Since the iPad display is much larger than the phone display, sitting it on the board like this wasn’t practical. There was an iPad dev board that looked a lot like this, but there were also ‘acrylics’ - chassis made from cnc’d Acrylic sheeting - that supported the screen connected to the board by a flex.

Most engineers wanted nothing to do with the display units; they were bulky and relatively fragile and desk space is always at a premium.

I always imagined that the iPad came about because some engineer had a Retina iPhone prototype on a standard 72dpi screen and figured it might work to replace a laptop.

Take the old eMac software, and bam, iPad.

(100% speculation)

I believe “iPad” was actually being developed prior to iPhone and was put on pause while multitouch and other technology was lifted from the project to support iPhone.

That's how Steve Jobs tells it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5f8bqYYwps&t=2233

The iPad was actually conceptualized before the desktop workstation was common:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook

The iPad was conceptualized as a thin touch screen no-keyboard slate since at least 1992 in Star Trek TNG [0]

[0] https://i1.wp.com/www.techdigest.tv/star-trek-tablet.jpg?res...

The iPad was also conceptualized in 1988 as "Tablet", the winning entry in the Apple Computer "Design the Computer of the Year 2000" contest.

https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/academic/tablet-...

One of the members of the winning team was Stephen Wolfram.

How about 1960s, with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/did-st...

DynaBook was long, long before STtNG.

That’s this (earlier) development system.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/exclusive-super-earl...