Not surprising that Paul Thurrott is not a major Apple fan, but this week’s “short takes” summary includes several interesting perspectives, including this one on iPad market dynamics:
The iPad Is the New Nintendo Wii ... and That's Not a Compliment
Remember the Nintendo Wii? Nintendo sold millions of them and dominated the video game market for almost four straight years before sales fell off a cliff. But the dark, dirty secret of the Wii is that those sales were pretty much the extent of the platform's success: Few Wii owners ever purchased more than a game or two, and most Wii consoles are sitting in a corner now, gathering dust—rarely if ever used. Well, it appears that the iPad is following the same trajectory, albeit in a tighter timeline. In the wake of Apple's quarterly results, in which far fewer iPads were sold than anyone expected, Nielsen reveals that a full third of iPad owners have never installed even a single app on the thing. Not even a free app. Which leads me to believe that the iPad is exactly what I pegged it to be in the beginning: nothing more than a gotta-have-it, trendy, techno-fashion statement, one that people bought to look like they were hip and savvy. And as for those people who actually do use the thing—after all, they did invest several hundred dollars in it, so it better be good for something—they are, as predicted, simply consuming content. There could literally be millions of first-generation iPads gathering dust in people's home offices already. This product is the tech industry's biggest MacGuffin yet.
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