Yes, you read the headline correctly. Apparently in 2001 at a trade show in Germany, LG demoed the “Digital iPAD” a “linux-based web pad”. It came with a blazing fast 206mhz intel SOC and a mammoth 64mb of ram. It even sported wireless B internet connectivity and expandable storage via a PCMCIA slot. The product was supposed to be shipped 12 months after it was demoed , but never made it market. The world obviously wasn’t quite ready for the iPAD back then. Oh what could have been! 0_o
All jokes aside, its surprising that LG never sued Apple over the naming of their iPad given the “litigate first, innovate later” mentality present in today’s tech world. I also find it funny that the device was slated to have expandable storage and the modern iPad lacks the feature altogether.
For from the original 2001 blog post-
“LG’s new Digital iPad comes with an Integrated Web browser and Linux-based MP3 and MPEG4 players and can connect to the Internet over a wireless 802.11lb LAN that reaches up to 100 meters, according to the company. A spokesman for LG at CeBIT said that the product may come with other connectivity solutions, however, including possibly a “PDA style slot” for mobile phones.
The iPad is powered by a 206Mhz Intel SA-1110 system-on-chip processor and an in-built 64 SDRAM module. It offers some expandability with a slot for Flash memory cards and PCMCIA cards. To operate the devices, users are given a stylus and the pad provides handwriting recognition for both English and Korean.”
SOURCE- Linuxfordevices