Will The iPad 2 Come Too Soon?
The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad was launched last April and sold three million units in 80 days. Apple sold 7.33 iPads in its fiscal first quarter. There are a number of reports that Apple will release the iPad 2 on…
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The iPad 2 will probably use a powerful Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) processor and will be thinner and have a better display. It will also have a front facing camera. The tablet will be built to work on both the Verizon Wireless and AT&T (NYSE: T) Wireless systems. This will give the iPad 2 the same distribution foot print that the iPhone 4 has in the US.
The iPad 2 will probably lack a few critical features. It will not have the capacity to work on 4G networks. This fast wireless broadband is the most important marketing initiative of all four of the major cellular providers. It is incongruous that a device as popular as the iPad will not be able to sync with a feature so heavily promoted by its carrier partners.
Because the iPad lacks 4G capability and the original iPad still sells so well, it may be that Apple will market the iPad 2 prematurely. Apple usually has a sense for when it can upgrade versions of the Mac, iPhone, and iPod. The release of the iPhone 4 did cause carriers to sharply drop the price of the iPhone 3GS. That probably pulled some sales away from the new smartphone. The iPad may face the same problems, but this time it may be more acute. Sales of the original iPad are still rising rapidly based on most accounts. Why launch a newer version when that is so?
Apple may be about to take its first misstep in quite a while. It may release a product that the market is not ready for.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
