Nokia Tablet Existed Nine Years Before First Apple iPad, Claims Ex-Employee

If you are a keen technology buff keeping note on the smartphone and the tablet business, then you will be no stranger to Apple's massive popularity with its iPad range of tablets. However, a new revelation claims that Apple was not the first one to create a tablet device.
According to reports generated via the comments about the same from an ex-Nokia employee, Nokia had already developed its first tablet device much before Apple's iPad came into prominence. The time span that has been provided is exactly nine years.

As revealed via communications telecommunications expert Mr. Esko Yliruusi, who was part of the team responsible for creation of the tablet, around 1000 pieces of the Nokia M510 web tablet were produced in 2001.
And while all this happened nine years before the first iPad, but according to Nokia´s market research at that time, the consumers weren't ready for the device.

Interestingly enough, the tablet also went into production but before the entire process could be continued, Nokia halted the production of the device.
According to Mr. Yliruusi, the project was suspended because the device was way ahead of its time. A market research was conducted by Nokia and the results showed that there was no demand for such a product at that time.
"There are approximately 130 surviving devices. The development team got tablets of their own as a farewell gift. Rest of the devices were scrapped," the Digitoday report states.

Later, after the demise of the project, the development team was sacked. While some of them were later re-employed by Nokia, several others joined somewhere else.
Apparently, Mr. Yliruusi was associated with the project from early 2001 until August when the project was dropped.