Expect the scalpers and chancers to be out in force
and punting them on ebay!
Staff at Apple's Covent Garden store confirmed that they will have the new iPads in the shop first thing on Friday morning, despite pre-orders clearing out piles of the slabs. The store didn't have any tablets, explained the Apple helper on Monday, meaning that somewhere in the UK – and not in the back room of the Covent …
Yeah, but remember what happened at the launch of the PS3 five years back? All the greedy little would-be scalpers got their fingers burned, couldn't shift the large numbers of expensive units at the obscene markup they'd hoped and ended up making little or no money for their effort.
And gamers all over the world cried in sympathy with them- oh wait, no, I meant that they laughed at them.
It was quite obvious. Apple was hardly going to send them all out to online orders and have none of the fuss at the stores (bring with it all the people queuing and drawing attention as well as highlighting all those shiny accessories!)
I know the iPhone 4s last October was released on Friday and didn't sell out till Saturday afternoon and surely the demand for iPhone is substantially greater than iPad? This was in the Sheffield Meadowhall store so don't know how it compared to the rest of the UK but I'd expect (in the north at least) it was similar
I'm thinking of going Friday afternoon after work and picking one up. I can't imagine I'll have much trouble getting one (especially since I want one of the 'less desireable' 4G 64gb models) and as a bonus I won't have to stand in line like a tard!
I think it's actually the more desirable one. The most bought is the 16 GB WiFi and I'm pretty sure (can't be arsed to look for the stats again) that the second most bought device is the 64 GB 3G device (for iPad 2).
Coupled with the fact that the screens are harder to produce than on the iPhone 4 so there will be less devices you may well be waiting like a tard... just not in line.
A very quick search for
"Apple ipad returns figures"
Gave me the following article that is a year old. It's not quite what you're after, but I'd be interested in those figures as well
http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2011/02/01/apple-ipad-has-less-return-rate-than-samsung-galaxy-tab/
A search for 'iPad return figures'
http://allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are-returned/
I dont think he meant that kind of return - he meant how many of these NEW devices
are being bought by people who are ALREADY Apple customers - ie people stuck in the
Apple world... rather then how many are being bought be people new to the Apple fold.
from personal experience a vast majority of Apple devices are being snapped up by already Apple-owning people. Iphone4s being their iphone3G upgrade (and a couple of friends didnt even sell their 3Gs on - they kept them just in case they had an iphone4 disaster (thats how much they cant bare to be without their fruity device!). got 2 ipad/ipad2 owning friends who are going out to get their ipad3 this weekend they hope.
more money than sense IMHO. I'd prefer the ipad2 with the ipad3 battery! :-)
Clearly my comprehension was a little wonky there! I'd be interested to know if they are NEW customers - what have they moved from?
I think it's fair to say that with the amount they're selling there would be a largeish proportion of new users. Other wise the historical proportion of Mac market share would have been larger. It's not just straight conversion
Apple are selling more macs than ever before (though at a lower rate) so unless some people are doubling up, there must a be growing amount of new users.
Feel free to correct my thoughts. It's been a bloody long day
Er, soup came back into fashion a few years back- that means that it must surely be "out" again by now. Really, how inconsiderate can you get, expecting those poor hipsters to eat something that's *so* 2007.
Better get them some cupcakes instead- oh hang on, that was last year's fad too, wasn't it?
Oh, and make sure that's artisan bread from a small family bakery, not Tesco's mass-produced Chorleywood rubbish.
It's hard to see how anyone except possibly Asus can beat them on price/performance ratio-until windows 8 tablets really become mass-market, if they ever do. That component bulk-buying means forget the new one, you can get an iPad 2 right now for £50 less than a Xoom 2 which has a lower battery life and a much more plasticky build quality. I think all they need to do now is find a way to fit an SD card reader (and maybe USB ports) into the shell without sacrificing reliability and they've got the market to themselves for the next few years. What google really need to do is find a way to get developers to develop proper tablet-optimized apps. But I don't think they care-for them mobile phone contracts are where there's a real market, especially as the only phone with ICS for the moment is their own one.
> I think all they need to do now is find a way to fit an SD card reader (and maybe USB ports)
Thunderbolt
> they've got the market to themselves for the next few years
They have anyway
At the point when they fit Thunderbolt, the iPad becomes a real 'post PC' device because you can connect almost anything, and you've got a simple, standardised way to dock the thing and turn it into a laptop or desktop
I'm going to be out early, before anyone else. I've secured enough funding to buy 80 units which will be going straight onto ebay. If they refuse to sell them, I have a letter from the local trading standards ready to show them. We'll see who's the winner :)
People aren't stupid or being fleeced. If they were stupid , they'd be buying Android tablets that are hardly selling at all. People know they're crap, so they're not selling.
Even one of the Samsung execs said they're not doing well. Asus have scarcely sold 9000 Transformers in the UK.
And now.... Back to your juvenile slagging off of apple and your dream world
What a lot of you aren't realising is that a lot of the tards/sheep/iSheep that are queueing aren't doing it _just_ to get the tablet. I queued for the iPhone 4S to do App promotion. I'm an iOS dev and I got my app mentioned in the Evening Standard, got the icon of the app on the news and was also in a couple of foreign papers.
As a result my app is making a nice amount every month and all for 1 night.
Nearly everyone in the queue before me also had a reason to queue - mainly promotion. The Apple hype ensure that there will be reporters for print, web and TV there.
Personally although I was there for business I had a brilliant night. Beers, football in the street... All good fun.
You can wait? That's cool. So can everyone else queueing... Just that we normally have reasons other than it's shiny to camp out all night.
Got my two pads on order as I opted for the engraving option.
One for me as since I have had an iPhone for the last 4 years, the number of times I turn the PC on to browse the web whilst watching TV has dropped significantly. Instant on is brillant for browsing during TV adverts.
The second is for my mum who has her 70th Birthday next week. She asked for a Kindle as her mobile library has closed (council cost cutting). I figured the the ipad3 screen would be less eye strain than the ipad2 and as she also likes soduko and scrabble, it would be the better choice. She also paints watercolour so very tempted to add that Autodesk sketch app to the device.
So two new customers here.
I think with the icloud backup, no requirement for itunes, retina displays; that the iPhone and iPad along with the iOS have all finally come of age.