Apple's Record Mac Quarter 'Almost Unbelievable' in Face of iPad Cannibalization

[linux2mac]

Whoa there, hold on now.

Haven't avid MR members been telling us that Lion is a failure and that everyone hates it? That's it's the worst OS release by Apple to date?

What's going on here? All these cheap and varied Windows boxes to choose from an Apple ends up selling *more* of these expensive Macs?? That run Lion, to top it off??

More people are realizing that paying a little bit more for quality is well worth it.

 

[Kurfer]

I guess, that's the only thing you do in your droid tablet?

Why would you assume I have a droid tablet? Because I don't think iPad's are PC replacements doesn't mean I hate the iPad. If anything I think that comparison could hurt the tablet PC in the long run and isn't fair.

For the record, and I have posted many many many pictures to prove it. I own nothing but apple products. My home theater is run on apple hardware, I have a dedicated iPad just for controlling my home cinema. My 6 year old got an iPhone 4 and iPad on launch day. My wife owns one now and I have 2. There are a total of 5 iPad's in my household and 6 iPhones and about 10 macs.

Mac hater I am not, I am a fanatic. Don't try and steer my argument by placing me as a droid fanboy. I despise that wretched platform!

 

[Kurfer]

I find this interesting. It was the quality of the iPad that helped me to switch from PC to Mac. I consider it to be an entry drug, LOL.

i'm in the same boat but it was the quality of the iPod back in the day that made me switch. The sales speak for themselves, apple makes great products and i'd love to see an "in-between" pc for people that don't want to break the bank on a mac pro or be stuck with an all-in-one imac. The mini is great just can't take modern video cards.

 

[linux2mac]

I despise that wretched platform!

Nicely summed up. A friend of mine recently upgraded to iPhone 4S replacing 5 droids for his business. He keeps telling me how amazed he is at the perfection of the iPhone's touch screen technology. Many times on his droid something would not work right or crash when he touched an icon. He is glad he finally kicked that "wretched platform" to the curb.

 

[JAT]

using your finger as a pointer is inaccurate.

You really need to stop "being" your forum name.

 

[aaronsullivan]

... anyone can find narrow examples where the iPad is useful, or people who can put up with it. Obviously not everyone is a doctor. Who cares if one person wants to write a thesis on his iPad? Broadly, the iPad is less productive than a computer with a keyboard and a pointing device. ...
The fact that you have to reach so hard to find examples is just an illustration of how much the iPad is removed from the productivity mainstream. It's a heavily hyped toy. That's all it is.

You started by saying that "Anyone who needs to do a decent amount of work of any sort can't do it on an iPad". People are refuting that over and over so you changed your argument to be about "serious work" (and in replying to mine you resorted to falsely suggesting that I was including manual labor as serious work when I was explicitly leaving it out). Maybe you could admit that? Just a suggestion. Or, you can fall back on the "narrow examples" crutch. To me, it's starting to sound like "narrow examples of where the iPad is useful" covers anything YOU or your immediate colleagues don't do. And, apparently, "serious work" covers the opposite.

Where is the evidence that LTD had to "reach so hard to find examples", btw?

The iPad is an emerging market and an important device and PLENTY of people are going to continue to do "serious work" on it because, for many, it will be the only computer they have.

I've stated earlier that for many of the jobs I do I NEED a dedicated computer, preferably a desktop, but I think others have pointed out something very important about laptops: this type of debate is an old one. It happened between workstations vs. personal computers. It happened with desktop computers vs. laptops. It's happening with tablets vs. other types of computers. The laptop had challenges to overcome and won't be the solution for everyone and the same thing will happen with the iPad and other tablets in my estimation.

A small example of something that I do is use my iPad for grading student work while roaming about my classroom. I don't have to keep returning to a station to put the grades in and frees me up to help out students more frequently. Is it serious work? Depends on your perspective. Most of the work is in my head, evaluating, but the iPad is an easy way to record it that is preferable to paper or laptop or desktop. It also reminds me of a couple of other cases: people who take readings at the top of wind turbines, and the flight book for airline pilots. Both are for serious work, imo. Are they narrow examples? Every individual example is by definition narrow, but if you extrapolate a bit and realize that there are other similar work needs out there and also just add up all these examples in this thread and elsewhere, it widens up quite a bit.

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. For some types of work, a tablet isn't going to replace a desktop or laptop computer any time soon. However, many ideas implemented in the tablet may extend to the desktop in a positive way. I'm still a bit stunned by how much was accomplished with Apple's iWork suite on the iPad. They are way more useful and thought out than I had ever expected. Numbers is a joy to use once you adjust to the new way of interacting. It has major shortcomings which it shares with its desktop counterpart, but this is all just a start.

And that makes me think of one more point. There are kids growing up with this type of interface as their primary way of using programs. To them, the interface is more natural than for those already trained on physical keyboard and mouse. My 2 year old zips along on the iPad doing all sorts of things on his own. The mouse keyboard thing is a big learning curve. Will he be faster on an iPad or traditional mouse/keyboard setup? I don't know. He has a lot of traditional computers around so he'll probably do equally well on both. But then, which one will he prefer? I'm not sure, to be honest. If software is developed to meet him where he is at, he may end up doing ALL of his serious work on a tablet with no physical keyboard or dangling mouse. In my view, it's not outside the realm of possibility.