How are pro's working out for MS? Looks to me like they are, at best, shifting their purchases from laptops to hybrids, but so far Surface revenues are less than the Apple Watch, which, you know, has been deemed an abject failure by the media and analysts. I'm sure it would confound the industry if iPad Pro sold more product for more revenue than Surface this quarter; reinforce the fact that mobile is driving the industry, not desktops in the guise of hybrids.
A fun and insightful perspective on what iPad Pro is.
My guess is that Apple is going to get 3B in revenues minimum from Ipad pros from release to January 1
I see myself as a typical Apple customer so here is why I don't own the latest iPad.
I bought the 1st one, obviously. I skipped the 2nd and bought the short lived 3rd before it was replaced by the 4th with a lightning port.
I bought the iPad air 1 and that's what I'm still using now. The air 2 wasn't enough of an upgrade, the Pro is too big for my needs and the iPad mini is for women.
So I have bought every other standard iPad and am waiting for the air 3 to come out. Assuming it's enough of an upgrade, I'll buy one however, I won't buy one for the sake of buying one if it's not enough of an upgrade. My Air 1 doesn't feel slow and the photos it takes are great.
Apple, the ball is in your court. Make us want to buy it.
Wow, get out of the wrong side of bed did you today? Feel better for having got your frothing at the mouth rant out?
I've been in th games industry for a very long time and I have several friends who use Surface Pros as Zbrush sketch pads. Of course they're not going to use them for serious work, but for 3D doodling on a train they're fine.
If you believe Zbrush and full photoshop will be ported to the iPad good for you. Enjoy living in your fantasy world.
[QUOTE]Unfortunately, we can't do individual vendor comparisons with great accuracy because no other companies report their tablet sales and revenues the way Apple does. However, we can be certain that Apple's iPads weren't eaten up by Android tablets, because global shipments of Android tablets are down, too. A similar percentage of decline means Android makers are "losing" tablet sales quite a lot faster than Apple is[/QUOTE]
This is a logical fallacy: having declining sales doesn't say anything about your customers.
Given how average real income in the US have steadily declined in the past 7 or 8 years, it's high time Apple took a look at possibly serving the "masses". Not to mention the mess Europe is in. People just can't afford to buy new iPads, even though millions more want to.
Agreed, but there is no money in serving the masses. That's how you avoid being part of it.
I think Apple knows the iPad sales are turning in to iPhone+ sales, that's why they are upping the screen size, to try and differentiate it a bit more.
Maybe for a few but many of us are primary iPad users relative to out iPhones. I will almost always reach for my iPad before grabbing the iPhone for web related stuff.
As for iPad AIr sales, Apple didn't get a skate from me this year even though I was ready to upgrade. Expecting an upgrade and not getting it really pissed me off because I have no need for a larger iPad. I do however want to invest my money in hardware that isn't more than a year old now.
In fact when the iPhone+ came out I predicted on this forum that the iPad screen size would shortly after be bumped, to spread everything out again. But it's new territory, tablet that big, are other manufacturers making ones so big (that aren't 2-in-1s)? It's almost a new category of device.
It is just another tablet.
When a new category of device comes out, whether it sinks or swims ultimately depends on whether apps arise that are so amazingly suited to that form factor that you can't imagine them on anything else. So let's see what developers come up with! I personally don't think it will be professional digital artist apps though, more likely some mind blowing educational thing.
This is somewhat true, but do remember that iPad was a success right out of the box. It actually took awhile for a good set of impressive apps to come to the device.
p.s. there is an article just up on Engadget about how the A9X is "not a big deal." I would love to see DED refute that, because I think it's a real step forward.
We don't need DED's nonsense to refute that article. The article is largely BS and frankly sounds like somebody getting caught with a carrot up his ass trying to make excuses for it.
For example GeekBench is not a Mobile benchmark anymore than Numbers is a mobile spreadsheet. Second you can't admit in one sentence that the cores opinion A9X do in fact perform better than Intels Core M and then turn around and deny that the chip is delivering excellent performance.
Third glossing over the GPU is just plain garbage as the GPUs have become critical to delivering a good experience on tablets and even Mac OS systems. If anything the GPU on the Mac Book is a weak link. The fact that this GPU delivers such good results on such a high resolution screen makes the A9X that much more impressive.
That is just three points but the article was a hack job twisting the truth so far that it becomes an obvious hack job. If you read the first page of comments you will see that even Engadgets readership has rejected the article for the crap it is. That is pretty impressive because the readership there is not a collection of Apple fanboys.
Great analysis. My own 2 cents is many, many more people want to buy an iPad but cannot afford one as they can afford the-tablets-that-spy-on-them. I personally know many people like my housekeeper, the waiters at my favorite restaurants, the local cops, etc. who have told me they want to buy iPads for themselves and their kids but cannot afford to. I helped one of them buy a used iPad but most of the want a new one but can't even afford the cheapest iPad mini. Just yesterday my housekeeper asked me about possible Black Friday deals for iPads and I promised to look into it for her.
So Apple could have easily solved the "failure" by lowering prices, such as keeping iPad mini 1. People like my housekeeper are actually aware even the original mini still works great (because they got friends who could afford one).
Given how average real income in the US have steadily declined in the past 7 or 8 years, it's high time Apple took a look at possibly serving the "masses". Not to mention the mess Europe is in. People just can't afford to buy new iPads, even though millions more want to.
I would say that you should ask them to look online for refurbished units. They are often in great condition aside from a few scratches in the casing. Apple themselves offer refurbished units that are like new on their store website, but you could probably find refurbs or simply used ones cheaper elsewhere. As iPads tend to have a longer useable life from gen 2 onwards they should get a lot of use from them.
Huh! Apple solves this failure by not making money... Because Apple doesn't really give a crap about revenues unless there is profit in it.
Sad for your housekeeper, but Apple doesn't sell to her. They're not cutting their margins to sell more units. Long term, it is ALWAYS a losing proposition.
Most of those cheap tablets barely last a year. So, how much money are they really saving? ZERO.
Tablets sales except in the very low end, are down. In that low end, profit margins go from 0-5%. Apple would close shop on Ipads rather than sell there. Buying Apple offers you the whole integrated ecosystem and sw/hw, that's worth a lot more than the competition.
Well...they are saving an infinite percentage. There are lots of things I'd like and could use, but I just don't have the quid. That is not Apple's problem - it is my problem. But an informed consumer evaluates options and value, and chooses wisely.
...
We don't need DED's nonsense to refute that article. The article is largely BS and frankly sounds like somebody getting caught with a carrot up his ass trying to make excuses for it.
For example GeekBench is not a Mobile benchmark anymore than Numbers is a mobile spreadsheet. Second you can't admit in one sentence that the cores opinion A9X do in fact perform better than Intels Core M and then turn around and deny that the chip is delivering excellent performance.
Third glossing over the GPU is just plain garbage as the GPUs have become critical to delivering a good experience on tablets and even Mac OS systems. If anything the GPU on the Mac Book is a weak link. The fact that this GPU delivers such good results on such a high resolution screen makes the A9X that much more impressive.
That is just three points but the article was a hack job twisting the truth so far that it becomes an obvious hack job. If you read the first page of comments you will see that even Engadgets readership has rejected the article for the crap it is. That is pretty impressive because the readership there is not a collection of Apple fanboys.
I deliberately didn't link to it for that reason. The key thing about the A9X (as against previous Ax processors) is that it crossed over the performance of the lowest end Macbook, I don't see how that kind of a milestone can just be dismissed.
It gets dismissed due to fear. Intel of late has really been on the rocks and has bungled more technolgy advances in the last couple of years than any semiconductor manufacture going. There is a real possibility that Intel Will never be successful in mobile. This could very well mean the end of the commodity PC and the allied mobile market. There is a real fear that the only viable mobile chips will come from companies like Apple that can design their own. This means that mobile will always be stuck with significantly less powerful devices on non Apple platforms.
I don't dismiss the fear as the outlook isn't all that good right now! What I dismiss is the desire of many to pass off bullshit as the truth.
This isn't hard to understand, there was a massive initial need for iPads that resulted in immediate huge sales. Now that the bulk demand has been filled the sales rate will stabilize and maybe even start increasing. The reality is that they are still shipping massive numbers of iPads (far more than Macs) and this has made Apple the largest manufacture of PC type devices out there.
Beyond that we do see Apple engaging in a common stupidity that seems unique to Apple as a company. That is letting a bleeding edge device like iPad Air languish, effectively missing an upgrade cycle. The same thing has happened with the MBP, iPod Touch and other hardware, then Apple wonders why sales suck. Personally I was waiting for an iPad Air update this go around and all I got was a bone. Frankly saving A9X for iPad Pro is an example of Apples stupidity and complete misunderstanding of what its customers expect of Apple. The demand for iPad Pro isn't going to increase because it is the only iPad with A9X in it. There is almost zero overlap in the customer base here, people wanting an updated iPad Air will not buy a Pro instead.
In a nut shell any decease in iPad Air sales right now are due to Apple not properly updating the machine a couple of months ago. Apple is often the author of their own sales disasters. Mac Mini is another good example, this isn't a platform where people accept a step backwards as an upgrade.
Perhaps Apple did not have the supply of A9X chips to put in both models or they wanted the pro to have the spotlight because it is a new product. Who know but Apple. They know what they are doing. And any air 2 sales lost probably wound up in iPhone 6s Plus sales anyway so a win-win for Apple. Sales from iPad air2 sales are obviously not translating into surface pro sales as a whole so I don't think Apple is that concerned. The Mac mini is an entry level device aimed at Windows switchers, and with Mac sales outpacing the PC industry as a whole, I can't say they shot themselves in the foot either.
I see myself as a typical Apple customer so here is why I don't own the latest iPad.
I bought the 1st one, obviously. I skipped the 2nd and bought the short lived 3rd before it was replaced by the 4th with a lightning port.
I bought the iPad air 1 and that's what I'm still using now. The air 2 wasn't enough of an upgrade, the Pro is too big for my needs and the iPad mini is for women.
So I have bought every other standard iPad and am waiting for the air 3 to come out. Assuming it's enough of an upgrade, I'll buy one however, I won't buy one for the sake of buying one if it's not enough of an upgrade. My Air 1 doesn't feel slow and the photos it takes are great.
Apple, the ball is in your court. Make us want to buy it.
Agreed. Each consumer will need to evaluate the value to them personally. I have a family member still running a white G5 iMac on 10.4. He gets pissed at Apple when web pages don't load, or "iChat doesn't work" or his ISP won't support SMTP. This, in his mind, is clearly Apple's problem, since it is because "Apple just did this to sell me a new computer" when all he wants is web browsing, chat, and email. "I hate touchscreen environments too." I get the point, but it is often difficult to explain why things just don't work forever. A car wears out, but consumers have different expectations of their electronics.
Perhaps Apple did not have the supply of A9X chips to put in both models or they wanted the pro to have the spotlight because it is a new product. Who know but Apple. They know what they are doing. And any air 2 sales lost probably wound up in iPhone 6s Plus sales anyway so a win-win for Apple. Sales from iPad air2 sales are obviously not translating into surface pro sales as a whole so I don't think Apple is that concerned. The Mac mini is an entry level device aimed at Windows switchers, and with Mac sales outpacing the PC industry as a whole, I can't say they shot themselves in the foot either.
I got the impression that the iPad Pro is made by a separate team and as all products are hurried to production it is not always possible to synchronize with other products separately developed.
I was talking to a rep at the Apple Store yesterday and they said they were sold out of their stock of 128GB with cellular Space Gray iPad Pros and they were disappearing as soon as stock comes in. Looks like the high end is the hot seller again.
The problem here is that initial sales mean almost nothing as to a devices success or not. Comeback in 9-12 months and we will have more useful numbers to deal with. The other issue here is initial limited availability leading to sell outs. We really don't know what the long term demand for iPad pro will be like but I can see sales following the same curve as the other iPads. First year sales will be followed by a roll off in demand stabilizing a couple of years down the road.
The high reliability and long upgrade cycle "hurt," too. A family friend of ours, who makes millions a year, bought the original iPad and then a few iPad 2's for his family in 2011, but the did not buy another one for himself or his family until last week. I asked him several times why he didn't upgrade, he simply said his iPads were working great and why upgrade? (He's super wealthy but not tech savvy, and he does come to me often for tech advice.) Even though he's on his iPad all the time and I've never seen him use his MacBooks at home or outside, he does not see a need for the iPad Pro.
It is interesting what some people can tolerate performance wise. Me I absolutely hate lag on any device, the big problem is affording to upgrade every cycle so I stick it out.
This is not the only example. Many iPad users love their years-old iPads and simply don't want to upgrade, yet.
On the flip side there are many of us that haven't upgraded iPads this year because we are expecting more of Apple. IPad Air needed a processor update this year to get me to buy and that didn't come. Apple also needs to pull head from Ass and update flash storage in these devices. How Apple can use the term "pro" for a device that tops out with a 128 GB of storage is beyond me.
In other words there are lots of reasons for not upgrading. Sometimes it is due to not buying into Apples vision of what a product should be and cost. For many of us the big problem with tablets is that there is no good alternative to iPad on the market yet. The closest I've seen is the Jolla and they haven't set the hook yet with the right feature set.
This isn't hard to understand, there was a massive initial need for iPads that resulted in immediate huge sales. Now that the bulk demand has been filled the sales rate will stabilize and maybe even start increasing. The reality is that they are still shipping massive numbers of iPads (far more than Macs) and this has made Apple the largest manufacture of PC type devices out there.
Beyond that we do see Apple engaging in a common stupidity that seems unique to Apple as a company. That is letting a bleeding edge device like iPad Air languish, effectively missing an upgrade cycle. The same thing has happened with the MBP, iPod Touch and other hardware, then Apple wonders why sales suck. Personally I was waiting for an iPad Air update this go around and all I got was a bone. Frankly saving A9X for iPad Pro is an example of Apples stupidity and complete misunderstanding of what its customers expect of Apple. The demand for iPad Pro isn't going to increase because it is the only iPad with A9X in it. There is almost zero overlap in the customer base here, people wanting an updated iPad Air will not buy a Pro instead.
In a nut shell any decease in iPad Air sales right now are due to Apple not properly updating the machine a couple of months ago. Apple is often the author of their own sales disasters. Mac Mini is another good example, this isn't a platform where people accept a step backwards as an upgrade.
It's easy to sit back and criticize. It's hard to actually do things.
You can look at a company like Apple, which is making virtually all the available profits in every category they enter, and complain about how "they let some product category stagnate," but the reality is that Apple is making choices. And those choices are taking all the available profits in every category they enter.
Now look at Microsoft. They too are making choices, allocating resources and talent. They are not taking most of the available profits in PCs anymore. What they're doing is not working. Zune, Kin, Windows Phone, Nokia, Surface - a string of whimpers and failures. And on top of this, Microsoft also just spent more than a year "letting" its Surface Pro 3 stagnate.
Except that neither company is "letting" something stagnate. They just weren't able to execute any faster. Now look at other companies: Blackberry, Amazon, Google, Samsung Mobile - they are all executing as quickly and as competently as they can. Sometimes their devices stagnate or get canceled. Sometimes they flop right out of the gate. Sometimes they release nice looking products that nobody buys.
Perhaps Apple did not have the supply of A9X chips to put in both models or they wanted the pro to have the spotlight because it is a new product. Who know but Apple.
While nobody knows but Apple the lack of an update to the iPad Air demonstrates that they don't really grasp what their customer base wants or expects. I have no desire for an IPad Pro, I do however want to see a decent upgrade to iPad Air.
They know what they are doing.
That is debatable.
And any air 2 sales lost probably wound up in iPhone 6s Plus sales anyway so a win-win for Apple. Sales from iPad air2 sales are obviously not translating into surface pro sales as a whole so I don't think Apple is that concerned.
They should at least have some concern about the slide in sales of their own products. Trying to sell year+ old hardware is never easy in the consumer space. People feel as they are being taken advantage of. The lack of updates is also glaring in light of the continued progress in flash capacity and cost, these machines need more storage as much as they need a processor update.
The Mac mini is an entry level device aimed at Windows switchers,
That is largely internet non sense! The age of the switcher has long past. Further the Mini is a very good desktop machine that in its former quad core variant was very popular with developers.
and with Mac sales outpacing the PC industry as a whole, I can't say they shot themselves in the foot either.
You need to also consider what might have been if a little more engineering interest was put into the entire Mac lineup. The vast majority of Mac sales is now via laptops. One reason for this is the lack of a decent Mini lineup. The piont here is that Apple has the money to engineer viable Minis, they don't do so and then suffer sales issues because of it.
It's easy to sit back and criticize. It's hard to actually do things.
You can look at a company like Apple, which is making virtually all the available profits in every category they enter, and complain about how "they let some product category stagnate," but the reality is that Apple is making choices. And those choices are taking all the available profits in every category they enter.
Now look at Microsoft. They too are making choices, allocating resources and talent. They are not taking most of the available profits in PCs anymore. What they're doing is not working. Zune, Kin, Windows Phone, Nokia, Surface - a string of whimpers and failures. And on top of this, Microsoft also just spent more than a year "letting" its Surface Pro 3 stagnate.
Except that neither company is "letting" something stagnate. They just weren't able to execute any faster. Now look at other companies: Blackberry, Amazon, Google, Samsung Mobile - they are all executing as quickly and as competently as they can. Sometimes their devices stagnate or get canceled. Sometimes they flop right out of the gate. Sometimes they release nice looking products that nobody buys.
Comments
How are pro's working out for MS? Looks to me like they are, at best, shifting their purchases from laptops to hybrids, but so far Surface revenues are less than the Apple Watch, which, you know, has been deemed an abject failure by the media and analysts. I'm sure it would confound the industry if iPad Pro sold more product for more revenue than Surface this quarter; reinforce the fact that mobile is driving the industry, not desktops in the guise of hybrids.
A fun and insightful perspective on what iPad Pro is.
My guess is that Apple is going to get 3B in revenues minimum from Ipad pros from release to January 1
I see myself as a typical Apple customer so here is why I don't own the latest iPad.
I bought the 1st one, obviously. I skipped the 2nd and bought the short lived 3rd before it was replaced by the 4th with a lightning port.
I bought the iPad air 1 and that's what I'm still using now. The air 2 wasn't enough of an upgrade, the Pro is too big for my needs and the iPad mini is for women.
So I have bought every other standard iPad and am waiting for the air 3 to come out. Assuming it's enough of an upgrade, I'll buy one however, I won't buy one for the sake of buying one if it's not enough of an upgrade. My Air 1 doesn't feel slow and the photos it takes are great.
Apple, the ball is in your court. Make us want to buy it.
Sadly that is only true in the parallel world in which you live. In the real world, Zbrush is only on Windows and OS X.
This is a logical fallacy: having declining sales doesn't say anything about your customers.
Given how average real income in the US have steadily declined in the past 7 or 8 years, it's high time Apple took a look at possibly serving the "masses". Not to mention the mess Europe is in. People just can't afford to buy new iPads, even though millions more want to.
Agreed, but there is no money in serving the masses. That's how you avoid being part of it.
Maybe for a few but many of us are primary iPad users relative to out iPhones. I will almost always reach for my iPad before grabbing the iPhone for web related stuff.
As for iPad AIr sales, Apple didn't get a skate from me this year even though I was ready to upgrade. Expecting an upgrade and not getting it really pissed me off because I have no need for a larger iPad. I do however want to invest my money in hardware that isn't more than a year old now. It is just another tablet. This is somewhat true, but do remember that iPad was a success right out of the box. It actually took awhile for a good set of impressive apps to come to the device.
We don't need DED's nonsense to refute that article. The article is largely BS and frankly sounds like somebody getting caught with a carrot up his ass trying to make excuses for it.
For example GeekBench is not a Mobile benchmark anymore than Numbers is a mobile spreadsheet. Second you can't admit in one sentence that the cores opinion A9X do in fact perform better than Intels Core M and then turn around and deny that the chip is delivering excellent performance.
Third glossing over the GPU is just plain garbage as the GPUs have become critical to delivering a good experience on tablets and even Mac OS systems. If anything the GPU on the Mac Book is a weak link. The fact that this GPU delivers such good results on such a high resolution screen makes the A9X that much more impressive.
That is just three points but the article was a hack job twisting the truth so far that it becomes an obvious hack job. If you read the first page of comments you will see that even Engadgets readership has rejected the article for the crap it is. That is pretty impressive because the readership there is not a collection of Apple fanboys.
I would say that you should ask them to look online for refurbished units. They are often in great condition aside from a few scratches in the casing. Apple themselves offer refurbished units that are like new on their store website, but you could probably find refurbs or simply used ones cheaper elsewhere. As iPads tend to have a longer useable life from gen 2 onwards they should get a lot of use from them.
Huh! Apple solves this failure by not making money... Because Apple doesn't really give a crap about revenues unless there is profit in it.
Sad for your housekeeper, but Apple doesn't sell to her. They're not cutting their margins to sell more units. Long term, it is ALWAYS a losing proposition.
Most of those cheap tablets barely last a year. So, how much money are they really saving? ZERO.
Tablets sales except in the very low end, are down. In that low end, profit margins go from 0-5%. Apple would close shop on Ipads rather than sell there. Buying Apple offers you the whole integrated ecosystem and sw/hw, that's worth a lot more than the competition.
Well...they are saving an infinite percentage. There are lots of things I'd like and could use, but I just don't have the quid. That is not Apple's problem - it is my problem. But an informed consumer evaluates options and value, and chooses wisely.
Ha ha, thanks, that saves some time.
It gets dismissed due to fear. Intel of late has really been on the rocks and has bungled more technolgy advances in the last couple of years than any semiconductor manufacture going. There is a real possibility that Intel Will never be successful in mobile. This could very well mean the end of the commodity PC and the allied mobile market. There is a real fear that the only viable mobile chips will come from companies like Apple that can design their own. This means that mobile will always be stuck with significantly less powerful devices on non Apple platforms.
I don't dismiss the fear as the outlook isn't all that good right now! What I dismiss is the desire of many to pass off bullshit as the truth.
Perhaps Apple did not have the supply of A9X chips to put in both models or they wanted the pro to have the spotlight because it is a new product. Who know but Apple. They know what they are doing. And any air 2 sales lost probably wound up in iPhone 6s Plus sales anyway so a win-win for Apple. Sales from iPad air2 sales are obviously not translating into surface pro sales as a whole so I don't think Apple is that concerned. The Mac mini is an entry level device aimed at Windows switchers, and with Mac sales outpacing the PC industry as a whole, I can't say they shot themselves in the foot either.
I see myself as a typical Apple customer so here is why I don't own the latest iPad.
I bought the 1st one, obviously. I skipped the 2nd and bought the short lived 3rd before it was replaced by the 4th with a lightning port.
I bought the iPad air 1 and that's what I'm still using now. The air 2 wasn't enough of an upgrade, the Pro is too big for my needs and the iPad mini is for women.
So I have bought every other standard iPad and am waiting for the air 3 to come out. Assuming it's enough of an upgrade, I'll buy one however, I won't buy one for the sake of buying one if it's not enough of an upgrade. My Air 1 doesn't feel slow and the photos it takes are great.
Apple, the ball is in your court. Make us want to buy it.
Agreed. Each consumer will need to evaluate the value to them personally. I have a family member still running a white G5 iMac on 10.4. He gets pissed at Apple when web pages don't load, or "iChat doesn't work" or his ISP won't support SMTP. This, in his mind, is clearly Apple's problem, since it is because "Apple just did this to sell me a new computer" when all he wants is web browsing, chat, and email. "I hate touchscreen environments too." I get the point, but it is often difficult to explain why things just don't work forever. A car wears out, but consumers have different expectations of their electronics.
I got the impression that the iPad Pro is made by a separate team and as all products are hurried to production it is not always possible to synchronize with other products separately developed.
The problem here is that initial sales mean almost nothing as to a devices success or not. Comeback in 9-12 months and we will have more useful numbers to deal with. The other issue here is initial limited availability leading to sell outs. We really don't know what the long term demand for iPad pro will be like but I can see sales following the same curve as the other iPads. First year sales will be followed by a roll off in demand stabilizing a couple of years down the road.
On the flip side there are many of us that haven't upgraded iPads this year because we are expecting more of Apple. IPad Air needed a processor update this year to get me to buy and that didn't come. Apple also needs to pull head from Ass and update flash storage in these devices. How Apple can use the term "pro" for a device that tops out with a 128 GB of storage is beyond me.
In other words there are lots of reasons for not upgrading. Sometimes it is due to not buying into Apples vision of what a product should be and cost. For many of us the big problem with tablets is that there is no good alternative to iPad on the market yet. The closest I've seen is the Jolla and they haven't set the hook yet with the right feature set.
More crap from DED!
This isn't hard to understand, there was a massive initial need for iPads that resulted in immediate huge sales. Now that the bulk demand has been filled the sales rate will stabilize and maybe even start increasing. The reality is that they are still shipping massive numbers of iPads (far more than Macs) and this has made Apple the largest manufacture of PC type devices out there.
Beyond that we do see Apple engaging in a common stupidity that seems unique to Apple as a company. That is letting a bleeding edge device like iPad Air languish, effectively missing an upgrade cycle. The same thing has happened with the MBP, iPod Touch and other hardware, then Apple wonders why sales suck. Personally I was waiting for an iPad Air update this go around and all I got was a bone. Frankly saving A9X for iPad Pro is an example of Apples stupidity and complete misunderstanding of what its customers expect of Apple. The demand for iPad Pro isn't going to increase because it is the only iPad with A9X in it. There is almost zero overlap in the customer base here, people wanting an updated iPad Air will not buy a Pro instead.
In a nut shell any decease in iPad Air sales right now are due to Apple not properly updating the machine a couple of months ago. Apple is often the author of their own sales disasters. Mac Mini is another good example, this isn't a platform where people accept a step backwards as an upgrade.
It's easy to sit back and criticize. It's hard to actually do things.
You can look at a company like Apple, which is making virtually all the available profits in every category they enter, and complain about how "they let some product category stagnate," but the reality is that Apple is making choices. And those choices are taking all the available profits in every category they enter.
Now look at Microsoft. They too are making choices, allocating resources and talent. They are not taking most of the available profits in PCs anymore. What they're doing is not working. Zune, Kin, Windows Phone, Nokia, Surface - a string of whimpers and failures. And on top of this, Microsoft also just spent more than a year "letting" its Surface Pro 3 stagnate.
Except that neither company is "letting" something stagnate. They just weren't able to execute any faster. Now look at other companies: Blackberry, Amazon, Google, Samsung Mobile - they are all executing as quickly and as competently as they can. Sometimes their devices stagnate or get canceled. Sometimes they flop right out of the gate. Sometimes they release nice looking products that nobody buys.
This is hard. But complaining is easy.
You need to also consider what might have been if a little more engineering interest was put into the entire Mac lineup. The vast majority of Mac sales is now via laptops. One reason for this is the lack of a decent Mini lineup. The piont here is that Apple has the money to engineer viable Minis, they don't do so and then suffer sales issues because of it.
It's easy to sit back and criticize. It's hard to actually do things.
You can look at a company like Apple, which is making virtually all the available profits in every category they enter, and complain about how "they let some product category stagnate," but the reality is that Apple is making choices. And those choices are taking all the available profits in every category they enter.
Now look at Microsoft. They too are making choices, allocating resources and talent. They are not taking most of the available profits in PCs anymore. What they're doing is not working. Zune, Kin, Windows Phone, Nokia, Surface - a string of whimpers and failures. And on top of this, Microsoft also just spent more than a year "letting" its Surface Pro 3 stagnate.
Except that neither company is "letting" something stagnate. They just weren't able to execute any faster. Now look at other companies: Blackberry, Amazon, Google, Samsung Mobile - they are all executing as quickly and as competently as they can. Sometimes their devices stagnate or get canceled. Sometimes they flop right out of the gate. Sometimes they release nice looking products that nobody buys.
This is hard. But complaining is easy.
Well said.
Good. Keep underestimating Apple. Keep looking the other way. Keep up the business as usual.