[shakna]

By sitting the iPad in the mysterious gunk that lies at the bottom of a kid's backpack. After stewing for a few weeks in exotic biological material the internals can begin to break down.

The cases are sealed, but they're still permeable to stuff you wouldn't let near your computer because you have a slight respect for technology.

I found fungus growing inside more than one iPad case, usually directly in the boards.

[qubex]

The iPad doesn’t have a hard drive. It has flash storage. The term “hard drive” is not a synonym for on-device storage: hard drives were a prevalent form of storage, but let’s not become so lax with terminology that it no longer means anything...

[shakna]

Yes, the iPad has flash storage. The same specific kind of flash storage that you'll find inside an SSD. And SSDs are typically referred to as hard drives.

The semantics on this one aren't worth exploring.