Friday, March 04, 2011

iPad Time – Faster Than a New York Minute

Remember a year ago? In early April Apple was scheduled to introduce a new tablet computer – what the world now knows as the iPad. Then production glitches caused a brief delay. Bearish commentators warned Apple wouldn't have time to achieve significant sales in 2010.

Actual iPad sales last year? Almost 15 million! The world hadn't known what an iPad was, but everybody in the world instantly seemed to want one. By summer tourists at the Eiffel Tower were taking their guided tours on iPads. By fall tourists were joined by kids, boomers, seniors, warehouse workers …

… and, of course, wealth managers.

How much of iPad's speedy success, one wonders, was due to digital word of mouth? Via texts, tweets and Facebook, news of the Next Big Thing could spread across continents in minutes. It's not a fair comparison ( Steve Jobs doesn't have brokers working on commission as competitors) but we'll make it anyway: in the last century it took no-load index funds, Jack Bogle's Next Big Thing, a generation and more to gain traction.

Don't you love the cover-converting-to-stand for the iPad 2?

3 comments:

Jim Gust said...

So are you getting one?

JLM said...

I'm torn between iPad 2 and waiting 'til summer when Macbook Air with the new Lion OS should have much of the app-ability of the iPad, plus laptop functionality.

I hefted a regular MacBook the other day. It feels just about as heavy as our old G4 MacBook. The featherweight Air is truly a marvel.

Jim Gust said...

I have a 13" MacBook Pro, and the weight does not bother me. Although the Air is neat, I prefer to have a hard drive (much more capacity for the buck) and a DVD drive.

If I didn't have this laptop, I might go for the iPad. TWG loves his, and is almost an evangelist for it.