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The point is that the iPad fills a slot on the logarithmic volume curve almost exactly between the PowerBook and the iPhone -- it was just released "out of order".

I'll edit the sentence to make this more clear.

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This is a dangerous road to travel. Any dataset can be reordered to yield a monotonic result.

Certainly. But in this case it makes sense to reorder the dataset by descending physical volume, because the nearly constant multiplier between the steps becomes apparent.

Once you allow that, you can put anything in that graph. For example, that jump in the graph between the Cray and the AlphaServer calls for a product of around 3 cubic meters. I conclude that the Apple car will be more like a people mover than a car :-)

But the interesting thing, is that the iPad was created before the iPhone, and shelved to make way for the iPhone, so I'd say the modified graph reflects if not the release order, at least the order of innovation.

Well, there probably was a 3 m^3 product around 1989...? Maybe something like the Ardent Titan:

http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/ardent-titan

The Apple products do line up at tidy intervals, and there aren't any more of those.

A self-driving car will have to start a new graph. A few meagre teraflops won't be nearly enough for that application, I think!

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