What are they classifying the iPad as? I mean, are we going to see a massive jump in Apple market share because they are counting the iPad as a computer or will it just have 100% of the sub-netbook market? Personally I'd like to see them count as computers so all those companies who have made huge market share gains simply by selling $300 netbooks will know they aren't the only ones who can play that game
The iPad will probably be classified as a "media tablet", a new category separate from computers, smartphones, and portable devices like the iPods.
Industry analysts will probably compare the iPad to netbooks for the time being since there's nothing else in the "media tablet" category. Once Apple has more competitors in this space, I'm guessing that analysts will stop comparing it to netbooks.
In their quarterly earnings statement next month, I'm guessing Apple will break out iPad numbers from Mac sales, iPhone sales, and iPod sales. It is doubtful that they would include iPad in any of those three other product families.
What excuse do people have now for not getting rid of Flash on their websites? Don't they want the views?
It probably makes more sense to develop a simplified version of your web site to specifically address the small screen mobile market regardless if you have Flash on your main site or not. iPad has limited ram so even if you were to create animations in HTML5 you should probably keep it simple.
Yeah but you need a computer to use it, personally Apple has to solve this necessity and make the iPad completely independent.
I agree. Version 2.0 of the iPad should reach "magical" status. No wires...except for charging, printing, better document managment, front facing camera, more RAM, new display.
As far as marketshare....1 million PC's are sold every day. iPad will roar up to some number and slow way down. Because of the iPhone world wide infrastructure they have slowly...very slowly built out, it allows them to push the iPad out faster to the world and that is why we will see it explode numbers wise, pretty quickly.
I don't know why this should even matter. Apple's primary goal is to continue to grow revenues and profits. Abstract comparisons to other (vaguely) similar products don't really enter into this calculation.
I just think it would be interesting. There have been tablets on the market for a decade, and Bill Gates has been exclaiming it's the future for just as long. But until the iPad, tablets haven't had much luck actually selling. It's incredible how Apple can come into a product market where others have worked for years, and instantly become the best in the category with their first try.
Wow! Just, Wow! Consider what this does to the competitive landscape from a PR/marketing perspective. Now, when the Android, BB, Palm, W7 clones start rolling out and selling in the tens of thousands, it will not even be considered a success compared to the iPad sales numbers. Before, 50,000 Droid Pads in the first year would have been considered a wildly successful product. Now, if it can't do a million out of the gate, it has already failed. This is a real kick in the crotch for the wannabes.
At this point, I think iPad and iPhone sales figures should be issued as metric buttloads.
It helps mostly on a psycological level, really, to not need to connect to a computer before using it (even though the Apple store will do that for you if you want).
You should connect your iPad to a computer on a regular basis to backup your data. Remember, if you have to send it to Apple for repair they will actually give you a replacement iPad and you will lose all the information and content on the original.
Assuming they can increase supply, which I'm skeptical of (I've posted before about the lack of Flash memory manufacturing at the moment), I could see the rate of sales increasing as word of mouth really starts to take hold.
Having bought my iPad three weeks ago, I've been amazed by it myself. I thought the lack of Flash would be annoying, but I've only gone to one website so far that has prevented me doing what I wanted to because it was Flash only, and I found myself annoyed with the website rather than annoyed with the iPad.
One thing that has really impressed me about the thing has been the battery life. I had to fly to Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago and that's a 14 hour flight, so I assumed I would be out of battery before the flight was over. However, having watched 11.5 hours of movies, the battery had only dropped from 100% down to 55%. I find that incredible. For people who travel a lot, I see this as close to a must have device.
The knock on effect is I've been banging on to all who will listen (and many who won't) just how good it is.
Furthermore, everyone who has played with mine has said they will now consider getting one - even my mother who has no interest in technology has decided to get one. I really think Apple has hit the jackpot here.
Yeah but you need a computer to use it, personally Apple has to solve this necessity and make the iPad completely independent.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
2) You say it needs to be "solved" implying this is some obstacle Apple has been able to overcome, despite this clearly being a design choice to clearly push this as a satellite "computing" device not a replacement for a PC.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
Constantly repeating a myth does not make it true.
It is though, at least initially. I remember one of the selling points given in the January presentation that it's turned on and ready to go. It's possible that person mispoke. It is turned on but doesn't allow you to do anything until you connect it to a computer. When people first started getting a hold of them, they often stopped at the food court or whatever afterwards, and were stymied that they couldn't do anything with it, often having left their computer at home.
Just like iPhone and Touch, it works fine on its own afterwards without any computer connection, though that's still the only apparent way to back it up. So no one as yet can go 100% without a regular PC/Mac without risking data. OS updates require a computer as well, that's understandable given the ginormous size of the OS updates.
Anyhow, averaging more than a million a month is pretty impressive.
like the chart, but it would probably be more clear if you adjusted the numbers to show how many days it took to reach each million marker (smaller lines are better).
I'm quite inept at anything "graphical". I couldn't find and option for the line to show the value for each day in bar or below. I'll check again.
Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad's multitouch user interface.
I own one, and it's great, but I find myself drifting more and more back to my Mac for doing the above tasks. It's not that the Mac is better, in fact iPad Mail is my favorite mail program ever, it's just that there's a bunch of other stuff I have to do that only the computer has apps for, so it's easier to just keep working than switch devices.
Also, for time consuming tasks, it's hard to get comfortable with an iPad. I guess that is one issue the iPhone never faced - the issue of long term comfortable position - because people mostly use it for quick 1 or 2 minute tasks before putting it back in their pocket.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
2) You say it needs to be "solved" implying this is some obstacle Apple has been able to overcome, despite this clearly being a design choice to clearly push this as a satellite "computing" device not a replacement for a PC.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
I agree with you here. The need for wires is unlikely to go away for this sort of device, but at the same time, I've not plugged mine into a computer for over two weeks now.
I'll plug it in when I need to transfer a lot of data but that's not something I need to do on a day to day basis. In practice, when I need to transfer data it's swapping the movies I have stored on the thing, and I can't see how that could be done without a computer, I mean, transferring multiple gigabytes over a wireless connection is going to take ages.
I just think it would be interesting. There have been tablets on the market for a decade, and Bill Gates has been exclaiming it's the future for just as long. But until the iPad, tablets haven't had much luck actually selling. It's incredible how Apple can come into a product market where others have worked for years, and instantly become the best in the category with their first try.
It would be politically interesting I suppose, but I think it would be wrong to extrapolate these comparative numbers into any reading of success or failure for the product -- which you have to know will happen. For instance Apple is typically "ranked" with the other PC makers, as though their relative size in terms of unit sales is a useful indicator of anything, when the only relevant statistic is how much they made this quarter compared to a previous quarter. You can be sure this is Apple's actual goal, not becoming the "number four PC maker" or beating HP in units shipped, or some such arbitrary abstraction of success. In the case of the iPad, the abstraction will have to be even more arbitrary, since at least currently the product doesn't directly compete with anything.
Then what? It's just too depressing that the computer hardware industry does not have plans IN PLACE for the safe, environmentally responsible disposal of its products. This is as bad as BP (and others) going ahead and drilling without a back up plan to immediately contain a serious accident.
Then what? It's just too depressing that the computer hardware industry does not have plans IN PLACE for the safe, environmentally responsible disposal of its products. This is as bad as BP (and others) going ahead and drilling without a back up plan to immediately contain a serious accident.
My old computers are still running nicely thank you.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
I'm not sure of what you mean by tablet here. If we're talking about tablets in the sense of say, 7" or larger screens, then in 2009 most tablets sold were Windows tablets. There were about 1.5 million of those sold last year. With Apple selling 3 million so far, that would be almost twice the sales of all tablets sold in 2009, not one third.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
If you activate your iPad on one computer and then later connect it to a different computer what will happen? I remember the iPod never liked multiple computers.
I agree with you here. The need for wires is unlikely to go away for this sort of device, but at the same time, I've not plugged mine into a computer for over two weeks now.
I'll plug it in when I need to transfer a lot of data but that's not something I need to do on a day to day basis. In practice, when I need to transfer data it's swapping the movies I have stored on the thing, and I can't see how that could be done without a computer, I mean, transferring multiple gigabytes over a wireless connection is going to take ages.
I fully expect Apple to eventually make the iPad not need to be connected to a PC with iTunes installed to activate it, but I think we'll have to wait until at least iPad iOS v4.x and for that massive data center to have been built, with whatever they turn LaLa into up and running along with other cloud services they have planned. It will still be designed and focused as an accessory satellite device, but a physical connection to a PC won't be requirement.
Interestingly, the new iBooks 1.1 sync your bookmarks and notes via your iTunes Store account (if I read that correctly). It sounds to me like it's kept on Apple's iTunes servers, not just your local iTunes Library and not via MobileMe. Is the first sign of what is to come? I think eventually the first thing you'll do with the iPad is either plug it in to activate it or login to iTunes on the device to activate it. Either way, though, I think an internet connection to first use it will be needed.
Comments
What are they classifying the iPad as? I mean, are we going to see a massive jump in Apple market share because they are counting the iPad as a computer or will it just have 100% of the sub-netbook market? Personally I'd like to see them count as computers so all those companies who have made huge market share gains simply by selling $300 netbooks will know they aren't the only ones who can play that game
The iPad will probably be classified as a "media tablet", a new category separate from computers, smartphones, and portable devices like the iPods.
Industry analysts will probably compare the iPad to netbooks for the time being since there's nothing else in the "media tablet" category. Once Apple has more competitors in this space, I'm guessing that analysts will stop comparing it to netbooks.
In their quarterly earnings statement next month, I'm guessing Apple will break out iPad numbers from Mac sales, iPhone sales, and iPod sales. It is doubtful that they would include iPad in any of those three other product families.
What excuse do people have now for not getting rid of Flash on their websites? Don't they want the views?
It probably makes more sense to develop a simplified version of your web site to specifically address the small screen mobile market regardless if you have Flash on your main site or not. iPad has limited ram so even if you were to create animations in HTML5 you should probably keep it simple.
Yeah but you need a computer to use it, personally Apple has to solve this necessity and make the iPad completely independent.
I agree. Version 2.0 of the iPad should reach "magical" status. No wires...except for charging, printing, better document managment, front facing camera, more RAM, new display.
As far as marketshare....1 million PC's are sold every day. iPad will roar up to some number and slow way down. Because of the iPhone world wide infrastructure they have slowly...very slowly built out, it allows them to push the iPad out faster to the world and that is why we will see it explode numbers wise, pretty quickly.
I don't know why this should even matter. Apple's primary goal is to continue to grow revenues and profits. Abstract comparisons to other (vaguely) similar products don't really enter into this calculation.
I just think it would be interesting. There have been tablets on the market for a decade, and Bill Gates has been exclaiming it's the future for just as long. But until the iPad, tablets haven't had much luck actually selling. It's incredible how Apple can come into a product market where others have worked for years, and instantly become the best in the category with their first try.
At this point, I think iPad and iPhone sales figures should be issued as metric buttloads.
It helps mostly on a psycological level, really, to not need to connect to a computer before using it (even though the Apple store will do that for you if you want).
You should connect your iPad to a computer on a regular basis to backup your data. Remember, if you have to send it to Apple for repair they will actually give you a replacement iPad and you will lose all the information and content on the original.
Having bought my iPad three weeks ago, I've been amazed by it myself. I thought the lack of Flash would be annoying, but I've only gone to one website so far that has prevented me doing what I wanted to because it was Flash only, and I found myself annoyed with the website rather than annoyed with the iPad.
One thing that has really impressed me about the thing has been the battery life. I had to fly to Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago and that's a 14 hour flight, so I assumed I would be out of battery before the flight was over. However, having watched 11.5 hours of movies, the battery had only dropped from 100% down to 55%. I find that incredible. For people who travel a lot, I see this as close to a must have device.
The knock on effect is I've been banging on to all who will listen (and many who won't) just how good it is.
Furthermore, everyone who has played with mine has said they will now consider getting one - even my mother who has no interest in technology has decided to get one. I really think Apple has hit the jackpot here.
Yeah but you need a computer to use it, personally Apple has to solve this necessity and make the iPad completely independent.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
2) You say it needs to be "solved" implying this is some obstacle Apple has been able to overcome, despite this clearly being a design choice to clearly push this as a satellite "computing" device not a replacement for a PC.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
With it missing so many features, like no USB, No Flash, No (fill in the blank)
and on and on and on.
Apple is Doomed !!!
Jeez. You told this joke twice yesterday. How how much mileage do you think you can get out of it?
Constantly repeating a myth does not make it true.
It is though, at least initially. I remember one of the selling points given in the January presentation that it's turned on and ready to go. It's possible that person mispoke. It is turned on but doesn't allow you to do anything until you connect it to a computer. When people first started getting a hold of them, they often stopped at the food court or whatever afterwards, and were stymied that they couldn't do anything with it, often having left their computer at home.
Just like iPhone and Touch, it works fine on its own afterwards without any computer connection, though that's still the only apparent way to back it up. So no one as yet can go 100% without a regular PC/Mac without risking data. OS updates require a computer as well, that's understandable given the ginormous size of the OS updates.
Anyhow, averaging more than a million a month is pretty impressive.
like the chart, but it would probably be more clear if you adjusted the numbers to show how many days it took to reach each million marker (smaller lines are better).
I'm quite inept at anything "graphical". I couldn't find and option for the line to show the value for each day in bar or below. I'll check again.
Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad's multitouch user interface.
I own one, and it's great, but I find myself drifting more and more back to my Mac for doing the above tasks. It's not that the Mac is better, in fact iPad Mail is my favorite mail program ever, it's just that there's a bunch of other stuff I have to do that only the computer has apps for, so it's easier to just keep working than switch devices.
Also, for time consuming tasks, it's hard to get comfortable with an iPad. I guess that is one issue the iPhone never faced - the issue of long term comfortable position - because people mostly use it for quick 1 or 2 minute tasks before putting it back in their pocket.
Anyway congrats on the numbers.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
2) You say it needs to be "solved" implying this is some obstacle Apple has been able to overcome, despite this clearly being a design choice to clearly push this as a satellite "computing" device not a replacement for a PC.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
I agree with you here. The need for wires is unlikely to go away for this sort of device, but at the same time, I've not plugged mine into a computer for over two weeks now.
I'll plug it in when I need to transfer a lot of data but that's not something I need to do on a day to day basis. In practice, when I need to transfer data it's swapping the movies I have stored on the thing, and I can't see how that could be done without a computer, I mean, transferring multiple gigabytes over a wireless connection is going to take ages.
I just think it would be interesting. There have been tablets on the market for a decade, and Bill Gates has been exclaiming it's the future for just as long. But until the iPad, tablets haven't had much luck actually selling. It's incredible how Apple can come into a product market where others have worked for years, and instantly become the best in the category with their first try.
It would be politically interesting I suppose, but I think it would be wrong to extrapolate these comparative numbers into any reading of success or failure for the product -- which you have to know will happen. For instance Apple is typically "ranked" with the other PC makers, as though their relative size in terms of unit sales is a useful indicator of anything, when the only relevant statistic is how much they made this quarter compared to a previous quarter. You can be sure this is Apple's actual goal, not becoming the "number four PC maker" or beating HP in units shipped, or some such arbitrary abstraction of success. In the case of the iPad, the abstraction will have to be even more arbitrary, since at least currently the product doesn't directly compete with anything.
Then what? It's just too depressing that the computer hardware industry does not have plans IN PLACE for the safe, environmentally responsible disposal of its products. This is as bad as BP (and others) going ahead and drilling without a back up plan to immediately contain a serious accident.
Buy, buy, buy. Dump your old computers.
Then what? It's just too depressing that the computer hardware industry does not have plans IN PLACE for the safe, environmentally responsible disposal of its products. This is as bad as BP (and others) going ahead and drilling without a back up plan to immediately contain a serious accident.
My old computers are still running nicely thank you.
3) Why does Apple have to do anything because you say so? It's already sold 1/3 of all tablets reportedly sold in all of 2009 and it's a brand new product. Is there lead so large that you wish them to ruin their product so others can catch up?
I'm not sure of what you mean by tablet here. If we're talking about tablets in the sense of say, 7" or larger screens, then in 2009 most tablets sold were Windows tablets. There were about 1.5 million of those sold last year. With Apple selling 3 million so far, that would be almost twice the sales of all tablets sold in 2009, not one third.
1) You need a computer to activate it for the first time. It doesn't require a "computer" to be used. You can activate on a Mac in an Apple Store or at a friend or family member's house.
If you activate your iPad on one computer and then later connect it to a different computer what will happen? I remember the iPod never liked multiple computers.
I agree with you here. The need for wires is unlikely to go away for this sort of device, but at the same time, I've not plugged mine into a computer for over two weeks now.
I'll plug it in when I need to transfer a lot of data but that's not something I need to do on a day to day basis. In practice, when I need to transfer data it's swapping the movies I have stored on the thing, and I can't see how that could be done without a computer, I mean, transferring multiple gigabytes over a wireless connection is going to take ages.
I fully expect Apple to eventually make the iPad not need to be connected to a PC with iTunes installed to activate it, but I think we'll have to wait until at least iPad iOS v4.x and for that massive data center to have been built, with whatever they turn LaLa into up and running along with other cloud services they have planned. It will still be designed and focused as an accessory satellite device, but a physical connection to a PC won't be requirement.
Interestingly, the new iBooks 1.1 sync your bookmarks and notes via your iTunes Store account (if I read that correctly). It sounds to me like it's kept on Apple's iTunes servers, not just your local iTunes Library and not via MobileMe. Is the first sign of what is to come? I think eventually the first thing you'll do with the iPad is either plug it in to activate it or login to iTunes on the device to activate it. Either way, though, I think an internet connection to first use it will be needed.