Cook: iPad is a gateway drug which leads to harder Mac addiction
Though curiously Macs are down as fondleslabs surge
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Apple CEO Tim Cook has claimed that surging iPad sales could result in people buying more Mac computers.
Answering questions after he announced quarterly results last night, the Cupertino overlord said that tablet sales could end up getting users hooked on Apple products, perhaps encouraging them to graduate to more expensive laptop or desktop Macs.
He said:
"We sold almost 20 million iPads, and it's certainly true that some of those iPads cannibalise some Macs. We believe that, if anything, the huge growth in tablets may benefit the Mac."
However sales of Macs slumped by 2 per cent in the last quarter [presumably without the iPad benefit, Mr Cook believes this would have been much worse? - Ed] Nonetheless Cook is optimistic about Apple's future in actual computers despite what he describes as the "incredibly weak" PC market.
He added:
"I don't think this market is a dead market or a bad market by any means. I think it has a lot of life to it. We're going to continue to innovate in it."
According to Gartner, PC sales in the first three months of 2013 dropped by 11 per cent, the biggest contraction since 1994 and the fourth successive quarter in which PC sales slumped. ®
COMMENTS
Highly Rated
Re: Blindfold firmly secured? Let's go!
Nobody is buying desktops in any signficant numbers because they already have desktops. They are buying tablets because they do not yet have a device in that form factor yet.
In ~5 years when all of the current desktops are burning out and business collectively start running out of spare PC's from a downsized workforce during the recession years, there is going to be an "unexplained" surge in buying desktops at the expense of tablets, at which point the media is going to start decrying the death of the tablet.
The PC is not "dying" now, and the tablet won't be dying in ~5 years when that starts getting reported. Just because there is no reason to buy a replacement for a working device in perfectly good condition doesn't mean that the form factor it belongs to is dead!
"They made it really really thin on the edges."
The next one is going to have such thin edges you'll be able to chop vegetables with it. They're going to call it....
... Mac the knife.
Re: Innovation, can't wait
...or which standard port they're going to replace with a new, innovative and far better proprietary connector, which means you have to replace half your peripherals.
Innovation, can't wait
I wonder which port, slot, or media reader they're going to remove in the 2013 model.
Mac Pro not available in Europe. New iMac can't have more memory fitted unless you get the 27" one. Mac Mini - an interesting idea - but when I upgraded a few years ago from my G4 Tower an iMac Refurb was much better value. Starting to think about a new laptop - current MacBook is starting to show it's age, but the MacBook Air screen is too small, and the MacBook Pro is too expensive...
