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Originally Posted by island911
btw techwee... I need to reiterate; BUYING the device, and having a device that one gets years of productive usage out of it are two different things.
Of course though, props to Apple and their marketing.
Tho' I will note (a cautionary tale) that in the 90's Microsoft got much of the same massive amount of free press from others (media outlets and such) who all owned that great rising stock of MSFT.  . . ..but APPL will be different, right?  |
I know you are a relative newcomer to the computer world, but Microsoft was my client in the mid-80s and Apple was my client (and employer) in the late 70s.
Microsoft more or less controlled the PC category media by using their
PR firm to "help with" any technical articles. The behind-the-scenes cooperation was near-criminal. While any media loves a 'winner' they also love to dump on companies on the way down. Apple today has the second highest market cap in the world, behind only ExxonMobil. It has had the highest user satisfaction ratings in the PC category for about 20 years straight. If you want to suggest all that is because of children, fanboys and fawning media, well, that's your right.
Remember, Apple had the first real PDA, and while it didn't have market success, they learned a few things. And they learned a few things with the iPad and iPhone. So the iPad is a runaway success. Anything that can be viewed as a shortcoming gets a product update or third party workaround. When we needed to raise money for our company, we used the iPad as a presentation device. That same week, I watched a full-length movie. The battery consumption for both was negligible. At CES a couple weeks ago, industry folks were walking around with iPads and the accessories and cases were plentiful.
Having said all that, the iPad isn't for me. I use a MacBook Pro for everything I don't use my iPhone for. But since the iPhone offers a remote desktop app, I'm set. Industry pundits wondered if the pads would hurt laptop sales. So far not much. But they've pretty much killed the netbooks. Predicting the future is always a tricky business in tech (remember the 'iPhone isn't going to make it' thread?). But I think the iPad will hold the majority of the market for at least the next two years against the dozen or so devices that have come out or been announced.