It dawned on me today while watching “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” that George Lucas actually featured a surprisingly iPad like device. It was used by Shmi Skywalker, Anakin’s mother (left) and Queen Amidala (right) to watch the podrace which occurred over a larger terrain than spectators could see. It was wireless, thin, and roughly the same form factor, but with handles. In theory if licensing weren’t so complicated we could watch sports like that today at stadiums.
Interesting to note that even in a world where interplanetary travel is almost trivial, a tablet computer is thicker than the iPads we have today. Then again the timeline was “a long time ago”. What an amazing world we live in when you can beat George Lucas’s imagination in a mere 15 years.
Capture © 20th Century Fox
1 reply on “The iPad In Star Wars”
Before Shmi watched Anakin go in circles; Kirk, Picard, Sisco and many others used a device called PADD to interact with the ship’s LCARS system and access other information throughout the Star Trek universe. Granted the ones used on the 1701-A were a bit clunky, but the later ones were quite thin.