Comment by pavlov
The relationship the iPad had with tablets already in the market was basically the same as the PalmPilot vs. existing PDAs in 1997.
There was the big expensive Newton, and chunky Windows CE devices with keyboards that looked like micro-laptops. The Palm initially felt more like a toy compared to them, and it never got all the features of the Newton for example.
Hawkins was very adamant on holding back feature creep. Prior to developing the Palm Pilot he worked on the GridPad. One of the reasons that did not achieve its potential was that too many people wanted a say in defining its capabilities, leading to massive feature creep.