In hindsight I agree. But back in those days: a) most people didn't believe that, and b) the Linux community was developing distributions for tablets. And anywa

In hindsight I agree. But back in those days: a) most people didn't believe that, and b) the Linux community was developing distributions for tablets. And anyway the famous (in those days) techcrunch's tablet was not going to use any PC OS. Anyway, the only point I was replying to was that Apple did have a lot of pressure back in those days to come out with their netbook or with something that covered the same niche, and some people even suggested that Apple should have lost in the tablet market because there were already a few offers around or soon to be. In other words I was not discussion what made the iPad a success (if it deserved it, or any of those more hot topics). Simply that it's not true that Apple was not under pressure to present _something_, which is the point the OP was saying.