Where there is smoke there's fire.
I hope all these rumors will actually lead to a new ipad this fall
CAN'T WAIT
I hope all these rumors will actually lead to a new ipad this fall
CAN'T WAIT
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Apple Lining Up iPad 3 Suppliers in Face of Increasing Number of Competitors
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Good comment, especially as W8 is not only a threat to the ipad but the (somewhat) full range of Apple products. With W8 MSFT offers a tightly-integrated environment ranging from pads to computers, offering significant benefits for both people and businesses. This will soon stretch over to include cell phones. Further, just like having Apple product A increases benefits of buying Apple product B, people going for MSFT product B will reduce benefits of buying Apple A while at the same time giving benefits for users that instead pick MSFT A.
Currently Apple dominates A, phones, which can be considered as a somewhat mature market. They also have a nice grip on B, pads, which however has not yet gained a big market spread. As for C, computers, MSFT is dominating. If MSFT manages to get control of B as pads gets taken up by users, not only can they hinder Apple from winning B, and gaining a bigger share of C - they can infact start eating away on Apples market share when it comes to A.
So yes, the threat definitely needs to be taken seriously.
Of course i can only speak for myself, but if i did indeed own a MSFT pad (i dont), and a MSFT pc (i do, alongside an imac and a macbook (soon to be mba)) i would definitely think twice NOT buying a "Windows 8"-phone. (Heck, the wp7-offering is strong as is!). Now, were i to have a MSFT pad, and a W8-phone, i would surely think twice before buying another Apple computer (as long as there are attractive MSFT offerings, of course. which definitely is the case with desktops, but not so much - yet - when it comes to laptops (samsung is doing a good job though)).
That's is exactly what I was thinking. Apple had no competition the first iPad, second iPad it had the pricing advantage having already built the first one, re-using some parts and mass production.
Competitors will have a variety of spare parts from all the failed tablets. Apple still has the advantage. being cautious with its parts, will allow it to charge less than the competitors, or keep prices the same and get more money, regardless a good play by apple.
I hope they do add retina display, that seems to be the biggest complaint. With the new thunderbolt display, and all mac laptops having better displays all that is left is for the ipad to get an increase too.
I don't doubt that Apple is lining up several suppliers etc. But I do doubt that the possible competition has squat to do with it. This is all about expected demand based on past numbers and correcting the error of having all their eggs in one basket which screwed them over last March when the earthquake hit and stalled out production of components.
What ipod touch was released in Feb 08??
I did a quick check and all I found was each Touch generation was released in yearly in September.
True but the original model iPod touch was released in Feb 08, and then updated later that year.
Close.
The Gen 1 was released in Sept 07.
Added 32GB in Feb 08. Adding flash is considered a new model??
The Gen 2 was released in Sept 08.
Most of your other dates are merely minor tweaks to memory/HD. Common running changes in computer models.
iPad 3, this year is nonsense. It started as a complete fabrication by Gruber back in February. It went from outright fabrication to rumor within days and has been doing the blog circle repeats since then.
Counter-revolutionary
Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, not a mainland Chinese company. Maybe Foxconn has deals with Taiwanese suppliers that enable them to make iPads at lower cost in Taiwan than on the mainland.
And maybe Apple is sending a message to the Chinese government. Stop the rampant intellectual property theft. Too many fake Apple products (and stores.)
Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, not a mainland Chinese company. Maybe Foxconn has deals with Taiwanese suppliers that enable them to make iPads at lower cost in Taiwan than on the mainland.
And maybe Apple is sending a message to the Chinese government. Stop the rampant intellectual property theft. Too many fake Apple products (and stores.)
Gruber isn't above click-baiting
Agree. I do read Gruber (and listen to the podcast) but he's resorted to sensationalism once or twice. And he seems to love picking fights with other bloggers / journalists. (The recent All Things D attribution spat, for example.)
Agree. I do read Gruber (and listen to the podcast) but he's resorted to sensationalism once or twice. And he seems to love picking fights with other bloggers / journalists. (The recent All Things D attribution spat, for example.)
Thanks for correcting the dates, but the larger point remains.
The iPad 3 rumors primarily come from supplier rumors, not just what Gruber speculated on earlier this year. It's coming from all over the place. Whether that means any of them turn out to be true or not is unknown, but it's not fair to paint this as just a repeat of what Gruber said. It's much bigger than that now.
And I don't care how big or small an update is, an update is an update. Apple does not have set schedules for releasing products, or else we'd have the new iPhone by now. No, Apple releases products when they are ready to be released. That's why we will see the iPad 3 whenever Apple wants to release it, whether that's in time for Christmas 2011 or whether it's in spring 2012, time will tell.
Just a few nitpicks
I see your points, but feel compelled to add a little spin.
The overall mobile phone market itself is mature, but the smartphone market has just entered a new era thanks to iPhone (and its imitators.) Eventually most mobile phones will be smartphones. Especially after "real 4G" is rolled out, voice and data are combined into a single IP packet stream, and the cell carriers devolve into ISP-like dumb pipes.
The post-PC era will make the PC era look like what it was. Just the first primitive, clumsy step toward true personal computing. iPad and its clones won't kill off PCs (and that means Macs as well.) But potential sales numbers are far greater, especially if you lump the expanding smartphone market together with the pad market.
As prices inevitably come down, everyone in the household could have their own smartphone and pad. The total number of post-PC devices will far exceed that of PCs. And smartphones and pads are being adopted by corporate IT as well now. Especially iPad, with 91% of the business market at the moment.
Yes, but that's like saying "As for D, horseshoes, blacksmith X is dominating" just after the Ford Model T was first rolled out. Yes, people still ride horses 103 years later. There are still horse-driven carriages. But no, horses and horse-driven vehicles are no longer the major form of transportation around the world. And blacksmith X, if he's still around, is a big fish in a small pond.
I see your points, but feel compelled to add a little spin.
The overall mobile phone market itself is mature, but the smartphone market has just entered a new era thanks to iPhone (and its imitators.) Eventually most mobile phones will be smartphones. Especially after "real 4G" is rolled out, voice and data are combined into a single IP packet stream, and the cell carriers devolve into ISP-like dumb pipes.
The post-PC era will make the PC era look like what it was. Just the first primitive, clumsy step toward true personal computing. iPad and its clones won't kill off PCs (and that means Macs as well.) But potential sales numbers are far greater, especially if you lump the expanding smartphone market together with the pad market.
As prices inevitably come down, everyone in the household could have their own smartphone and pad. The total number of post-PC devices will far exceed that of PCs. And smartphones and pads are being adopted by corporate IT as well now. Especially iPad, with 91% of the business market at the moment.
Yes, but that's like saying "As for D, horseshoes, blacksmith X is dominating" just after the Ford Model T was first rolled out. Yes, people still ride horses 103 years later. There are still horse-driven carriages. But no, horses and horse-driven vehicles are no longer the major form of transportation around the world. And blacksmith X, if he's still around, is a big fish in a small pond.
I almost spit out my green tea here. "Tightly-integrated environment"? LOL
MS hasn't been a threat to anyone in years. Unless we're talking video games.
Why would the average consumer *choose* an MS product over an Apple one in the first place?
Consumers will be wondering why they should purchase an MS product *instead of* the equivalent Apple product. That's not a very fortuitous position for MS to be in. Maybe they should work on getting consumers to care about WP7 first?
That's the interesting thing about MS: always living sometime in the future. We're always left looking forward to something MS will release, sometime, and they promise it'll be great. "You'll see!" and "Just watch us!"
What usually materializes (if at all) is redundancy, and maybe passable adequacy. Both are not a good idea, given new market realities.
This no longer matters, and has been rendered relatively meaningless. MS is riding their universal licensing racket and it has absolutely nothing for them in the current market. MS has shown themselves to be completely unprepared for current market realities.
MS would have to revolutionize the tablet space to gain any meaningful traction. And "revolutionary" isn't exactly their thing.
If only consumers will make the same deductions. They won't.
Like Kathy Griffin on a bender?
This is assuming a whole lot. MS needs to get over the phone hurdle first. If that effort tanks, you can kiss the rest of their tablet-PC-Frankenstein platform strategy goodbye. It'll all be equated with "loser tech company." They'll be left peddling more Windows on PCs and that's it.
Feel free!
First, phones in my post is to be read as smart-phones. Of course, this market is not yet fully matured, what i tried to say was that it had spread enough to hold significance in the short run. As for smart-phones taking over the entire mobile market we're probably there soon. Sure, there will be dead-cheap phones out there that are not as smart (just like we see with computers now), but yes, i agree.
This makes my earlier comments even more important. There is still tons of real market shares to be won, and the battle is far from over. Not paying attention to MSFT, and what they are currently doing with W8 would be stupid.
I disagree, at least in the near future. There is still, however, huge potential sales to get. But most importantly, these sales can be made at a much higher margin as the markets are far from as mature.
Indeed. As for the business market i expect that will rapidly change with W8. Like it or not, MSFT has a strong hold on the business-market, and will offer smart solutions that appeal to system administrators and such.
I disagree. Reality is that people, and businesses, are relying on computers, and there is very little in the pipe that calls for us to re-think this. Of course, disruptive innovation happens every now and then, but i really doubt we will see any major change in this area in the next 10-15 years. Computers are simply that good already (and pads and phones will not out-compete them any time soon, if ever really - they are completing rather than competing).
What i mainly aimed to illustrate was how the emerging pad market could have an effect on near-by markets (phone and comp.), and how actors could draw on synergies etc. to gain leverage in these markets (phone and/or computer) by getting control of the new one (pads). 10 years ago this wasn't even a concern, now its something one must take seriously.
Apple has the iOS-ecosystem, giving them a nice edge now in the immature post-pc era. MSFT has Windows, and with that most of the pc-related markets in check. With blurring of the line between App and application it'll be interesting to see who comes out ahead. Must i bet i'd put my money towards MSFT though. At least if they dont **** up extremely bad with the pad side on W8. If they do that, then i really believe that Apple will see a significant increase in computers.
Laugh all you want, but when MSFT pushes a single platform on the full range of devices (which they are likely to do in the near future) its hard to call it anything other than that. In essence, well end up with one platform that runs on all offerings (i.e. computers to phones).
When are you going to enter the real world of computing? Grow up. Windows still has what? 90% of the market? Even more on the business-side?
Network economy 101.
With computers its obviously the other way around. Of course you are right with regards to phones and pads at the moment, but i believe that W8 has the potential to change that for pads - and if so, in the long run with regards to phones. Second, as far as wp7 goes the people that do try it out all seem very happy. Obviously they did something right.
And yet MSFT has had the market in its claws for decades. Strange. Yes, they have ****ed up at times (just like Apple), but they definitely got W7 right and W8 looks very promising (just like wp7 for that matter, even though full convergence is not likely in the immediate future).
And still they dominate the computer industry.
Of course it matters, people and businesses have invested billions and billions. These investments will not simply be thrown out just like that.
No, they wouldnt. They would just have to offer an interesting product at an interesting price. The ecosystem is already in place for most parts.
Fan boys like you will of course stick to their beloved Jobs in thick and thin. Most consumers arent Apple fans though, believe it or not. Its ironic though that one of the most attractive feats of the Apple environment is disregarded by you, one of their biggest fans
On the contrary my argument is that the pad-market can act as a springboard to the phone market. Thus, they do not need to get over the phone hurdle first - why would they?
I can see how this would be good (to have one platform like windows 8) that runs on all devices. But one can also argue that this generally bad ... one great thing new tablet & OS's (such as iOS) is that it's rather simple to use, and desktop OS, in general are complex.
And with integrated devices this thinking goes all the way down to the hardware. One thing that i like about the iPad is that it's simple and easy to use. IMO, The approach of having a platform that has too many bells and whistles from day one, and having it so open that it allows hardware makers to do whatever they want is more bad, than good.
One good thing that Apple has done, is show the world how to make a tablet ... others can build upon this and improve.
If MSFT was leading the tablet revolution, we would have Tablets with built-in blu-ray disc players and 15 pin VGA output. We would have devices that has everything in it, but no one would want to use (if that makes sense)
.
Show me one credible rumor that there is an iPad 3 launching this fall. Even this story doesn't say that, it is just saying some company is getting in on the supply chain for iPad 3. If the supply chain is still developing right now, iPad 3 won't be shipping this fall. Some are just reading tea leaves and mixing it with previous outlandish rumors.
In case you don't know, once a rumor gets out there, it tends to keep circulating until disproven and more blogs pick it up and report it and more people read some tea leaves and say, "aha, this could be an iPad 3 fall release indicator".
About five years ago I was discussing another clearly nonsense rumor about a fictional Canon DSLR on a camera forum. I said there was no credibility and if people were going to make up rumors they should at least make them plausible like this: Then I made up two phony cameras on the spot that were more plausible. I was clear that I was making them up as an example of what a more plausible camera rumor would look like.
The rumor of these new cameras then circulated on various camera blogs for the next few months.
Nearly any false rumor that starts these days will continue forever in the Blog echo chamber until it is firmly shot down. So I figure we will be seeing this one till late November.
Gruber planted the seed in February and many have been reporting the equivalent of seeing Burnt Toast Jesus, in every piece of data since.
Victory at 19 to 1
But, *LTD* thinks that Apple has already won - since for every Apple computer sold only 19 computers running Windows are sold.
But, *LTD* thinks that Apple has already won - since for every Apple computer sold only 19 computers running Windows are sold.
Yabutt Steve told him computers are dead and all the stuff people
create with them to consume on iPads is, uh, going to be created by, uh....
I can see how this would be good (to have one platform like windows 8) that runs on all devices. But one can also argue that this generally bad ... one great thing new tablet & OS's (such as iOS) is that it's rather simple to use, and desktop OS, in general are complex.
And with integrated devices this thinking goes all the way down to the hardware. One thing that i like about the iPad is that it's simple and easy to use. IMO, The approach of having a platform that has too many bells and whistles from day one, and having it so open that it allows hardware makers to do whatever they want is more bad, than good.
One good thing that Apple has done, is show the world how to make a tablet ... others can build upon this and improve.
If MSFT was leading the tablet revolution, we would have Tablets with built-in blu-ray disc players and 15 pin VGA output. We would have devices that has everything in it, but no one would want to use (if that makes sense)
.
This is not a matter of the number of platforms. What matters here is a) how well the platform scales, and b) how well-designed the user-interfaces are. Both aspects can be achieved under a single platform - and W8 might do the trick (for pads and the pc).
I do agree, however, with your main point. To believe that one size fits all - in all respects - is outright stupid. I would not like to use the W7 UI on my cellphone, but i like it alot on my pc (more than snow leopard in fact).
As for your last point it makes perfect sense. After all, it would be just repeating the mistakes of the past (in which Apple plays a role); A Newton (or Zoomer) 2.0 wouldnt really benefit anyone.
I do believe however that MSFT has picked up on these lessons. With wp7 they are quite strict on hardware requirements, and im quite certain they will bring this - more strict - approach as they try to enter the pad market (again). That, indeed, is a lesson learned courtesy of Apple, and something we all should be thankful for!
Cheers!