When Apple released its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, it included some sales figures that were fairly surprising: iPad sales declined 19 percent from the previous quarter and 9 percent year-over-year, but Mac sales increased 17.6 percent year-over-year. These figures seem to fly in the face of conventional wisdom which holds that people are slowly replacing their desktop PCs with tablets.
CEO Tim Cook shrugged off the declining iPad sales, saying, “This isn’t something that worries us.” He pointed to Apple’s new deal with IBM as an opportunity to increase sales.
So why have iPad sales declined? Slate‘s Will Oremus writes, “The truth is that the iPad was never cut out to replace the PC, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it hasn’t…. As great as it is for watching movies on an airplane or checking email over breakfast, it still can’t match the power and versatility of a desktop or laptop as a primary workstation.”
Perhaps there will still be a market for desktop applications for some time even as mobile development takes off.
