Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Tablets
  3. Apple
  4. Mobile
  5. Web
  6. Legacy Archives

Here’s how to make an iPad with an Etch-A-Sketch and Christmas lights

Add as a preferred source on Google

Ever wonder how Apple makes iPads? It’s not too complicated, at least not according to Conan O’Brian’s Team Coco. In a new Do-It-Yourself video, host Matt Walsh takes you through the process in less than three minutes. Instead of silicon, aluminum, and glass, Walsh uses common household items like an Etch-A-Sketch, acid, Christmas lights, and cake.

Of course, the first step is the screen. Walsh uses the tried and true children’s toy Etch-A-Sketch instead of a Retina display. Then, he explains how to make a motherboard to power the device using cables from your TV or old speaker wires, depending on what you’ve got lying around the house.

Recommended Videos

Related: Watch more of our favorite Conan O’Brian videos

For app notifications, you’ll need a string or two of Christmas lights, which will illuminate when you get emails and whatnot. Walsh says that if you’re big on apps, you should add more than one string of lights.

He then adds peanut butter, cake, acid, and other truly random ingredients to the mix, which he promptly places in a pillow case, mixes, and leaves to “ferment” like wine for 12 hours. Just like any good DIY host, Walsh doesn’t make you wait that long, though and brings out the finished product: a beautiful, black iPad from Apple, all covered in peanut butter and pieces of wet chocolate cake. Mmmmm.

Walsh unceremoniously cleans it off and then it’s all over. Now that you know just how simple it really is to make an iPad, will you go out and buy the upcoming iPad Air 2?

Malarie Gokey
As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…
The iPhone Duo taught the iPad a much-needed lesson in multitasking. iPadOS 27.2 makes Split View less of a chore.
A small iPad tweak that fixes a big daily annoyance.
Electronics, Mobile Phone, Phone

It’s funny when a brand-new phone teaches an old tablet a lesson. That’s exactly what the iPhone Duo seems to have done for the iPad. I’m genuinely glad somebody at Apple was paying attention, as it was overdue.

iPadOS 27.2 makes setting up side-by-side apps on an iPad much easier, and it is an iPad multitasker’s dream come true if you ask me.

Read more
Affinity’s all-in-one creative app is finally here for iPad, and it costs nothing
You can now sketch, edit photos, and create vector artwork without switching between different apps.
Affinity UI on iPad

Canva has finally released the new Affinity app for iPad, nearly a year after it brought the redesigned creative suite to Mac and Windows. To go with it, the company has also introduced a bunch of new tools that take advantage of Apple Pencil and the iPad's touchscreen. And the good news is that the app is free, at least for the core creative tools.

As we reported last week, Affinity already offered separate Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps for iPad. The new version brings all those capabilities into a single app, allowing users to work on illustrations, photos, vectors, and page layouts without switching between different apps.

Read more
The iPad is finally getting the Affinity app creatives have been asking for
Affinity brings photo editing, vector design, page layout, and sketching together in one free iPad app.
Affinity UI on iPad

Affinity’s new all-in-one creative app is finally coming to the iPad, nearly a year after Canva launched the redesigned desktop version for Mac and Windows. Creatives have been asking for the iPad release ever since, especially because files created in the new Affinity app cannot be opened in the older V2 iPad apps.

Affinity already has Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps on iPad, but the new release combines those tools into the same unified app that Canva launched on desktop last year.

Read more