In less than 60 days, Apple has sold over 2 million iPads. This despite just being available internationally this past week, and despite being a device that many in March were saying really didn’t meet a need. This despite the cheapest model being US$499 (more on that below). Yes, despite all that – and helped by tremendous/deserved hype and a multi-million dollar ad campaign – the iPad now dominates a market that it created less than two months ago.
Coincidentally (or maybe not so much) two manufacturers that made their marks with low-cost, but decent quality netbooks – Asus and MSI – both announced tablet computers at the Taiwan Computex show today. The Asus Eee Pad (ePad?) runs Windows 7 and the MSI Windpad runs Android and both have more ports and, well, they have cameras so they will certainly get a look by those that are shopping for a tablet computer – yes, they’ll get a look, and then shoppers will walk to the next aisle at Best Buy and throw down for an iPad.
Two months into the “iPad era” or whatever you want to call it, we shouldn’t have to go into all the reasons that the iPad will continue to dominate the market once these and other usurpers hit the shelves. It is built better. I has a better screen. It has apps. Oh, and that $499 entry price tag? That price point was to us Steve Job’s piece de resistance with the iPad: the Eee Pad will probably sell from $399-$499 – even the most strapped student understands that $100 more to move up to an Apple product is a no-brainer.
Simple math makes the iPad already a US$1 billion success. Image what the numbers are going to look like on December 26.
A revolution? Maybe. Another dominant product from the world’s largest tech company? Yes.
Agreed. Its a dominating product and cool device, but
give the Android & Windows 7 Tablets some time.
Yes the iPad is dominating right now(just like iphone was for years and now we have Android).
The price target of Android should be $199 & $299. This range is Netbook price range. If they can get close to those prices, slowly but surely more people will flock to the non iPad Tablets.
I don’t know – it’s pretty hard to get to that price point and have a quality device that is 10″ – I think the $499 price tag took a lot of netbook manufacturers by tremendous surprise.
I wouldn’t say it’s that hard to build one. One guy built a windows 7 tablet on his own for under $700 bucks using existing technology. He put a carbon fiber case around it. The downside IMO: it’s a larger screen and heavier. But it’s the same weight as a Macbook Air. But that was HIS choice. He’s gonna get about 10 hours of battery out of it.
http://www.readerwar.com/hero-takes-the-tablet-build-into-his-own-hands/
I’d have done a smaller pixel qi screen if I were him for power and versatility. You’re going to see a lot of tablets, and some hobby devices that will be pretty awesome. The market isn’t close to done yet. iPads are cool, but a bunch of people are looking for the note-taking and sketching solution out there. 2 million is a lot, but I have yet to see an iPad in the wild yet. People I talk to aren’t that blown away when they understand the limitations and that all the content makes it EXPENSIVE! These other devices are gonna be 3G in many cases with larger storage and ports for $500. To get that with the Apple you’re getting into the $700 range.
The problem, the Netbook players are taking too long. They’ve had 5 months to get moving since CES. Asus and MSI should be shipping by now for their own sake. Dell needs to get all 3 sizes out ASAP too. No reason to wait. Every school year, every holiday is a big opportunity.
I wouldn’t call it a revolution, but certainly Apple did it perfectly by setting the right timing for the product launch. We should remind that all the buzz around the e-books, touch devices, mobility, and so on started years ago, with lots of gadgets trying to achieve what iPad and others do so easily today. But at that time the right techology wasn’t there yet.
So my point is, I don’t think iPad is such a great equipment as there’s a lack of many important things we all expect from an “revolutionary” product. They have the advantage to have launched first, but more and better competitors will come and hopefully make this debate much more interesting.
Best! ;)
Fair enough, but we should also remember that this is only iPad 1G – 2G should be that much better, and will, um, dominate.
It still amazes me how people react to the iPad when they first see it. A few days ago I was outside with my daughter playing something on the iPad and a family rode by on bikes. The kids shouted “LOOK!!!! An iPad!!!” and the whole family looked around and almost crashed into a car. Amazing.
This. So much of this.
Yep, age doesn’t matter: I’ve seen people from 2-80 just gush over the damn thing within a minute – esp iBooks, turning the pages gets ‘em every time ;-)
Useless, no support for Flash
Doesn’t make coffee either. Tsk.
Two. Million.
The market clearly doesn’t give two shakes about Flash.
Wrong, many of those people don’t know what they’re not getting. Trust me, Apple salesmen aren’t going into specifics in regards to that, they have their canned responses. You miss out on a lot in education, existing games and just flexibility in general getting content on sites.
Flash doesn’t matter with HTML5 coming on and with 2 million iPads sold already, the rate at which HTML5 is being integrated just sped up significantly.
I’ve got a serious case of iPad fever myself. Gotta have one, but i have to wait until july for official introduction (NL). Düsseldorf’s (DE) stock sold out in less then 30 minutes after opening on introductionday last friday. I guess Germans had the fever too!
iPad pricing in Europe is calculated at usd eur being equal. Not fair at all!
That’s not quite true. You need to apply country-specific taxes, then it adds up. Compare the price of the iPad in Germany and Spain.
@ steve …. why are we keeping flash as the benchmark here ? did you ask for cassettes to be played in 1g ipod ? apple has always been a visionary .. and sometimes you just have to leave stuff behind and concentrate on what you can do with what you have got and you are best at
Yeah Gddmt! Where’s the floppydrive on this ipad thingy?! ;-p
True, however the bottom line is that at the price of being “revolutionary” the iPad handicaps itself by lacking Flash support. If the future is beyond Flash, fine, but a $499 tablet shouldn’t be the trendsetter-lacking lest you should look like a fool.
Flash is modern buddy. It’s embedded in various parts of many sites in useful ways. It also supports ad platforms for the companies who create the video content you want to see. Which is why you get no hulu on mobile devices right now. Flash is right now doing things HTML5 can’t and won’t do, especially not in an obvious way. Sure i’ve seen proof of concepts and prototype stuff. It never delivers what Flash can do when you really need Flash, it’s the best tool for some jobs. Most dont’ know how to argue because they don’t know development.
No Flash, No ipad.
It’s easy to complain about what the iPad is missing -and then claim that it is not revolutionary – but think again – if it just managed to do the same things as your laptop with a touch screen then it wouldn’t be revolutionary would it…
Rather the iPad is a new type of information consumption and communication device – an appliance for the masses to use without having to worry about what’s going on under the hood. No viruses, minimal file management, simple install and deinstall of applications, works all day on a charge, …
A few weeks ago I was saying that they will sell 50 million units in 2011 and that ten years from now we will all recognize the introduction of the iPad as a fundamental shift in our approach to computing. Now I’m thinking I was being conservative.
I gave the iPad to my 83 year-old MIL to look at some family photos. When she gave it back – she said – “I wouldn’t mind having one of those!”. It’s the first time she has expressed an interest in technology – and the first time that our computer technology has been refined enough for it to be accessible to her without any training or support (beyond the 15 second intro to the touch interface). It’s an incredibly intuitive device.
Couldn’t get past your first paragraph because the truth is skewed. Sure the iPad does things your laptop doesn’t do; place some gyros inside your laptop, and presto, better functionality than iPad. A little simplistic, I know. However, the iPad fails at the most basic level: typing. How’s that for anti-revolutionary?
All that this 60 million ipads sold means is that apples hype machine is good and that there are a lot of sheep out there BAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!
To the baah humbuggers: if you haven’t used one, your opinion ain’t worth a damn. I’m using an iPad I purchased for my wife’s use. No mouse. No keyboard. Gorgeous screen. Great apps. Certainly it’s design dominance. Wait a year and tablets, apple’s or others’, will be everywhere.
The qwerty keyboard is a clumsy input device – a bridge technology if you will – taking us from the end of the 19th century into the beginning of the 21st century. Although we have all learned to touch type and compose documents with that model – it is not reasonable assume that nothing will replace it. The touch device makes such a replacement possible – wait and see…