APPLE ANNOUNCED THE ORIGINAL iPad on January 27, 2010, and the technology world hasn’t been the same since. Customers rushed to buy the tablet, snapping up more than 300,000 the day it went on sale. Competitors rushed to copy it, with Samsung, Motorola, Amazon, and others creating their own variations on the app-friendly touchscreen device within two years. (Microsoft’s Windows-based Surface tablet arrives in Fall 2012.)

In the spring of 2012, Apple released the third generation of the iPad. Like its predecessor, the iPad 2, this latest model came with a pair of cameras, but it improved on all iPads before it with a razor-sharp screen (called a Retina display) and a robust processor to power it.