ZDNet had a slightly similar piece back in april, positing that the iPad, like the iPod before it, had peaked and is now destined for a slow decline:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/peak-ip...come-and-gone/
Quote:
I'm not ready to start carving out a tombstone for the iPad just yet because 12.6 million iPads a quarter represents a volume of product that a lot of hardware makers can only dream of, but sales do seem to be on a downward trajectory. The iPad may have burned bright, but it may not have the longevity that the iPhone and Mac seem to have
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Running an online search for "peak ipad" popped up this piece by Jean Louis Gassee from last year:
http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/04/20...ad-is-a-tease/
Quote:
I realize there are iPad users who happily perform “productivity tasks” on their iPads. Most of them use a stand and keyboard sold in a number of guises. The number of different offerings is a testament to a real need. (We’ll note that Apple doesn’t seem eager to address this issue directly. They don’t offer an “iPad-sized” keyboard — the Bluetooth keyboard I use is fine for my iMac, but feels gargantuan when I pair it with my iPad. And Apple’s iPad Dock hasn’t been updated to work with the “Lightning” connector on the newer iPads.)
The iPad’s limitations extend beyond classic office productivity tasks. I just tried to build an itinerary for a long postponed road trip, driving all the way from Key West Florida to Palo Alto. On a Mac, you can easily “print to PDF” to produce a map for each leg of the trip. Then you use the wonderful Preview app (I salute its author and dedicated maintainer) to emend unneeded pages, drag and drop, combine and rearrange the PDF files into a single document. Don’t try this on an iPad: How would you “print-to-PDF” a map page, let alone combine such pages?
Despite the inspiring ads, Apple’s hopes for the iPad overshot what the product can actually deliver. Although there’s a large numbers of iPad-only users, there’s also a substantial population of dual-use customers for whom both tablets and conventional PCs are now part of daily life.
I see the lull in iPad sales as a coming down to reality after unrealistic expectations, a realization that iPads aren’t as ready to replace PCs as many initially hoped.
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Apple is still rumored to have an iPad Pro on the way.
Real. Soon. Now.