried to make tablet computers, such as:

• In 1968, computer scientist Alan Kay imagined a KiddiComp; he described it as a Dynabook in his proposal, A personal computer for children of all ages (1972), outlining functions similar to a laptop or tablet, aimed at children.
• In 1979, the idea of a touchscreen tablet that could detect pressure on one spot of the screen was patented in Japan by a team at Hitachi.
• In 1984, Hartmut Esslinger made a touchscreen Macintosh concept, featuring a touch display and a keyboard.
• In 1992, Atari showed developers the Stylus, later called ST-Pad. It was based on the TOS/GEM Atari ST platform and tested early handwriting recognition.
• In 1994, the European Union started the NewsPad project, inspired by Clarke and Kubrick's fictional work. Acorn Computers made and delivered an ARM-based touch screen tablet for this program, called the "NewsPad"; the project ended in 1997.
• In November 2000, Microsoft used the term Tablet PC to describe a prototype handheld device they were showing.
• In 2001, Ericsson Mobile Communications announced an experimental product called the DelphiPad, made with the Centre for Wireless Communications in Singapore, with a touch-sensitive screen, Netscape Navigator as a web browser, and Linux as its operating system.

Early tablets

After earlier tablet products like the Pencept PenPad, the Linus Write-Top, and the CIC Handwriter, in September 1989, Grid Systems released the first successful commercial tablet computer, the GridPad. All these products used extended versions of the MS-DOS operating system. In 1992, IBM announced and shipped to developers the ThinkPad 700T (2521), which used the GO Corporation's PenPoint OS. Also based on PenPoint was AT&T's EO Personal Communicator from 1993, which used AT&T's own hardware, including their AT&T Hobbit CPU. Apple Computer launched the Apple Newton personal digital assistant in 1993. It used Apple's Newton OS, running on hardware made by Motorola and using an ARM CPU that Apple developed with Acorn Computers. The operating system and design were later licensed to Sharp and Digital Ocean, who made their own versions.

Pen computing was very popular in the early 1990s. Microsoft, the main PC software company, released Windows for Pen Computing in 1992 to compete with PenPoint OS. The company started the WinPad project, working with companies like Compaq, to make a small device with a Windows-like operating system and handwriting recognition. However, the project was stopped two years later; instead Windows CE was released as "Handheld PCs" in 1996. That year, Palm, Inc. released the first Palm OS based PalmPilot touch and stylus based PDA, using a Motorola Dragonball (68000) CPU. Also in 1996 Fujitsu released the Stylistic 1000 tablet format PC, running Microsoft Windows 95, on a 100 MHz AMD486 DX4 CPU, with 8 MB RAM and stylus input, with the option to connect a regular keyboard and mouse. Intel announced a StrongARM processor-based touchscreen tablet computer in 1999, called WebPAD. It was later renamed the "Intel Web Tablet". In 2000, Norwegian company Screen Media AS and German company Dosch & Amand Gmbh released the "FreePad". It used Linux and the Opera browser. Internet access was provided by DECT DMAP, available only in Europe and offering up to 10 Mbit/s. The device had 16 MB storage, 32 MB of RAM and an x86 compatible 166 MHz "Geode"-Microcontroller by National Semiconductor. The screen was 10.4" or 12.1" and was touch sensitive. It had slots for SIM cards to support television set-up boxes. FreePad was sold in Norway and the Middle East; but the company closed in 2003. Sony released its Airboard tablet in Japan in late 2000 with full wireless Internet capabilities.

In the late 1990s, Microsoft launched the Handheld PC platform using their Windows CE operating system; while most devices were not tablets, a few touch-enabled tablets were released on the platform such as the Fujitsu PenCentra 130 or Siemens's SIMpad. Microsoft took a bigger step toward tablets in 2002 as it tried to define the Microsoft Tablet PC as a mobile computer for field work in business, though their devices didn’t do well, mainly because of high prices and usability issues that kept them for specific uses – like the devices being too heavy to hold with one hand for long periods, and having programs made for desktop interfaces that didn’t work well on the slate format.

Nokia had plans for an Internet tablet before 2000. An early model was made in 2001, the Nokia M510, which ran on EPOC and had an Opera browser, speakers and a 10-inch 800×600 screen, but it wasn’t released because they thought the market wasn’t ready for it. Nokia entered the tablet market in May 2005 with the Nokia 770 running Maemo, a Debian-based Linux version made for their Internet tablet line. The user interface and application framework layer, named Hildon, was an early example of a software platform for general computing in a tablet device meant for internet use and media. But Nokia didn’t focus on it as their main platform for future mobile devices and it competed with other in-house platforms and was later replaced by the Series 60. Nokia used the term internet tablet to describe a portable information appliance focused on Internet use and media between a personal digital assistant (PDA) and an Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC). They made two mobile phones, the N900 that runs Maemo, and N9 that run Meego.

Before the iPad came out, Axiotron made an upgraded Apple MacBook called Modbook, a Mac OS X-based tablet computer. The Modbook used Apple's Inkwell for handwriting and gesture recognition, and used digitization hardware from Wacom. To make Mac OS X work with the digitizer on the built-in tablet, the Modbook came with a special driver.

Following the launch of the Ultra-mobile PC, Intel started the Mobile Internet Device effort, which used the same hardware but put it together with a tablet version of Linux. Intel helped create the lightweight Moblin (mobile Linux) operating system after the success of the Atom CPU series on netbooks. In 2010, Nokia and Intel combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to make MeeGo, a Linux-based operating system for netbooks and tablets. The first tablet using MeeGo was the Neofonie WeTab launched in September 2010 in Germany. The WeTab used an advanced version of the MeeGo operating system called WeTab OS. WeTab OS added support for Android and Adobe AIR and provided a special user interface made for the WeTab. On September 27, 2011, the Linux Foundation said that MeeGo would be replaced in 2012 by Tizen.

Modern tablets

Android was the first of the major platforms for tablet computers in the 2000s to reach the market. In 2008, the first plans for Android-based tablets appeared. The first products came out in 2009. Among them was the Archos 5, a small model with a 5-inch touchscreen, first released with its own operating system and later (in 2009) with Android 1.4. The Camangi WebStation came out in Q2 2009. The first LTE Android tablet appeared late 2009 and was made by ICD for Verizon. This model was called the Ultra, but a version called Vega came out around the same time. Ultra had a 7-inch screen while Vega’s was 15 inches. Many more products followed in 2010. Several companies waited for Android Honeycomb, made especially for tablets, which came out in February 2011.

Apple is often credited for creating a new kind of device with the iPad, which helped bring tablets into everyday use, and was the most successful tablet when it came out. Its release in 2010 made tablets popular. Samsung's Galaxy Tab and others followed, continuing trends toward the features listed above. iPads and similar devices were tested by the U.S. military in 2011 and approved for safe use in 2013. In March 2012, PC Magazine reported that 31% of U.S. Internet users owned a tablet, mainly for watching videos and reading news. The best-selling line of devices was Apple's iPad with 100 million sold between its release in April 2010 and mid-October 2012, but iPad market share (number of units) dropped to 36% in 2013 with Android tablets rising to 62%. Android tablet sales were 121 million devices, plus 52 million, between 2012 and 2013. Individual brands of Android operating system devices or similar ones followed iPad with Amazon's Kindle Fire with 7 million, and Barnes & Noble's Nook with 5 million.

The BlackBerry PlayBook was announced in September 2010 that ran the BlackBerry Tablet OS. The BlackBerry PlayBook was officially released to US and Canadian customers on April 19, 2011. Hewlett-Packard said that the TouchPad, running WebOS 3.0 on a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, would be released in June 2011. On August 18, 2011, HP said they would stop selling the TouchPad, because sales were slow. In 2013, the Mozilla Foundation announced a prototype tablet with Foxconn that ran on Firefox OS. Firefox OS was stopped in 2016. The Canonical suggested that Ubuntu would be available on tablets by 2014. In February 2016, there was a commercial release of the BQ Aquaris Ubuntu tablet using the Ubuntu Touch operating system. Canonical ended support for the project because there wasn’t enough interest on April 5, 2017 and it was then taken over by the UBports as a community project.

As of February 2014, 83% of mobile app creators were making apps for tablets, but 93% were making apps for smartphones. By 2014, about 23% of business-to-business companies were using tablets for sales activities, according to a survey by Corporate Visions. The iPad was most used in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and most of the Americas. Android tablets were more popular in most of Asia (except China and Russia), Africa and Eastern Europe. In 2015 tablet sales didn’t grow. Apple stayed the biggest seller but its market share fell below 25%. Samsung vice president Gary Riding said in early 2016 that tablets were mostly used for work. Newer models were more expensive and made for use with a keyboard and stylus, showing how their uses were changing. As of early 2016, Android led the market with 65%. Apple was second with 26%, and Windows was third with the remaining 9%. In 2018, out of 4.4 billion computing devices Android made up 2 billion, iOS 1 billion, and the rest were PCs running different operating systems (Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, etc.).

Since the early 2020s, many companies have used foldable technology to make tablet computers. Samsung’s line of Samsung Galaxy Z Fold phones can unfold into small tablets, and companies like Asus and Lenovo made large 12 and 17-inch class tablets that can fold into a smaller size to be used like a laptop.

Types

Tablets can be grouped into several types based on their size, the kind of operating system they use, and what they are used for.

Slate

Slate tablets start at about 6 inches in size. Some larger slates are over 10 inches, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 at 12.2 inches and the Toshiba Excite at 13.3 inches. The thinnest tablet in 2013 was the Sony Xperia Tablet Z, only 0.27 inches thick. In 2015, Apple released the iPad Pro with a big 12.9-inch screen.

Mini tablet

Mini tablets are smaller than slates, usually between 7 and 8 inches. They were first popular in 2011 with tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet[/w/5], and Samsung Galaxy Tab. They work like regular tablets but have less power.

Phablet

A phablet is a mix between a smartphone and a tablet. It has a screen bigger than 5 inches but is not as big as a tablet. Examples include the Samsung Galaxy Note series, LG V10/V20, and Sony Xperia XA Ultra.

2-in-1

A 2-in-1 PC combines a tablet and a laptop. It has a screen and a keyboard that can fold or be removed. Some 2-in-1s run on Windows 10 and can connect to regular computer parts. They can be used for watching shows and making things, like a laptop or a stronger tablet.

Gaming tablet

Some tablets are made better for gaming by adding buttons for games. The Nvidia Shield Tablet is one example that runs games from the Google Play store. The Nintendo Switch can also be used like a tablet for gaming.

Booklet

Booklet tablets have two screens that fold like a laptop. Examples include the Microsoft Courier and Sony Tablet P.

Customized business tablet

Some tablets are made just for businesses. They might have better parts for certain jobs, like better GPS for transportation companies.

E-reader

E-readers are devices that show books and other reading materials on a screen. Some modern e-readers, like the Huawei MatePad Paper, can also browse the internet and play videos. The Kindle line from Amazon can now browse the internet and play audio, making it more like a regular tablet but with better reading on its screen.

Hardware

See also: Comparison of tablet computers

Tablet computers use two main types of technology for their brains: ARM Ltd.'s ARM architecture and Intel's and AMD's x86. Intel's x86 has been used in regular computers since 1981 and in Apple computers since 2006. These chips can run full versions of Microsoft Windows and its programs. Intel tried to enter the tablet market in 2010 with its Atom chips.

ARM is the most common chip used in tablets, phones, and many small devices. It started with a chip made for the Apple Newton in 1993. ARM chips help tablets last longer on a single charge and keep the devices thin and light.

See also: Mobile Internet Device § Intel MID Platforms

Display

A big feature of tablets is their touchscreen display. This lets users easily navigate and type using a virtual keyboard or tap icons to open apps and files. The first tablet with this feature was the Linus Write-Top by Linus Technologies, which used a stylus, a pen-like tool, for precise control.

Touchscreens come in two main types:

• Resistive touchscreens respond to pressure and are good for precise work but often need a stylus.
• Capacitive touchscreens respond to fingertips and are used in most modern tablets. They allow multi-touch, where users can touch the screen in several places at once.

Since the mid-2010s, most tablets use capacitive touchscreens with multi-touch.

There are also electronic paper tablets like Sony Digital Paper DPTS1 and reMarkable that use E ink.

Handwriting recognition

Many tablets can work with a stylus and recognize handwriting. Wacom and N-trig pens offer very sharp detail for writing and art. Apps for handwriting recognition exist on iOS and Android, and Google added its own in 2015 supporting many languages.

Other features

After 2007, tablets started including features like multi-touch, flash memory storage, and quick start-up. Most tablets since mid-2010 use ARM processors for longer battery life.

Other common features include high-definition, anti-glare screens, lower weight, longer battery life, wireless internet (usually with Wi-Fi and sometimes mobile broadband), Bluetooth for connecting devices, and ports like USB ports.

• Speech recognition Google added voice input to Android in 2009 and voice actions in 2010. Siri came to the iPhone 4S in 2011.
• Near-field communication lets tablets connect with nearby devices.

Software

Current tablet operating systems

Tablets, like regular computers, use different operating systems, though switching between them is rare. Tablet operating systems fall into two groups:

• Desktop computer operating systems
• Mobile operating systems

Desktop OS-based tablets are usually thicker and heavier. They need more storage and more cooling, and they don’t last as long on a single charge. They can run complex graphic programs as well as mobile apps, and have more ports.

Mobile-based tablets are the opposite. They only run mobile apps. Because they use a smaller processor, their batteries last much longer than those in regular laptops.

In early 2018, Android tablets made up 62% of the market, Apple’s iOS had 23.4%, and Windows 10 had 14.6%. By late 2021, iOS had 55% of use worldwide, and Android had 45%. Android tablets are more common in most countries, except for the U.S. and China.

Android

Main article: Android (operating system)

Android is a operating system made by Google. It is designed for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Android supports many different types of systems. The first Android tablets came out in 2009. Companies like Motorola and Lenovo waited until after 2011 to release their tablets, when Android got more features for tablets. Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), released in 2011, and later versions work better with larger screens, mainly for tablets, and have access to the Google Play service. Android includes the operating system, middle layer, and key apps. Some companies sell their own versions of Android tablets, like Kindle Fire and Nook, which are made to watch mobile content and come with their own app stores, instead of the bigger Google Play system. In 2022, Google started focusing more on making Android better for tablets.

Android Go

Main article: Comparison of Android Go products § Tablet computers

Some tablets come with Android Go.

Fire OS

As mentioned above, Amazon Fire OS is a operating system made by Amazon for its Fire tablets. It is based on Android. Fire OS is made mostly for watching content, with a special design and strong links to Amazon’s own stores and services.

ChromeOS

Several devices that run ChromeOS came out between 2017 and 2019 as tablets, or as 2-in-1s with touchscreen and a 360-degree hinge.

HarmonyOS

HarmonyOS (HMOS) (Chinese: 鸿蒙; pinyin: Hóngméng) is a operating system made by Huawei to work with many smart devices on the Internet of Things (IoT) network. In its current design, the operating system picks the right cores for devices with different resources. For IoT devices, it uses the LiteOS core; for smartphones and tablets, it uses a Linux kernel layer with AOSP libraries to support Android application package (APK) apps, as well as native HarmonyOS apps made with DevEco Studio.

iPadOS

Main articles: iPad, iPadOS, and iOS

The iPad uses iPadOS. Before 2019, the iPad used iOS, which was made for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The first iPad came out in 2010. Even though it’s built on the same base as macOS, its design is very different. iPadOS is made for touch input with your fingers and doesn’t have features that needed a stylus on older tablets. Apple added multi-touch gestures, like spreading two fingers apart or together to zoom in or out, also called pinch to zoom. iPadOS and iOS are made for the ARM architecture.

Kindle firmware

Main article: Amazon Kindle

Kindle firmware is a operating system made just for Amazon Kindle e-readers. It is based on a custom Linux kernel; however, it is fully closed and private, and only works on Kindle devices made by Amazon.

Nintendo Switch system software

The Nintendo Switch system software (also known by its codename Horizon) is the firmware and operating system for the Nintendo Switch hybrid video game console/tablet and Nintendo Switch Lite handheld game console. It is based on a private microkernel. The interface includes a HOME screen, with the top bar, the screenshot viewer (“Album”), and shortcuts to the Nintendo eShop, News, and Settings.

PlayStation Vita system software

The PlayStation Vita system software is the firmware and operating system for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV video game consoles. It uses LiveArea as its main interface. The PlayStation Vita system software has one optional extra, the PlayStation Mobile Runtime Package. The system is built on an Unix-base that comes from FreeBSD and NetBSD. Because it can browse the internet and handle multimedia, some people and reviewers consider it a gaming tablet or tablet replacement.

Ubuntu Touch

Main article: Ubuntu Touch

Ubuntu Touch is an open-source (GPL) mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system first developed in 2013 by Canonical Ltd. and now continued by the non-profit UBports Foundation since 2017. Ubuntu Touch can run on a pure GNU/Linux base on phones with the right drivers, like the Librem 5 and the PinePhone. To work on hardware that originally came with Android, Ubuntu Touch uses the Android Linux kernel, using Android drivers and services through an LXC container, but it doesn’t use any of Android’s Java-like code. As of February 2022, Ubuntu Touch works on 78 phones and tablets. The UBports Installer is a simple tool that helps users install the operating system on other devices without damaging them.

Windows

Main article: Windows 10

After Windows for Pen Computing for Windows 3.1 in 1991, Microsoft made tablets that could run Windows XP under the Microsoft Tablet PC name. Microsoft Tablet PCs were pen-based, fully working x86 PCs with handwriting and voice recognition. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition provided pen support. Tablet support was added to both Home and Business versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Tablets running Windows could use the touchscreen for mouse input, handwriting recognition, and gestures. After Tablet PC, Microsoft started the Ultra-mobile PC plan in 2006, which brought Windows tablets to a smaller, touch-focused design. In 2008, Microsoft showed a prototype of a two-screen tablet called Microsoft Courier, but they cancelled the project.

In 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8, which made big changes to the operating system’s design and platform for touch-based devices like tablets. The operating system also added an application store and a new kind of app made mainly for tablets. Microsoft also made Windows RT, a version of Windows 8 for ARM-based devices. The launch of Windows 8 and RT came with devices from many makers (including Microsoft themselves, with the release of Surface), like slate tablets, hybrids, and convertibles.

Released in July 2015, Windows 10 introduced what Microsoft called “universal apps”; building on Metro-style apps, these apps can be made to run across many Microsoft products with almost the same code – including PCs, tablets, smartphones, embedded systems, Xbox One, Surface Hub and Windows Holographic. The Windows interface was changed to switch between a mouse-oriented design and a touchscreen-focused design depending on what input devices are available – especially on 2-in-1 PCs; both designs include an updated Start menu. Windows 10 replaced all earlier versions of Windows.

Hybrid OS operation

Several companies have made hybrid devices that can run both Android and Windows Phone operating systems (or sometimes Windows 8.1, like the now-cancelled Asus Transformer Book Duet), while Ars Technica said: “dual-OS devices are always bad products. Windows and Android don’t work well together, so any dual-OS device means dealing with separate apps, data, and storage spaces and very different designs. So from a user point of view, Microsoft and Google are really just saving device makers from making lots of clunky devices that no one will want.”

Discontinued tablet operating systems

BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry 10 (based on the QNX OS) is from BlackBerry. As a smartphone OS, it is closed and private, and only runs on phones and tablets made by BlackBerry.

It was one of the big platforms in the world in the late 2000s, but its global market share fell a lot by the mid-2010s. In late 2016, BlackBerry said they would keep supporting the OS, promising to release 10.3.3. So BlackBerry 10 would not get any big updates as BlackBerry and its partners would focus more on their Android development.

BlackBerry Tablet OS

BlackBerry Tablet OS is a operating system from BlackBerry Ltd based on the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system made to run Adobe AIR and BlackBerry WebWorks apps, and it is available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer. The BlackBerry Tablet OS is the first tablet to run an operating system from QNX (now part of RIM).

BlackBerry Tablet OS supports normal BlackBerry Java apps. It has also said it will support Android apps, through “app players” that can be ported by developers or installed by users. A BlackBerry Tablet OS Native Development Kit, to make native apps with the GNU toolchain, is currently in closed beta testing. The first device to run BlackBerry Tablet OS was the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer.

Application store

See also: App store

Apps that don’t come already on the system are provided through online distribution. These sources, called app stores, give central lists of software and let you buy, install, and update software on your device with “one click”.

Mobile device makers may use a "walled garden" approach, where they control which software applications (“apps”) are available. Software development kits are only for approved developers. This can help reduce malware, give software with the right content rating, control quality, and keep out competing sellers. Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Barnes & Noble all use this method. B&N originally let anyone install apps, but in December 2011, they stopped third parties. Apple and IBM have agreed to work together to sell IBM-made applications for iPads and iPhones for big business customers. People who support open source software say that the iPad (or such “walled garden” app store method) goes against the idea of personal control that regular personal computers have always given.

Sales

Around 2010, more businesses started using tablets for meetings and events. By 2012, some companies found that their workers could get more done each day using tablets. Tablets became popular for looking at plans and information instead of carrying lots of paper.

By 2014, many people in the United States owned tablets, and they were also popular with children. Even though tablets were used for fun by kids, most parents didn’t think of them as toys. After growing quickly in the early 2010s, tablet sales went down a bit, but they went up again in 2020 when more people were working and learning from home.

By manufacturer

By operating system

In 2012, most tablet owners had an iPad, but many also had tablets that used the Android system. Over time, Android became more popular than Apple’s iPad. By 2018, Android had most of the market, followed by Apple and Windows 10.

Use

Sleep

Main article: Electronic media and sleep

The bright light from tablets can make it harder to sleep if you use them at night. Experts suggest avoiding tablets before bedtime, especially for teenagers who naturally stay up later. Some apps and settings, like those on iOS devices, can change the screen color to help reduce this effect.

By plane

In the past, you were not allowed to use electronic devices like tablets during takeoff and landing on airplanes. Rules have changed, and now many airlines allow the use of tablets and other devices during these times if they are in airplane mode. Each airline decides its own rules.

Tourism

In some places in France, special tablets called "HistoPad" help visitors learn more about historical sites. These tablets work with apps that let users explore sites in exciting new ways.

Professional use for specific sectors

Some jobs, like construction or surveying, use special tablets that can handle tough conditions, like extreme temperatures or drops. These tablets can also connect to satellites, which is helpful in places without regular internet. For example, some military pilots use tablets to keep important information easily updated.

Prisons

In the United States, some prisons use special tablets made by companies like JPay and Global Tel Link. These tablets have been criticized for their high costs and for reducing access to other services like prison libraries.