Apple's iPad shipments could hit new low in first quarter - report

Combined with this report, there might actually be something to Apple announcing an iPad Air 3 with Pencil support, whereas I would have said that's at least a year away while they use it as a selling point to boost Pro sales. Likewise with 3D-Touch. 

Though that's still far from an event headliner, especially in light of these sales numbers. However, maybe that's the plan, keep people talking about the iPad. On the other hand, releasing that updated iPad closer to the holidays would probably result in more sales.

No sh!t sherlock! Jobs introduced a product and his successor gave almost zero market reason to buy into the dang thing so the market fizzled out. Every time Jobs introduced a product, he introduced it to disrupt a whole industry. Tim Cook doesn't have the vision for this, he just knows how to make millions of them with a high margin. Jobs was known for extreme interest in the education market, once calling schools "fortune 500 companies" at a NeXT product launch. There's been almost nothing but failed deals with Tim Cook's leadership in education, one of which being a massive "scandal" with the LAUSD and another the eBooks garbage probably left unfinished by Jobs. Yes, it's annoying to point out how life was different with Jobs, but damn it's as glaring as those damn blue polo shirts with embroidered white Apples.

I have the first iPad Mini Retina, and while I like it, I use it for web browsing and reading Kindle and Instapaper stuff, so I don't see myself upgrading anytime soon. I think a lot of people use their iPads, but so far there just don't seem to be good reasons to upgrade. Also, I use my iPhone probably 10x more than my iPad, so while the iPhone gets upgraded by default every year, the iPad is only upgraded if there's a really good reason. Eventually, if the iPad became a computer replacement for me, I could see upgrading more often, but as a programmer that seems like a REALLY long ways off.

mcfrazieriv said:

No sh!t sherlock! Jobs introduced a product and his successor gave almost zero market reason to buy into the dang thing so the market fizzled out. Every time Jobs introduced a product, he introduced it to disrupt a whole industry. Tim Cook doesn't have the vision for this, he just knows how to make millions of them with a high margin. Jobs was known for extreme interest in the education market, once calling schools "fortune 500 companies" at a NeXT product launch. There's been almost nothing but failed deals with Tim Cook's leadership in education, one of which being a massive "scandal" with the LAUSD and another the eBooks garbage probably left unfinished by Jobs. Yes, it's annoying to point out how life was different with Jobs, but damn it's as glaring as those damn blue polo shirts with embroidered white Apples.

And then you woke up.  

I believe times are different between what Jobs had to contend with versus Tim  Cook.  When Steve did something, he didn't really have to contend with the other players as much pumping out so much crap so fast and flood the market.  That happened much later for him, especially when Samsung / Android got into the game.  Tim Cook had to contend with that day one when he officially became CEO when Steve died.  I really believe that Steve was the greatest tech-visionaries of our lifetime, but that being said I think if he were still alive now his ability to disrupt the market like he did with the Mac, iOS would be much, much smaller.  I think Apple's stock would have taken more of a beating simply because people were already whining back then that Steve Jobs was "losing his mojo" and couldn't think stuff up to compete against the Android sh!t.

Tim Cook is doing an amazing job.  Period.  He has a fantastic team.  It needs work, like any group always needs.  It's far better than most shops anyways.

Even with the iPad selling less than ever, it's being replaced (cannibalized) by the bigger iPhones.  I know by experienced that when I got my iP6+, I essentially stopped using my iPad and have zero desire to get another one.  It's not a bad thing because Apple kept me as a customer to buy their next iPhone.  That's how Apple works.  They keep making great stuff to keep the consumer coming back, and with pleasure!  

The number of iPads beings sold per quarter may be low, but I can pretty much guarantee that any company (i.e. Scamscum) would KILL to have those kind of sales every quarter of their garbage.

I think the iPad is now evolving into its own market segment where it really comes in handy.  Not just as a PC-replacement for those that have very basic needs, but also in the corporate environment.  Just look at how iPads are being used the commercial airline community.  Perhaps you missed the recent article about a german power firm buying 1,000 iPads for their staff?

Apple is also making a killing in the ecosystem sector as well.  Apple is doing just fine under the direction of Tim Cook.  He's a great captain for the ship, unless you prefer to listen to Sog's whining.

I don't see where's the news here. A new model a month away, and the most popular one, so is easy to see a big slowdown in sales, even if the Pro keep selling at a million a month rate as the previous quarter, the volume isn't there. It's in the Air, and there's no reason to buy one of those with the new model not far away.

I will upgrade the moment the new model become available. The iPad 2, the model with the largest installed base as far as I know, is totally obsolete right now, mine is slow, some pages in safari don't work properly. just yesterday I bookmarked an article linked from Daring Firewall, I tried three times to upload it, and didn't worked. I tried in my 6th gen iPod Touch and loaded fast and perfectly well, with the pictures and all. SO IMHO, there are reasons to upgrade right now, at least from the people using the iPad 2. is heavy, the screen is not retina and its getting really obsolete.