It seems to me that fixing on a Fall release schedule for the iPad would be a mistake. With a Spring release, the year plays out so that early adopters who can afford it will buy early and you'll see a stream of customers continue to buy until late in the cycle when you get a lot of windfall from holiday shoppers at a time when production should be at its strongest, and therefore when demand can be met. In this scenario, the level of motivation to buy remains constant throughout the lifecycle of the device (except maybe the last 3 or 4 months after the holidays are over). But if the release schedule fell into a Fall cycle, you'll see a demand spike at the beginning of device's life cycle, at a time when demand will be hard to meet, and then demand will fall off after the holidays and probably never recover for the rest of the 8 months of the device's life. And being unable to buy during the holidays is probably when people will most likely choose to switch to other tablet manufacturers; who knows when Apple would get those customers back again?
These problems aren't as pronounced with phones, because most consumers probably tie their buying habits to the ebb and flow of contract terms; people tend to buy phones when they need them, not so often as a Christmas present.
So all this says nothing of anomalous years, but I doubt Apple would stick to a Fall release cycle for the iPad. They probably shouldn't, anyway. If they can't get it out in Spring, they should at least aim for Summer. That's my opinion.
Though I suppose that the alternative argument would be that if the iPad is already 7 months old before Black Friday, consumers may be prone to looking more closely at the tablets that Samsung and ASUS released as recently as October.
These problems aren't as pronounced with phones, because most consumers probably tie their buying habits to the ebb and flow of contract terms; people tend to buy phones when they need them, not so often as a Christmas present.
So all this says nothing of anomalous years, but I doubt Apple would stick to a Fall release cycle for the iPad. They probably shouldn't, anyway. If they can't get it out in Spring, they should at least aim for Summer. That's my opinion.
Though I suppose that the alternative argument would be that if the iPad is already 7 months old before Black Friday, consumers may be prone to looking more closely at the tablets that Samsung and ASUS released as recently as October.
