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Christina Bonnington reports that the public is not gobbling up iPads like they used to. Analysts had projected iPad sales would reach 19.7 million but Apple's financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2014 show they sold 16.35 million iPads, a drop of roughly 16.4 percent since last year. "For many, the iPad they have is good enough unlike a phone, with significant new features like Touch ID, or a better camera, the iPad's improvements over the past few years have been more subtle," writes Bonnington. "The latest iterations feature a better Retina display, a slimmer design, and faster processing. Improvements, yes, but enough to justify a near thousand dollar purchase? Others seem to be finding that their smartphone can do the job that their tablet used to do just as well, especially on those larger screened phablets."
According to Andrew Cunningham the takeaway from Apple's sales drop in iPads is that Apple's past growth has been driven mostly by entering entirely new product categories, like it did when it introduced the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010 and that Apple needs an entirely new category to fuel future growth. "The most persistent rumors [of a new product category] involve TV (whether a new Apple TV set-top box or an entire television set) and wearable computing devices (the perennially imminent "iWatch"), but calls for larger and cheaper iPhones also continue."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 25 2014, @11:45PM
Yes. Thank you, finally. We already have more gadgets than we need along with significant redundancy across them with regard to function. Also, thank you for pointing out that Apple did not "invent" those markets, those wheels were invented and already in extensive use when Apple's iGadgets came along. It's natural that people would have a need for a computer and a phone, and so choosing a Mac or iPhone makes sense to a lot of people because they're good (well, depending on your definition of "good") products. But good luck convincing people that they need that Apple-brand golf ball or guacamole knife.
The submission itself is very good, however, the articles referenced were written from the perspective of people who were too stupid to dump their AAPL stock when ol' Steve-o kicked the bucket.