Steve Jobs Seemingly Predicted iPad in Rare 1983 Recording

He correctly predicted rise in popularity of personal computers more than 25 years ago.

Steve Job's title of a visionary was cemented when he correctly predicted the rise of the tablet market before the millennium arrived, which was spearheaded by Apple's own iPad. A recently discovered recording has now revealed that Jobs predicted the inception of the iPad all the way back in 1983.

Marcel Brown posted the audio to his Life, Liberty and Technology site relating to Steve Jobs' full speech from the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado. While the build of the talk had surfaced back in August, the new audio reveals an extended Q&A, which featured Jobs' thoughts on networking, voice recognition, as well as "an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you".

Lo and behold, 27 years later and the iPad was released, which led to Apple being the clear market leader of tablets for years, albeit if it has since experienced signs of decrease.

The "book" computer Jobs was referring to would feature a "radio link" in order for it to be able to communicate without being connected to anything else.

While it seems so obvious in the current day and age, Jobs had also said that within a few years consumers would be spending more time interacting with personal computers than with cars.

"He confidently talks about the personal computer being a new medium of communication. Again, this is before networking was commonplace or there was any inkling of the Internet going mainstream. Yet he specifically talks about early e-mail systems and how it is reshaping communication," said Brown.

"He discusses early networking and the mess of different protocols that existed at the time. He predicts that we were about 5 years away from "solving" networking in the office and 10-15 years from solving networking in the home."

Jobs also "matter-of-factly states that when we have portable computers with radio links, people could be walking around anywhere and pick up their e-mail. Again, this is 1983, at least 20 years before the era of mobile computing," he added.

Apple is reportedly working on the iPad mini, with the firm allegedly preparing to announce the revised tablet on October 17. Speculation has also pointed towards a widescreen iPad.

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