>Apple is also hailed as genius for "inventing the tablet" even though Microsoft tried to make tablets happen for a decade before the iPad
The iPad has more in common with the Newton, which came years before the Tablet PC.
Tablet PCs, while great (I liked them anyway, especially with OneNote) might have been called a tablet, but it had little in common with the tablet concepts as presented in the iPad. Tablet PCs didn't even get capacitive touch until after iOS devices came out. They were wholly stylus-based until then -- no pinches or swipes.