back to article Apple's iPad is the hotcake of the 21st century

The iPad is set to become the fastest ever selling electronic device, according to estimates by US investment analysts. Retail analysts at Bernstein Research have apparently declared that iPad sales' rates - 4.5 million units per quarter - have surpassed that of the DVD, previously the fastest adopted non-phone technology, …

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  1. ian 22
    Thumb Down

    end to end...

    4500000 iPads reach 678.97 miles. Not even to the moon. Meh.

  2. Paul 25

    Ummm, what?

    " the last thing Apple would want is for every every Tom, Dick or Harry to be walking around clutching its fondle slabs"

    Yeah, because they really fought to make sure every Tom, Dick and Harry didn't get an iPhone.

    What universe are you in? I can barely move in this one without bumping into someone on their iPhone. I know that Apple supposedly go for the premium end of the market (and the iPad is way too premium for my pocket), but they don't seem averse to selling millions of the buggers.

    1. Neil Greatorex
      Grenade

      Hear the sound?

      Whooosh.

      Gone right over your head, hasn't it?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its odd

    I recently bought an iPad and an AlienWare M15X within weeks of each other.

    I'm no Apple Fanboi, but I've found myself picking up and using the iPad WAY MORE than the Alienware. Don't know why, its just so easy to pickupandplay. Meanwhile my Alienware takes a couple of mins to boot, fails to recognise my face regularly (AlienSense) and has an utterly terrible trackpad, leaving me to plug in the mouse.

    Meanwhile the iPad allows very capable browsing without being inundated with poorly constructed Flash ads (sure I miss some of the decent flash stuffs) allows me to purchase items on Amazon, play.com etc. with ease, check balances and so forth, and has a decent set of card games enough to keep me entertained, so well entertained in fact that StarCraft 2 rarely gets a look-in.

    Of course I bought the Alienware to perform as a 'pro' gaming platform so I suppose its my fault I'm not into PC gaming right now, NFS Shift on the iPad is keeping me going pretty well despite its apparent unsophistication in relation to the PC version, but in general home computing use, the iPad is getting a much better look-in!

    I do, however miss the ability to play my library of vids on my NAS box upstairs - but I just need to set up a media transcoder server for that and use AirVideo or something.

    All in all, I'd definitely say its likely to eat into the laptop market somewhat (I know not in my case what with the Alienware!). Just why the hell should us IT Pros slave over a hot server all day and come home to more moaning misbehaving Windows PCs? The iPad allows easy computing just when you really need it!

    (Going anon cos of all the Apple h8rz on here!)

    1. Si 1

      Same here

      I've got an older M15X too, and they really are huge, weighty buggers. If I've got a spare 10 minutes I'm far more likely grab the iPad and start playing Plants vs Zombies right away, rather than lug the laptop out, wait for it to boot and then wait for Dead Rising 2 to load.

      I bought a 32GB iPad and I expected to quickly run out of storage and then regret not paying the extra for a 64GB model, but in fact I've set up AirVideo and just live-transcode everything from my desktop. For a lazy and impatient person like me, the iPad is very handy for simple every day tasks. If they could just do something about the keyboard I could definitely see it being a real alternative to a laptop...

      Now off to bed to read a few chapters of something in the Kindle app...

    2. RegisterThis
      Thumb Up

      Good comments ...

      I was very cynical about the 'Pad' market, but there definitely seems to be a use case there ... seems the evolutions has sort of gone ...

      PCs for business --> PCs for entertainment --> Specialised devices for traditional PC entertainment

      I don't think that the laptop will die ... the iPad sucks for productive work (as in creation and not consumption) ... but I suspect laptops will retreat into being 'PC's for business' ... and geeks ...

      But then again, I probably work 10 hours a day ... and I certainly could not replace my laptop with a 'Pad' for that ... so while I am about it, I still use the laptop for my 'PC based entertainment' ??? For me, it makes sense to have "ONE device to rulle them all" and the laptop it is!

      I always question this, because by the same logic, it is saying that Jobs is cannabilising his own macbooks too ... although that could have been unforseen?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Good review

      I think your review is spot on. The Ipad has very good uses and is so easy to carry, I bought my wife one. There are a few issues I have with it that make me want to wait for version 2.0. I would have loved a built-in camera and two way microphone/headset or something like that.

      The other issue is Flash. I just don't like that decision by Apple and I hope the recent "agreement" between Apple and Adobe with CS5 agreements using Packager inside of CS5.

  4. Jeremy Chappell
    Flame

    Nonsense

    Quote: "And, of course, the last thing Apple would want is for every every Tom, Dick or Harry to be walking around clutching its fondle slabs."

    Nonsense. Apple have always wanted to sell product, what they haven't wanted is to sell product that the buyer won't have a good experience with - because Apple want them to repeat this (that is buy another one). Where many vendors just want to sell you a widget, Apple want to sell you a succession of widget (this widget should be so good that no "non-Apple" widget will do in the future). There are plenty of examples of where Apple have tried to broaden the appeal of their product, the iPod Shuffle is one example, and you could argue the iPad itself is another. Apple would be very happy for every "Tom Dick or Harry" to have one, as long as they were intending to buy another (even if they didn't know that yet).

    1. Captain Underpants
      Boffin

      Think of a clever title, then pretend I'd typed it here

      The only way I can see that quote about Apple not wanting everyone to have an iPad would be if such a market expansion necessarily required a drop in price. There would obviously also be a drop in the status associated with having one, but Apple seem to have gotten around this with the iPhone by releasing a new iteration every year or so with the top configuration costing a large enough chunk of change that having the latest top-end iPhone can still be a sort of status symbol. If you're the sort that cares for that sort of thing, that is...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Gordon Bennett

    Gordon Bennet

    Jeeez

    OMG

    We really are doomed as a species if so many people rush out and by such toys as well as iphone in the midst of a recession, we can see clearly where our priorities lay.

    Self-gratification with tech toys, bizarre.

    In the meantime we use up even more scarce resources and we help ourselves rather than helping our neighbours some of whom are starving.

    $500 for the latest apple toy, or help someone in need.

    99% of people will self gratify themselves.

    What a bunch of w@nkers we are.

    1. The Other Steve
      FAIL

      w@nkers ?

      Speak for yourself, because you see :

      "$500 for the latest apple toy, or help someone in need."

      That might be an either/or for you, but my annual direct debit donations to just the Red Cross, never mind anyone else add up to way more than whatever $500 is in proper money.

      Seriously, what is it with you asshats, iPad OR netbook. iPad OR give to charity. What a whining bunch of zero sum dickwads we seem to have collected.

      Grow the fuck up and smell the coffee, Jackass.

      1. Neil Greatorex
        Happy

        Asshats?

        http://wahkiakumfairfoundation.org/Art/donkey.jpg

        1. The Other Steve
          Thumb Up

          More like

          http://attrition.org/postal/asshats/asshat.jpg

          1. Neil Greatorex
            Happy

            Heh

            On this side of the pond:

            Ass = Equus Asinus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_asinus)

            Arse = (_|_)

            1. The Other Steve

              Pond

              Thanks for that clarification Neil, but I have a GB passport and indeed dwell in this wonderful utopia of love. Spent a fair amount of time working for a big yank shop though.

              1. Neil Greatorex
                Pint

                "wonderful utopia of love"

                Hmm, you're obviously not in Lincolnshire then.

                I also spent some considerable time working for a ginormous US corp, used to do the ass/arse thing with them too. Got cuffed around the ear (metaphorically) by the septic bosses quite often :-)

                I was a TS wiz at the time (mid-late 90's) so had asbestos coating. Briefly..

                Have a pint of Haake Beck on me.

  6. strangefish

    I confidently predict

    that if competitors can just deliver their knock-off, unimaginative Paddi-klones at a considerably lower price point then people will take to them just fine.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Pardon

      Like they took to all the 'iPod Killers' in the past you mean?

  7. Steve McPolin

    If it were to continue

    indefinitely, it would squeeze out all the matter from the known Universe. It would probably stop somewhere short of that; so perhaps a bit of info about how long it needs to continue to squeeze out games and cell phones would complete the thought.....

  8. Fuzzysteve
    FAIL

    got to love statistics

    Completely ignoring the size of the target market.

    Just because you have sales in one quarter, it doesn't mean you'll have the same sales in the next. Especially for something high end like this.

    2 quarters is hardly enough time to get meaningful statistics.

  9. JaitcH
    Jobs Horns

    Recession? What recession?

    Hard to believe that the US is in such a financial mess.

    Every pad sold is more US money heading for China.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not a problem

      Since the US has borrowed the money from the Chinese in the first place it's more a case of the money going home.

  10. Phil Rigby
    Welcome

    I don't get it

    I lived in DC when the iPad was released. Now I live somewhere a little more rural, but all the same, in the 6 months the iPad has been out I've seen maybe 5 people in total with them. Is there any info about the demographics, which locations are the highest-selling? I'm guessing San Francisco is popular (the iPhone seems to be there) and perhaps New York, Boston too being a heavy college town but that can't account for all off them. Any info, anyone?

    I, for one, welcome the Android-based tablets when they go on sale.

    1. Ascylto
      Big Brother

      So ...

      You know MORE than 5 people!

  11. RegisterThis
    Thumb Down

    Passive shilling by the Reg?

    I was interested and went to look at that article thinking that I will have to eat my hat with respect to the 'Pad' market ... but all I see is shilling by CNBC and Bernstein Research?

    "the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player ... It took five years for the DVD to reach the unit sales pace that the iPad reached in just its first quarter"

    --> A little research later and I find that the first US available commercial DVD player sold for 1,000 USD in 1997. That would be saying that the iPad, 500 USD, is outselling a device (that also requires another expensive device - a TV) that in todays money would go for 1,300 USD ... almost 3x the price!

    OK, so the 'Research' was accompanied by little thought ... CNBC do try to tidy up having made the comparison REGARDLESS:

    "To be fair to the DVD, they were a bulky, pricey change from video recorders that had become a staple of most American homes."

    However, the following just gives the Shilling game away ...

    "At this current rate, the iPad will pass gaming hardware and the cellular phone to become the 4th biggest consumer electronics CATEGORY"

    --> So now whatever happened to the tablet sector of the market ... or anything Archos had ever built? Move over EXISTING tablet market ... you never existed, Apple just invented the 'iPad category' (Successfully RE-invented / invigorated it by the looks of it ...)

    And the following just rubs home the 'deliberate' lack of research ...

    "Bernstein’s McGranahan covers Best Buy [BBY 41.06 0.81 (+2.01%) ], the first major retailer to sell the iPad. His analysis found that not only are the iPads cannibalizing the netbook/notebook category in stores, but could also be hurting sales of TVs and digital cameras."

    --> And here I was thinking that Best Buy (Their CEO) was already reported as having corrected being reported as saying this ... but hey ... never let the truth get in the way of serving your masters PR departments purposes.

    Nothing to see here but "flat-earth" churnalism straight from Apple's PR machine ...

    1. The Other Steve
      FAIL

      Here Me ROAR!

      "Nothing to see here but "flat-earth" churnalism straight from Apple's PR machine ..."

      Erm, no, the report was by a wall street firm, not Apple. If Apple wanted to wow us with their might sales projection, they'd show us some of their own don't you think ?

    2. robin thakur 1
      FAIL

      Archos? Who?

      Whilst you and I might know who Archos are and you might even have purchased some of their products (I most certainly haven't as they are ugly, geek accessories, seemingly designed by the blind for those stylistically challenged folk and presumably people on benefits ), in the general public's view they were completely irrelevent and I would imagine this extends to most analysts. They might as well not have existed. Nobody cares about them and nobody cares about Windows Tablets anymore.

      MS had the tech and the OEM's did precisely nothing to make them attractive in terms of cost, portability etc. over the course of many many years. They had their chance and they blew it. By stark contrast, Apple's entry has taken the world by storm selling out everywhere, and this is their first attempt. Give them some credit here, you petty little pedant. Their flair and skill was to take an item that most people couldn't even work out whether a market existed for it, packaging it and its features in a way which would sell to ordinary people. i.e. they knew what people wanted but which historically the PC industry has monumentally failed at providing: A user friendly, simple-to-use-without-an-IT-degree, portable computer with long battery life which is nearly impossible to crash/break without the worry of conventional viruses

      This article contains a fair amount of shilling but nothing more than I would expect from financial analysts, regardless of any input or agenda from Apple. The hilarity is that you seem to think that people need to be paid to rave about the iPad/iPhone et al. The products speak for themselves, its amusing that still you and your kind do not understand this.

  12. Sean Baggaley 1
    Badgers

    Apple have shown their rivals how it's done.

    Now it's up to said rivals to copy Apple (again) and create the Windows of the tablet format. Android is likely to be involved somewhere.

    Consider that the iPhone has spawned umpteen imitators of shockingly variable quality, and those *are* selling. Rather well, in fact. Apple are unlikely to mind too much. They'll grunt and make snide remarks about their rivals standing by with their photocopiers, but this is ultimately what Apple *want*. By flattering Apple with endless imitations, these rivals are vindicating Apple's decisions. Apple will be, once more, seen as the leader, the trend-setter, the maven of IT chic.

    For a design boutique like Apple, that kind of publicity is *priceless*.

    It'll be the same with the iPad. Apple will lead for a while. Some rival devices will even be *technically* superior. But as long as Apple don't drop their design ball, their kit will remain the aspirational choice. Not because of the alphabet soup of components inside the device, but because of the way that soup has been *cooked*.

    Some day, Apple's rivals will finally *get* this, and stop handing Big Fruit success after success on a fucking *plate*. Apple aren't doing well because they're run by some magical man made entirely of fried awesome. They're just doing it *right*. It's not rocket science. There are books on this shit and everything.

    Apple are doing well because *every last one* of their rivals appears to be run by feckless imbeciles who wouldn't recognise a clue if it jumped up and down on their heads, waving signed photographs of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and the entire cast and crew of all three CSI franchises.

    I mean, seriously, how the HELL did a 20-year-veteran of the mobile phone industry like Nokia, NOT come up with the iPhone *first*?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      "There are books on this shit and everything."

      Priceless!

    2. David Beck

      Because the iPhone is only a phone as a last resort

      I say the main reason that Nokia didn't produce the iPhone is that, as you said, Nokia is a long time phone manufacturer. The iPhone is a media player, web browser, app platform and only has the voice telephone feature to provide the subside via the carrier to make is affordable. How many people do you know who now carry a separate phone for SMS and telephony use as well as their iPhone, largely because of battery life but also they need reliable telephony.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    There's a shock...

    Fk me sideways, really?

    I've just won one (only the 16gig base model) and for the life of me I can't work out what I need one for.

    Paris, I know *exactly* what I need her for.

  14. Goat Jam
    Grenade

    I really really want Android pads to take off

    but I don't expect them to be the runaway success that the ipad has been simply because the companies producing them are so fecking clueless that they will cripple the android market for years.

    Things they will get wrong;

    1) Fixate on having massive feature checklists to the detriment of price, battery life and usability

    2) Release products with 12 months out of date versions of Android

    3) Be extremely tardy when providing OS updates if they even bother to update it at all

    4) Attempt to "value add" with incredibly lame software modifications & 3rd party trialware.

    5) Appease their trialware partners by attempting to lock down the OS so that vanilla Android is nearly impossible to install.

    6) Focus their main efforts on cramming x86 into fat tablets so that they can offer "the familiarity of Windows" thereby keeping their masters in Redmond from sue bombing them.

    It will take a company that is not already tainted by being in the PC industry to make a truly great Android tablet.

    1. robin thakur 1
      Happy

      You hit the nail on the head

      Lol I like your realism...you make a compelling argument against Android pads which really fall into a similar dilemna as windows and windows PCs, except at least with the latter you can just wipe them easily enough and install your own OS without rooting them. I expect Apple to carry on regardless whilst tittering at the utter inability of its competitors to compete with the iPad since it was released in erm...April 2010 almost 6 months ago.

      Thus far no Windows competitors (none worth mentioning) and an array of chunky Apple homages from China all running an OS which Google has already declared is not designed to run on Tablet hardware and has threatened to ban from their version of the Appstore. Can't imagine why they aren't selling like hot cakes...lol. All the while Apple's pc oem competitors run around flailing their limbs trying to work out what to do in scenes reminiscent of when the iPhone was launched upon the cozy and in-bred mobile phone industry. Now every phone just copies the Apple model, but most of us still remember who was the original driver for this.

      Until Google pulls a Nexus 1 and releases a 'reference' for the rest of the industry this will remain Apple's untouchable Golden Goose.

  15. uhuznaa

    58,5 km...

    ...if you stack them all on top of one another. Space officially starts only at 80 km, so Apple has to sell some more to leave Earth. Not many more, though. They're there anyway already, all iPhones and iPod touch stacked would make a tower quite a bit higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.

  16. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    FAIL

    "If it was to continue this rate"

    Of course, the one thing you can absolutely guarantee is that sales won't continue at this rate. They may increase, they may decrease, but it's vanishingly unlikely that they will continue unchanged, unless Apple make a conscious decision to artificially limit the supply, and past experience suggests they won't.

    GJC

  17. SlabMan

    Hotcake?

    Fruitcake, surely?

  18. h 6
    Alert

    Excuse me?

    "And, of course, the last thing Apple would want is for every every Tom, Dick or Harry to be walking around clutching its fondle slabs."

    You mean Apple doesn't want to sell 6 Billion iPads?!

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