Apple just unveiled its latest product iPad not too long ago and planned to make it available to general public in a few months. Its previous new products, iMac, iPod, iTune, and iPhone, won praises from users as well as commentators. The recent earnings reflected the success of those products. Because of the popular products, Apple has held up better than most of the other technology companies both in terms of finance and stock price. In fact, its stock price reached five year high earlier this year. What about the new iPad? How does it impact Apple’s financial?
From what I heard, there have been lots of disappointments for iPad. I talked to some Apple lovers and read some commentaries like Tom Kaneshige from CIO.com (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/01/28/urnidgns852573C400693880002576B90032026A.DTL). My impression is that iPad doesn’t generate nearly as much as positive reactions or followings than other products from Apple. The general complaints are that the product itself is not technologically advanced which is a departure from Apple tradition. People love Apple for the technology, design, and fashion. Now people are pointing to the shortcomings of the iPad. From Tom Kaneshige’s article above, he listed four issues (I heard more than that) with iPad.
1. iPad uses LCD, an outdated technology that is on its way out. I had a friend who got a LED TV last month that has much better picture and uses much less power than LCD. According to the article, Apple uses LCD because 10” OLED won’t be available until later this year. LCD drains battery much quicker than OLED and shortens the battery recharge intervals.
2. iPad doesn’t come with a camera. All new laptops come with a camera. For people who used to use video chatting and participate in video conference, the lack of such popular feature is a no go. Maybe customers can buy a camera and plugged it on to the iPad, but integrated hardware always preferred than add on hardware.
3. iPad uses 1024-by-768 pixel resolution instead of HD output 1280-by-720 that can be outputted to a HD TV. HD TV is the way to go so missing it is a big deal. The rational for going with 1024-by-768 is cheaper. People who buy Apple products are not your typical Wal-Mart shoppers, buying stuffs on the cheap side.
4. iPad doesn’t support flash. Flash is one of the most important features on the web. Watching movies on Hulu, Crackle, and live broadcast events on the internet is a huge part of mobile device. This counter Jobs’ claim that iPad offers the best web browsing experience. You can make the judgment yourself.
How does iPad help or hurt Apple financial is hard to predict, but my personal guess is that it is not going to be successful as other products from Apple introduced in recent years. Perhaps Apple releases iPad just to generate a buzz in public and offers a better iPad later in its version 2 of the iPad. I am sure someone will disagree with me and point out the other side of iPad. Are you buying an iPad when it comes out?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree that there's a lot of problems with the iPad that weren't there with the iPhone and iPod when they were released. The flash issue is a big one to overcome, but I think an even bigger issue is that the iPad seems to have something of an identity crisis. What is its primary use, or function? What is it replacing? If you want to get any REAL work done, the lack of a physical keyboard is a problem... and if you're looking for something portable, a smartphone is much more so.
ReplyDelete