With fresh “IT’S COMING IT’S COMING [PROBABLY, SOME GUY SAID]” rumours flooding the internet about iPad 3, I sat back for a few moments to think: Do I want an iPad 3?
The interesting reality? Yes.
In fact — and I make no apologies for this — I don’t really care.
I’ll have it. Next.
Just how good is Apple, if I can say that?
It’s a given that I’ll purchase one. Possibly two.
This approach does make a mockery of all this hardware buying nonsense though. At what point can I just subscribe to Apple so I can get rid of messing about having to actually queue up or chase around for a unit? I’d sooner pay Apple £399/12 = £33.25 per month so that when the new shiny one is launched, I get it at my door.
Whether Apple release an iPad 3 (i.e. much revised) or simply do a quick evolution update, the matter is settled for me.
And it’s settled for you too, right?
You don’t really have a choice.
I was being pitched last week by a supplier to a company I’m advising. The chap bought out a first generation iPad.
I almost had to turn away.
Oh no.
Ohhhh no.
“GEEZ,” I thought, “Look how THICK that is? Look how heavy it feels in his hand!”
That’s the business equivalent of bringing out your 2002-era Compaq laptop. It’s simply not doable.
You cannot be seen with a first generation iPad anymore. You know this. I know this. Apple most certainly knows this.
You have to give it to them. Even if the iPad ‘3’ is simply the iPad 2 with a better screen and, say, Siri, then yeah… millions are going to have to buy them — almost automatically.
The $399 price point is such that they’re very much accessible for anyone with a credit card and the desire or the “need” (i.e. the desire).
If you’re working in the End User/Desktop Services team of a major company, get ready to service the myriad of requests for updates. There’s a valid business reason — i.e. reputation — as to why your chaps and ladies will start to demand iPad 3s. Some will think this ridiculous. But the majority, well, we’re already under the Apple Fashion Spell.
If you don’t think there’s an Apple Fashion Spell, then you’re either still using a Nokia N95 as your mobile multimedia computer of choice along with a 486DX (with math-co-processor on board) desktop, claiming that they “do the job just fine”.
The rest of us are sitting staring at our iPhone 4S devices wondering what the fluck Apple was thinking delivering a device that LOOKS exactly the same as an iPhone 4. How the hell are we meant to differentiate between the Vicky Pollards with their OLD iPhone 4 handsets? That is Apple Fashion Spell pain.
So bring on the iPad 3 whenever it arrives. March? April? Whatever. I’ll take two please.
Meanwhile, can someone else do a bit of innovation and original thinking rather than just make shite copies of iPads that are rubbish? Thanks.
Sent from my iPad.
hmmm…I dunno…The phenomenal sales of the 4S were – I think – not from iP4 owners upgrading inside contract. They were from 3GS owners who had been hanging out for ages, as well as non-iPhone owners who saw it as a great buy with the new camera.
The iPad is more of a luxury than a phone for most. It supplants a laptop for email & browsing – two functions not appreciably improved by a faster processor or higher-resolution screen. Gaming, yes. Editing HD video, yes. Replying to your mum or checking FB – no.
Maybe for iPad 1 owners, now out of contract and for who the iPad1-iPad3 jump will deliver tangible benefits. But for iPad2 owners? I don’t see the case for ‘normal’ folk not at the cutting edge of tech / fanbois / with more money than sense.
I don’t think it’s that game any more Mike. The normal folk on the train NEVER have iPad 1s anymore…
I’ve seen a few…I think a lot of people held off buying iPad1’s until the case was there…particularly for ebooks. Case in point: Got a haircut a few months ago. Next to me was sat a retired woman, probably early 60’s, extolling the virtues of their iPads to her hairdresser. Her husband & her had never owned laptops, but both had used PC’s at work. When they retired they decided to go straight for iPads – one each – because for travelling, email, browsing and viewing piccys of their grandchildren they were by far the best choice. But ebooks were the clincher on the iPad2. It was surreal to hear a complete luddite discussing in detail the foibles of the Amazon app vs. the Kindle, and how to read Kindle books on iPad.
I think those folk are important to the wider market — but I think these things are now fashion items. You don’t want last season’s stuff.
Spoken like someone with an unlimited device budget, an addiction to toys stronger than crack and a business case for always having the latest device to then offer advice upon in return for filthy lucre.
Meanwhile in the world of people with better things to spend £500 on, email/browsing/ebooks on the iPad2 display with 10hrs battery life is just fine for now, thanks 😉
And may I also say, for the purposes I use it for, my Samsung 10.1 does the job. I can run presentations, browse the web, do all my email, write documents, read PDF’s, watch Flash films, output to HDMI and RGB, play the occasional game, read this blog, access all my Google services, including Google Music which is just brilliant. Maybe my irrational loathing of all things Apple does mean I will lose out on a voice telling that I don’t need an umbrella today but Android and in particular Samsung, do a very good job of serving my needs and I would imagine will do so even after iPad3 or whatever they call it comes out.
Are you telling me you expect Apple to sell LESS iPad 3s?
Points very well made Raymond Lee!
iPads are now consumer stocking-fillers. As above, non-tech grannies now see them as ‘normal’ things to own. OK, less than 2% of UK adults own a tablet (and 9/10 are iPads). And the average income is waaaay above the norm. Lots of geeks/bankers/etc, for whom it was a no-brainer painless transaction to get one. But increasingly it’s pushing down as it matures, and people see it as not a toy but a valid, *more useful*, *easier-to-use* *more practical* device than a laptop. Thus the market for iPads is now churning along nicely, as people see their friend/relative has one, have a play and decide it’s for them. Maybe the family laptop dies, and an iPad becomes the replacement device. People realise that they *don’t* install lots of software on their PC’s anymore, that they don’t need that ‘under the hood’ tinkerability. That iOS and the app store meets 99.999% of consumer needs, out of the box.
So all this said, I do not see consumers rushing to spunk £500 just to have the newest iPad. No. Not at all. For the majority of ‘consumer’ iPad owners, £500 is a ton of cash for not much forecast improvement. Yes the geeks / 1%-ers will upgrade and pass the iPad2 on to the spouse/kids. But my gran in the hairdressers? Myself? Nope. The iPad2 is just too good and the 3 won’t have the kille delta in featureset. Probably.
How large is that 1%?
Yes, yes, exactly what Raymond says. I love my ASUS Transformer for similar reasons, I can do all that and slip it in the dock and have a funky little netbook. I don’t want to own something that everyone has, I want something a little different. As Mike42 says above not everyone is lucky / rich enough to have a spare £500 floating around to spunk over Apple’s latest offering just to be ‘in’. I struggled to justify to myself buying my Tablet, but it will pay for itself for me with the fact I can show people my work, concepts and portfolio in one sleek, whizzy package. Don’t get me wrong, I did ponder on buying an iPad, I really did, but I just don’t like the Apple eco-system, I sold my hardly used iPhone 4 after a few months because I just didn’t ‘click’ with it all, it sat gathering dust on my desk.
er…1% of 65M = 650,000. OK, so maybe they won’t *all* but a new £600 iPad Just Because It’s There. But as the iPad is the only game in town, and it’s a pretty compelling one, I’d not be surprised if it flys off the shelves. But not for normal people, in the 99%, who already have an iPad2. They a) don’t have the cash and b) can’t justify it.
Are these the same normal people who will regularly spunk £200 on a pair of designer jeans? The same normal people who spent billions at Christmas?
I don’t expect people to be buying iPads like sweeties but we have moved from utility to fashion in the UK, definitely. Otherwise we’d all still be using N95s like they are in Italy. The iPad is now a fashion item, much like smartphones.
Hmm…I don’t know anyone who ‘regularly’ spends £200 on jeans. Not even the teens of friends who are definitely within the 1%.
And if you have ripped/stained/outgrown your best pair of jeans, there’s a compelling case to replace them. The old pair are now *useless*.
Whereas I do not anticipate the iPad3 to offer any earth-shattering capability that I decide is absolutely essential to my life and that makes the previous one obsolete. Most likely upgrade is the camera. But I’d guess 95% of iPad owners have iPhones, and an iPad makes for a stupid photography device IMHO.
Again, going from iPad1 > 3 – yes.
And for 1%-ers, yes.
Fanbois, yes.
Tragically hip, single, no-kids fixie-riding Soho nonces, yes.
Most current iPad2 owners, no. Not at all.
What about the iPad 1 owners?
Have a read: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9018390/Five-million-second-tablets-to-be-bought-in-2012.html
See above – I rated iPad 1 owners as a ‘buy’ 😉
But re that torygraph article, OK: 4% of UK residents own an iPad. That in itself is stunning, iPad uptake has blown just about every other tech out of the water. The Telegraph are saying that *everyone* who already has a tablet will buy another one. At £600, I just don’t buy that.
You’re just not fashionable 😉
Hey Ewan – It’s a bit sad to me that a company known for innovation is just spewing out micro-upgrades and fleecing those with more money than sense and some bizarre need to keep up with some random guy on the train… Two doses of perspective and call me in the morning!
As to your last piece ”
Meanwhile, can someone else do a bit of innovation and original thinking rather than just make shite copies of iPads that are rubbish? Thanks. ”
I’ll put apple in there too please, no true innovation worth talking about since the original iPhone. All the updates so far have been obvious technology steps…
These are points well made Dan…