“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs emerged from medical leave to introduce a new version of the iPad, aiming to stay ahead of a stampede of tablet-computer rivals,” Adam Satariano and Cliff Edwards report for Bloomberg.
MacDailyNews Take: The more fake iPads the followers churn out, the more the market is diluted and the quicker confused consumers will flock to Apple.
Satariano and Edwards report, “While the iPad 2 has few features that analysts hadn’t predicted, it puts Apple one generation ahead of competitors… [with] lower prices, a chain of more than 300 stores and a broad array of applications [65,000+ for iPad and counting]. ‘Rivals should be scared,’ said Apple investor Michael Binger, a fund manager at Thrivent Asset Management in Appleton, Wisconsin. ‘Steve Jobs has come up with an iPad that’s the same price, it’s faster, it’s lighter, it has all the apps and ecosystem that go around it.'”
“There are currently 102 tablets from 64 makers either on sale or in development, according to consulting firm PRTM,” Satariano and Edwards report. “‘Everybody else is coming up with release one and they are coming out with release two,’ said Carl Howe, a director at Yankee Group, a research and consulting firm. Apple had little competition when it entered the market, said Howe, noting that the iPad was one of the fastest businesses to ever reach $1 billion in revenue. ‘The challenge is how you follow that up.’”
MacDailyNews Take: Challenge met. Just watch. Also, slight correction – Carl must have been misquoted for he’s almost always right when it comes to Apple – iPad is the fastest business to reach $1 billion in revenue.
Satariano and Edwards report, “Jobs touted Apple’s range of applications as an edge over competitors. The company said its App Store has more than 350,000 programs, with at least 65,000 of them taking full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. ‘Our competitors were just flummoxed,’ Jobs said.”
“The iPad 2 will account for at least 20 million tablet computer sales in the U.S. this year, or 83 percent of the market, said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Satariano and Edwards report.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple will sell 20 million iPads in well under a year and, in the process, they won’t even break a sweat.
Satariano and Edwards report, “Motorola said this week that sales of the Xoom, available through Verizon Wireless, started ‘relatively well,’ and it plans to introduce tablets with other carriers this year… Samsung said on Jan. 27 that it had shipped 2 million Galaxy Tab devices. RIM, meanwhile, plans to introduce its PlayBook tablet this year, and HP is readying a device that uses software from its acquisition of Palm Inc.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Relatively well.” Smirk. Compared to what? ROKR? Tiny, little, damaged, derivative, dismantled company. Yuck. Now, Samsung “shipped” 2 million fake iPads, they never said they “sold” them. In fact, a Samsung executive made it rather clear at the end of January:
Well, your question was on sell-in and sell-out. As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive and this first quarterly result was quite, you know, fourth-quarter unit [figure] was around two million. Then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite small. We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasn’t as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK. – Samsung VP Lee Young-hee
As for RIM: Puleeze. If the company makes it to a buyout, they’ll be ecstatic.
Satariano and Edwards report, “The iPad 2 may top the debut of the first generation, which sold more than 300,000 in its first day and 1 million in its first 28 days, Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co., said in an interview yesterday on Bloomberg West.”
MacDailyNews Take: Brian. Putting in an early entry for the Ridiculous Understatement of the Year Award.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
Mdn take- truer words…
BOOM Shaka Laka Laka, Boom…
People are saying it’s “just evolutionary” not revolutionary. They’re forgetting that the revolution started last year with iPad 1, and so far, no one has mounted a counterrevolution.
It’s the competition who now has to come up with a new revolution given Apple’s massive sales, eco-system, retail distribution and lights-out $499 entry level price.
Someone pointed out that five of the six iPad models were cheaper than the Xoom. They are completely DOA. If they don’t change the price, it simply won’t get any traction, but if they lower the price, they start making razor-thin profits.
That’s ridiculous. How in the world can any company be expected to introduce a revolutionary device, only to revolutionize the revolutionary device less than a year later? People who are saying that are just Apple haters.
But, but, but . . . other tablets have a USB and HDMI port! Who needs that with AirPlay?
And the Xoom is $800 for 32GB, iPad 3G is $829 for 64GB. End of story.
And you can buy a WiFi-only iPad/iPad2 if you wish. Try buying a WiFi-only Xoom…
And the iPad now basically does have a HDMI port.
Anyone know if the iPad2 has a GPS chip?
According to the Apple Store, the WiFi-only versions of iPad2 includes Wi-Fi and Digital compass while the 3G versions include Wi-Fi, Digital compass, Assisted GPS, and Cellular.
So sad that there will always be those who pull up a spec sheet and decide that the iPad is not the best, as if software/ecosystem is not part of the equation in any way. Engadget has already done it actually, putting together a table showing the hardware specs of the iPad 2, Xoom, and TouchPad. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
How you apply and utilize those GHz and other specs also matters a great deal. iOS remains pretty snappy even on some older hardware. I don’t know how Android performance will fare as the OS evolves (hopefully not like XP to Vista).
What is wrong with evolution? It took evolution to get a human out of a one cell organism
What did the one cell organism evolve from?
Denialists.
MDNs first take is rather salient.
I think Samsung is going to do the math and figure out that they can make more money selling flash ram to apple than they can wasting the parts on a tablet of their own that nobody wants.
-jcr
Motorola Mobility has already been downgraded due to likely stiff competition from the iPad 2.
Any analysts spouting FUD about Apple being scared about this tablet or that tablet is just plain delusional. Apple has a loaded deck and it’s filled with aces. Economies of scale, rich iOS ecosystem, developer’s eagerness, 200 million iTunes accounts, huge cash reserve used to buy components well in advance, loyal customer base and the 325 global Apple retail stores. Currently, no company on the planet has what Apple has.
I hope Apple starts introducing the iPad to more carriers for 3G (and later, assuming LTE). That will help keep competition at bay.
Can’t wait for 3/11. I’ll be one of the fanboys in line. Didn’t buy the iPad 1, so I’m pretty excited!
Well, even though there are those that wrote, no one is waiting for the camera’s, I was certainly one. With the iPhone 4 in hand already, buying the iPad early version, and not having that capability, just wasn’t going to happen for me. I was an early buyer of the original iPhone, and still have the burn scar. Apple always put’s out the first version with some significant missing attribute (Edge only in the case of iPhone) that you ultimately feel very bad about when the 2nd gen comes out. At least with iPad, they started at the right price point.
“Apple always put’s out the first version with some significant missing attribute…”
Fair enough. And, yet, first generation Apple products still tend to be pretty amazing products, and subsequent software releases often add capabilities or performance that did not exist when you bought it. Who else does that as well as Apple?
This buyer’s “remorse” issue isn’t just limited to first generation products, by the way. I have an amazing Macbook Pro 15″ i7 from last year. But the slowest version of the new Macbook Pro lineup matches its performance, and the new high end graphics are crazy fast. That is simply part of the technology cycle, and it is far better than the alternative (very slow improvements or even stagnation). If you hold off purchases waiting for the next great thing, then you may have to wait a long time. That said, I generally buy into the second generation, myself. I see that as a good compromise with respect to value and risk (first generation bugs).
That’s my strategy as well. What I meant to conclude by saying, the iPad 2 is going to kick some real arse in the marketplace. There are lot’s of folks have been waiting for a more complete feature set and I think this is it. I’ve used the 1st gen, and find the resolution to be good enough for my poor eyesight. So all of those complaining about the screen, realize this, Apple has the price so low, their competitors are woozy with indigestion generated by low single digit margins.
As Job’s said, the iPad is the culmination of what Apple has learned on Mac, iPod and iPhone, both from a technical AND marketing perspective. Apple means to own this market space, it will be interesting watching competitors keep up now that the low low price end isn’t available to them.
They will probably cry foul and try to have the Federal Antitrust gang try to trap Apple in the alley and mug them.
The google guy over at Fortune is not a happy camper…
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-distortion-takes-its-toll-on-truth/?source=yahoo_quote
This guy （seth) has integrity problem. One side he makes money on 9to5mac meanwhile he also writes anti Apple articles on CNN etc. A true google troll.
evolution does not and can not exist
its intelligent design
sorry couldn’t help myself seeing as its the jesus tablet an’ all
People can intuitively sense good design can’t they compared to random accidents?
One main reason the iPad smashes the competition is the retail outlets (Apple Store, Target, Wal-Mart). All the others require that you go to your local Verizon or AT&T store to purchase (with a “usually” required data plan). Why? It is the only way they can compete on price (with a 2-year commitment). I bought my W-Fi only iPad a few months ago, and have never regretted not having a 3G connection. Mobile computing? That’s what my iPhone is for!
Listening to the Samsung call, the speaker (with a strong Asian accent) clearly said “smooth,” not small. Not that “smooth” implies much, but at least it’s a better word than small.
you’re right. Jobs really should not have used the incorrect quote yesterday – Apple had to know. that was fighting dirty.
The quote has been widely reported and, to the best of my knowledge, Samsung has not publicly refuted that statement. If it is incorrect, then Samsung has a legal responsibility to set the record straight.
That said, the “also” in front of the “small” does not make any sense to me.
and let’s not forget the key word…bloodbath
The Chief
““The iPad 2 will account for at least 20 million tablet computer sales in the U.S. this year, or 83 percent of the market, said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Satariano and Edwards report.”
Really? You mean I had to have an analyst give me math results I could do in my head on the fly? Those numbers are just a 12 month projection of what iPad I did in 9 months last year. It assumes no growth. Reality will be between 25 and 30 million iPads in FY 2012.
Yes, they are going to sell way more than 20 million iPads (which includes iPad 1’s from January 1 to March 11 plus some closeouts). They are a lot of people who were on the sidelines like me waiting for iPad 2. I wouldn’t be surprised to see 40 million iPads sold in 2011.
“MacDailyNews Take: Brian. Putting in an early entry for the Ridiculous Understatement of the Year Award.”
Nothing like an iCal Thursday to start things off. 🙂
Selling a trash alternative ≠ competition.
WHERE IS THE COMPETITION?!
With Tim Cook’s masterful command of the necessary tablet supply chains, all other competitors (if they can even be called that) will have trouble meeting profit margins, as the component supply is restricted, keeping production down, and costs high…
Once again, Apple has not only made the best product on the market, they have crippled competitor’s ability to even begin mass production on a substitute device. This is why they consistently outperform, and will always outperform all other competitors. It is a tight operation, from one end to the other…
What is the memory in this thing? I sure hope they didnt leave it at 256MB. It needs closer to 1Gb otherwise you run out of memory quick
> The iPad 2 will account for at least 20 million tablet computer sales in the U.S. this year
Well, at least Sarah said “at least.” Apple sold 15 million in 2010, but that was in 9 months. 20 million in 2011 is just keeping pace with 2010. And you know iPad 2 is going to do MUCH better. After all, it comes in WHITE from DAY ONE!