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Analysts Predict Flat iPad Sales for Q3 2014, Slight Increase in iPhone Sales

Too Good

iPhones and iPads are built too well. No planned-in obsolescence. A few die of natural causes, but the Apple-driven remedies, repairs, replacements (The Three R's in Apple) are just too easy on the consumer.
If you have an iPhone 5, there's little need to upgrade to the 5s, and if you have a 5s, it will probably last you until the iPhone 8 comes out with full 3D, remote camera linking, direct brain interconnect and smell-o-vision.
 
Piggie said:
Yes, the way they build the SSD onto the motherboard is excellent speed wise.

Or course, and again, for "you" it may be "the best" if you had a computer you could open up and fit a larger SSD drive in, and not throw the whole device away.

Again, we are back at how do you define best.
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They are socketed on the motherboard, just like a regular disk. In this case there is a quantifiable measure of speed, not at all hard to define.


Piggie said:
And to a degree, what, one could argue, makes a PC the "BEST" computer.

Because it allows you, the user to make yourself, or get someone to make for you a computer that is exactly BEST for you, the individual.

Everyone has their own best.
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If we are talking about laptops, DIY is out the door.
 
subsonix said:
They are socketed on the motherboard, just like a regular disk. In this case there is a quantifiable measure of speed, not at all hard to define.




If we are talking about laptops, DIY is out the door.
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Well you could swap CPU, GPU, Memory, Storage.
Less common these days, but memory and storage would be nice to swap.

People complained only recently they have to select NOW when ordering the amount of memory they will every need,
 
Piggie said:
Well you could swap CPU, GPU, Memory, Storage.
Less common these days, but memory and storage would be nice to swap.
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What do you mean by swap? Swap out or swap place. The disk is on a socket and memory is configurable up to 8GB, which should have you covered on the class of computer that the Air belongs to at least. So you can configure small disk more ram when you order.
 
charlituna said:
maybe YOU find it awkward but I don't. No one in my office does, no one on set does. We are very productive with our iPads 'despite' iOS 7. And I suspect that there are many others that feel the same way. from offices, to production companies, to professional artists, to teachers and so on.
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I probably should have been more clear, and clearly - based on the response to my post, I wasn't :).

I am not saying that you cannot be productive with iOS7 on the iPad. It just doesn't feel like iOS7 was necessarily fine-tuned towards the iPad to make it shine on it. It feels sometimes like iOS7 is just "super-sizing" the iPhone OS on the iPad. I think they are missing some opportunities with the iPad as a platform in its own right, and that is based upon several core decisions they've made in iOS, which doesn't allow the "desktop class" processors in the new iPads to shine.
 
subsonix said:
What do you mean by swap? Swap out or swap place. The disk is on a socket and memory is configurable up to 8GB, which should have you covered on the class of computer that the Air belongs to at least. So you can configure small disk more ram when you order.
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Well that's the complaint.

The 1st user may have it for 3 years, then sell it on, that person may keep a year or two perhaps sell it on if lucky.

It it nice, if as time goes on, and things like memory and storage get cheaper than you can upgrade those 2 items, but that's been killed now as a concept :(
 
Who would have thought

Someone is trying to suppress the share price so they can make out like a bandit at some point in the not too distant future. I wish there were a legal way to see how the people writing these kinds of articles had their money invested. There's so much stinking corruption in the government and stock market it's not even funny.
 
Piggie said:
If Apple brought out say iPad7, totally new, new hardware and OS.
You know every piece of software that will be written will be written just for the new "powerful" machine. Devs would dribble with joy at the new power, the clean sheet, and not having to worry about if it works on the last 3 or 5 gens of devices.
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Yup. Devs love having to rewrite complicated pieces of software from scratch for entirely new surprise platforms.

And the consumers? They'll laugh with joy over not having the apps they regularly use available at launch, and giggle with delight when they have to rebuy them all again when they finally do.

None of them will look at this new iPad and say "...but I already bought this", because they'll be so excited about the potential of it. Who cares about backwards compatibility? People want new!

...it's why WinRT took off like it did.
 
Renzatic said:
Yup. Devs love having to rewrite complicated pieces of software from scratch for entirely new surprise platforms.

And the consumers? They'll laugh with joy over not having the apps they regularly use available at launch, and giggle with delight when they have to rebuy them all again when they finally do.

None of them will look at this new iPad and say "...but I already bought this", because they'll be so excited about the potential of it. Who cares about backwards compatibility? People want new!

...it's why WinRT took off like it did.
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It's how things used to be and how we advanced so fast so quick and how we got where we are today, and some may argue it why things have stagnated as people are scared to do it.

Games consoles do it. Fresh sheet often and consumers love the new titles and the devs love the new tools and features open to them.

Also why Apple banned devs from doing that with the iPad, not allowed to just slap on an iphone app and put no effort into it.

Not saying we want to do that all the time. but from time to time a clean sheet can really give a kick people need.
 
iPad no longer has the best display either, and hasn't for a couple years now

Pathetic RAM capacity

Competition catching up, in mJor cities and airports I see more and more androids tablets then I have have before and it's not ever going to slow down
 
With all the decent competition out there now what "just works" is an across the board $100 price drop. Then they will increase sales.
 
HowEver said:
Analysts, shmanalysts.
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A common response when the Apple faithful get nervous, don't like a mere opinion, or feel compelled to lash out.

As Android continues to move forward, with steady improvements, innovation and strength, Apples mobile OS begins to fade.

Thankfully they've had Android to copy from with notifications and other Apple shortcomings benefiting as they implement well liked Android features.
 
IJ Reilly said:
One of which we still use every day, somehow remaining oblivious to the tech specs that some insist is more important than whether it works.
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And I would use mine, with any browser crashing frequently.
 
Nope.

Just a very funny joke. Very.

Now we can add your analyses to the heap. So helpful.

sixrom said:
A common response when the Apple faithful get nervous, don't like a mere opinion, or feel compelled to lash out.

As Android continues to move forward, with steady improvements, innovation and strength, Apples mobile OS begins to fade.

Thankfully they've had Android to copy from with notifications and other Apple shortcomings benefiting as they implement well liked Android features.
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BuzzMega said:
iPhones and iPads are built too well. No planned-in obsolescence.
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Yes there is - iOS versions are stopped after X years for older devices.

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IJ Reilly said:
One of which we still use every day, somehow remaining oblivious to the tech specs that some insist is more important than whether it works.
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Mine crashes way too often due to low memory errors. Retried it about two years ago.
 
Sales being flat at almost 15 million units in 3 months is still pretty impressive. I bet companies like Microsoft would be incredibly estastic if they could move that many tablets in a year. Let's also not forget that these sales numbers aren't reeling off new releases but one from two quarters ago (both the iPad Air and Retina Mini saw a Nov 1st release date).

Analysts should've realised by now that sales of tablets should be somewhere between that of PCs (laptops/desktops) and smartphones- you're bound to upgrade your tablet more often than you would your laptop but less often than the smartphones. So the 15 million (or 26 million in the holiday quarters) is right there between the 4 or 5 million Macs per quarters and the 30 million (holiday Q's 50 million) iPhones sales.
 
kodos said:
iPad's big problem right now is its OS. iOS is showing major signs of problems at this point, particularly for a large device that has aspirations to be a productivity device, and not just an e-reader, game playing, facetime device. It's not even clear if Apple themselves are optimizing their OS for the thing. Look at how awkward iOS7 was on it.

It is fairly common these days (caveat: in my circles) to see people look at their tablets and go 'I don't really know why I bought this', and go back to their phone or computer.

My children love them, as they get to play some fun and educational games on their iPads. I love reading on them. But for what Apple is charging for them, it is hard not to see the value proposition in something like the Kindle Fire line for *that* purpose.

But I'm heavily tied into the Apple ecosystem, so we won't be switching. We won't be buying a new one for some time (if ever) however.
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I have a similar problem with the iPad. I wanted to buy it, but couldn't justify it. Turns out... I just don't need it - I don't need anything between iPhone and Mac... that's basically a bigger iPhone. A quick game or read, music, checking mail and news - that's what I use the iPhone for, that's why I went from simple Nokia to a smartphone. Anything else - I go to my Macbook. I used to have a 13" Macbook as my "outgoing" device, but it was excess as well. But if anything I would prefer to have 13 + 15" Macs than Mac and iPad.
I mean a tablet/iPad would be great for reading and gaming... and that's basically it for me. I can see myself doing some writing on the iPad, but I've done my share of writing on 10" screens and it's not as much fun as it seems;)
I just love using my Macbook (though the 15" isn't perfect for traveling, it isn't horrible), I love having every piece of software, all my music and documents I need or may need at hand and... the trackpad, it's just so much better than "touching" :)
Anyhow, iPad is a very cool device, if I was to buy a tablet I would get it. But I just don't see the point of having a tablet... and if the bigger iPhone comes out, then buying an iPad will become even more pointless for me.
So I get your point. Apple would have to really beef up the iPad for me to consider spending crazy amount of money on it.
 
speedyaxon said:
I'd argue the move to a retina display could be considered a major difference. Supporting iOS 8 isn't the only thing people care about.
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I believed this myself earlier. but after getting to use both side by side i realized that it's an entirely optional thing.

Yes, the retina ipad looks amazing. the screen is crisp, beautiful and truly one of the best in the busines (IMO).

But the overall functionality, ease of use, design, and capabilities do not change between the two. the resolution is completely independant on how anything works.

Because of this, it is almost an "optional" upgrade for $100 to a lot of people. Probably explains why the ipad 2 lasted for as long as it did.

if the retina ipad used those higher resolutions to offer more real estate for things by scaling the UI, you could justify thatas a major difference in productivity and the like, but as a major difference? i'm not sold.

Don't get me wrong, I recommend the retina displays over the regular ones when the iPad2's were still sold and only the iPad 2's to save some money if looking for a cheaper alternative. But there's nothing the retina ipad from a functionality standpoint offers over non.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I presume you meant that forecasting earnings isn't difficult, but you'd be wrong. The mean of the 30 or so analysts who follow Apple tends to be close to reality, but the distribution is considerable and few of the analysts can claim a very consistent track record. One year projections of stock price is actually a relatively simple exercise, but they are only as accurate as the earnings estimates can be forward four quarters. They only bother you if you overstate their real significance.

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Quite the opposite in reality, and ironically for just the reason you state.
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I don't really agree about stock price. Companies can beat their earnings (and even revenue/growth) and still go down or go sideways.

When I said earnings were easy to predict, I meant accounting for a margin of error with a reasonable range. I don't understand people who make predictions "earnings will be $7.22 and 1/4 cents" and I understand even less "Price target of $635". Earning of "7.15-7.30" I'd get (They do that sometimes) and "price target of $620-650" I'd understand (they rarely seem to do that).

I suppose I should also point out that this more or less contradicts what you said earlier. I said analsysts are almost never right, and you said they tend to be right on earnings >_> I was talking about individual analysts, not by consensus.
 
MacSince1990 said:
I don't really agree about stock price. Companies can beat their earnings (and even revenue/growth) and still go down or go sideways.

When I said earnings were easy to predict, I meant accounting for a margin of error with a reasonable range. I don't understand people who make predictions "earnings will be $7.22 and 1/4 cents" and I understand even less "Price target of $635". Earning of "7.15-7.30" I'd get (They do that sometimes) and "price target of $620-650" I'd understand (they rarely seem to do that).

I suppose I should also point out that this more or less contradicts what you said earlier. I said analsysts are almost never right, and you said they tend to be right on earnings >_> I was talking about individual analysts, not by consensus.
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What happens to a stock price in the immediate day or days after an earnings announcement can be the result of other internal or external forces (the company's forward guidance, the direction of the overall markets, to name just two).

I've never seen an earnings forecast from an analyst that predicts to a fraction of a cent, so I think you are exaggerating just a bit to make your argument. In any case they use a fairly straightforward formula to get to EPS. The result is a number, and like I said before, it only bothers you if you place too much importance on it.

You can talk about what you want to talk about, but my point is still the same. If you take the mean of the earnings forecasts they tend to come pretty close to the mark. In the most recent case, within 4%, which is hardly massively wrong. Nothing I've said is contradictory, it's just a different point that for some reason you don't want to accept.
 
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