iPad

"Getting a strong Intel backing here could be an important advantage," says MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen, who sees the Nokia tablet as part of an array of mobile computers.

via Nokia Aims a Tablet at Apple: Exclusive | Technology | Financial Articles & Investing News | TheStreet.com.

No doubt Nokia's tablet plans preceded the launch of the iPad--product cycles being what they are.  And the relationship with Intel is certainly a big part of this push (vs. on the handset side where Intel has no cards to play).

However, the elephant in the room is what software will run on this Tablet.  Any discussion on competitive potential of iPad competitors must include a view on the software/platform and ecosystem that tablet will rest on.

This is not a hardware business.  In fact, the hardware is designed to get out of the way.

The hardware is so understated — it’s just a screen, really — and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

source: http://db.tidbits.com/article/11152

At one point in time, J2ME (now Java ME) and WAP were the starting points for a discussion on mobile strategy and the web. Then, for a brief period of time, you talked about HTML/CSS. Now, for a growing majority of mobile strategies that don’t require a global presence on widely varying devices, the discussion begins with iPhone. Smart client is now iPhone app, and in many cases, the app is primary to the experience, not secondary to the browser. And iPad app may soon replace iPhone app as the starting point.

Frankly, as the adoption rate of iPhone increases and if iPad follows suit, it will become increasingly difficult to argue in favor of a starting point other than iPhone OS. The NPR iPad app, for one, provides a much more pleasant user experience than NPR.org.

via Cameron Moll: Designer, Speaker, Author The Mobile Web vs. the Objective-C Web.

Apple also revealed that more than a million applications were downloaded from the App Store for the iPad. Apple's iBookstore saw over 250,000 books downloaded on the first day alone.

via AppleInsider | Apple sells more than 300,000 iPads on launch day.

Consider that with 300k devices sold, that amounts to 3 apps and nearly one book per device--in one day.  Or an attach rate of 4 content items per device (per day).

iPad Apps, iPhone Apps, Deals and Discovery at App Shopper - Popular Recent Changes for iPad.

Far higher growth than the iPhone at launch.

I think the iPad is the most important launch in Apples history -- bigger than the Mac, iPod or iPhone. More than that, I think its the most important cultural phenomenon of this generation. Its bigger than technology.

via The iPad Era dawns.

Amen.

"Apple has blown through the barriers with the iPhone, and the same thing is going to happen with the iPad," said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer for Salesforce.com. "This will be huge for business, and a major new category that will be a catalyst for many different aspects of the industry."

link: Business customers eager to try Apple iPad

Time’s Managing Editor: iPad Content Awaits ‘Its Orson Welles’ - Digits - WSJ

He compared it to the era after sound first came into motion pictures. For a while many movies were more like filmed plays, until directors really learned to take advantage of the opportunities of the medium. For the iPad, too, “the medium is waiting for its Orson Welles,” Stengel said.

There were an estimated 228 million U.S. Web users in 2009, so if Apple was able to sell iPads to only one-third of those it would mean domestic sales of 76 million units.

Link: San Jose Business Journal

More interesting stats from Business Pulse survey by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal that was conducted between March 16 and March 23:

• 9% plan to buy right away
• 23% said they expect to buy but can wait (total of 32% plan on purchase)

Additional survey data from comScore:

• 65% awareness
• 1% of those aware already ordered the iPad
• 15% of those aware plan to buy within 3 months

Another from Sybase and conducted by Zogby International surveyed 2,443 adults with a mobile phone, 770 of which own smartphones. Among the smartphone-owning respondents, more than half -- 52.3 percent -- said they are most likely to use a tablet device like the iPad to do work

AppleInsider | No. 1 planned use for Apple iPad: working on the go.

Apple Inc. is still negotiating lowered-priced content deals from media companies for its iPad ahead of the device's April 3 launch, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on its Web site, citing unidentified sources close to the matter. Apple has already sold hundreds of thousands of the devices on pre-order, according to the Journal. The sources also told the newspaper that the iPad may outsell the iPhone within the first three months after launch.

My emphasis.

link: Apple still negotiating iPad media deals: WSJ - MarketWatch

That does not seem to be quite a huge feat.  The iPhone sold 1 million within 74 days and approximately 1.4 million in the first quarter.

With "a few hundred thousand" pre-sold it seems rather likely to me that an additional million for three months is not a stretch.

Deagol counts about 120k iPad units were pre-ordered on the first day. How do we judge this performance?

The problem will be in using some comparable as a measure of reference. This is a problem because first, there is no equivalent product in history, second, there are few similar products that are pre-ordered and sold without user samples being available, and third it's being sold through a very limited channel (on-line Apple Store). Lastly, the number includes only delivered units vs. reservation for pick-up.

Nevertheless, the figure is intriguing. One class of comparable products might be new smartphone products from companies that were launching on new platforms.

One example is the Android G1--the first Android device. It sold 663k units in the launch quarter. Another is the Nokia 5800, Nokia's first touch capable device. It sold 536k units in the first quarter (up to 1 million in the first 3 months). Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile device was the X1. It sold 237k units in the first quarter of sales. The first Sense UI HTC device (the Diamond) sold about 1 million units. The RIM Storm, RIM's first touch device sold 1.6 million units. Finally the iPhone which sold 1.1 million units in the first full quarter of sales (about 1.4 million if we include the weekend sales that fell outside the first quarter).

The iPad does seem to be doing rather well relative to these products. Again, their figures were for a full 90 days of sales and were sold through physical retail channels in a variety of geographic markets.

I will be surprised if the number of units sold in Apple's CQ2 don't exceed 1 million. (Apple will book all these sales only on delivery which means they won't appear in CQ1 sales figures). This will probably mean better performance with a new platform than Nokia, Google, Sony Ericsson or HTC and perhaps better than the iPhone.

(data source: Canalys).

I always thought Windows 2000 was the point of over-service for Microsoft. The book linked below puts a date on the point when Microsoft could and should have created an autonomous division whose task would be to create the platform that would eventually disrupt its core business.

Clearly Microsoft did not do this but Apple, with iPad, did.

In September 1999, Kodesh wrote a memo to Gates and Ballmer under the heading “Starting from Scratch.” We need to kill Windows CE for those categories, he argued. Win32 is not an advantage; it’s a tax on device design. It served to further Microsoft’s strategy but not to help consumers. Given all their other alternatives, electronics manufacturers wouldn’t pay the tax. Kodesh wanted to take a small group of developers and work solely on developing the best software for information appliances, unconstrained by the needs of the rest of the company. Gates rejected the suggestions. “It’s very disappointing you feel that way,” he told Kodesh. “We don’t have time to start from scratch.”

link: Who Fatally Wounded Microsoft? It Was Bill Gates. « Mike Cane's iPad Test