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9.7-Inch iPad Pro Is Apple's Last Chance To Save the iPad Line (bgr.com)
An anonymous reader writes from an article written by Yoni Heisler on BGR: The iPad occupies a unique place in the annals of tech history. Upon its release in 2010, Apple's first stab at a tablet quickly set sales records. Not only did early iPad sales outpace early iPhone sales, but the iPad quickly became one of the fastest selling consumer electronics products of all time. The iPad's once-auspicious journey, however, would eventually take an unexpected detour. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, soaring sales began to taper off, even as Apple began to introduce newer and more advanced models. Today, iPad sales are still slumping. During Apple's most recent earnings report, the company revealed that year over year iPad sales fell by 25% while iPad related revenue dropped by 20%. Hardly an aberration, iPad sales have been dropping for well over two years at this point. And whereas Tim Cook once took to earnings conference calls to praise the iPad, he now finds himself forced to defend the iPad against a barrage of analyst questions. Yesterday, Apple released a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro and it stands to reason that this is Apple's last chance to truly inject a bit of life into a faltering product line.
If your product does not offer any improvements over the one the consumers already have, and if it has to compete with an ever more crowded market space sales of course will dwindle. Apple might consider increasing the live cycles of their products. After all, there is no point in offering a product with better performance if hardly anybody wants it. I myself am an Android user. Changing from Motorola Droid to Galaxy S2 and than to HTC M9 were always great improvements. But now with the M10 on the horizon I cannot imagine why I should want one.