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Comment by seminal | Hacker News Reader

Some are arguing that the death of the iPad means that Apple is now basically a one-product company which could be an achilles heel no matter how many phones are sold.

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Fun fact: Macbook revenue is now higher than iPad revenue.

So much for the early hype of tablets killing the PC.

And that kids is why you don't extrapolate long term trends from exponential curves.

It would be interesting to see an upgrade frequency comparison of "creators" vs. "consumers".

Great. So Apple completely restructured their OS for a market segment (tablets) that is now below the original market segment (laptops).

They did? I think they restructured their OS for (a) Mobile, and (b) Mobile <---> Computer integration. Both of which should pay off pretty well.

It's actually total Mac revenue.

Is it really dying? Just curious as I love mine and I am not familiar with the numbers. I remember speculation some time last year, but the article I had read didn't cite any hard data.

I think it's easy to argue that tablets have hit steady-state penetration, at least in developed markets, but I think "dying" is a stretch.

I don't think it's "dying". Tablets are in the same situation as flat-screen TVs: the market is more-or-less saturated, they last a long time, and there is no compelling reason to upgrade. In contrast, phones have a fairly short replacement cycle, because they are subject to significant wear and tear, and there are compelling advancements in power utilization, communications, etc.

And I think Apple managed to avoid the same happening to the iPhone by introducing a new size category.

It's actually incredible just how fast and new the iPhone 5 feels even today. I was perfectly happy to stick with it until the new sizes came out (admittedly I haven't bought a new iPhone yet because it costs money, but a lot of my peer group has).

The subsidization by networks is key in keeping people in a short upgrade cycle, and reducing the likelihood of switching to a cheaper Android phones. It's no doubt Apple people would upgrade much less often if they to shell out $600+ for unlocked phones every couple years.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/269914/apples-global-reve...

as another comment says, this is now five straight quarters of YoY declines for ipad revenue. It's definitely in decline. I think it's wrong to say it's dying though - iPad has simply achieved saturation.

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