iPad Death Watch

Le 3 avril dernier, jour de mon anniversaire, tombait également celui de l’iPad (Coïncidence ? Je ne pense pas…) qui fêtait ses 3 ans et un succès rarement égalé, sinon par d’autres produits Apple. Pour rappel, l’iPad s’est vendu à hauteur de 22,9 millions d’exemplaires au trimestre dernier et plus de 120 millions depuis son lancement.

Une bonne occasion de revenir sur les déclarations de nombreux analystes, journalistes, CEO, et autres spécialistes high-tech depuis l’annonce de l’iPad en janvier 2010 jusqu’à nos jours. Pour cela, rien de mieux que l’iPad Death Watch sur APPLinvestors, ou la compilation de fail de pseudo-analystes la plus drôle depuis l’iPhone Death Watch dont je vous ai déjà parlé.

Je vous ai fait une petite sélection des 15 plus emblématiques ci-dessous, mais la lecture complète de l’article d’APPLinvestors vous réserve de nombreuses autres perles.

“5 Reasons Why Apple’s iPad Tablet Will Fail
1. It won’t fit in your pocket.
2. It’s too expensive.
3. It won’t replace the laptop.
4. You only get access to a watered-down Internet.
5. No one really needs an iPad.”
— Daniel Nations, About.com Guide, 26 January 2010

“Apple iPad – failure, joke or fiasco? Pick one”
— Linen DeFiller, MillionFace.com, 27 January 2010

“The tablet market has only succeeded as a niche market over the years and it was hoped Apple would dream up some new paradigm to change all that. From what I’ve seen and heard, this won’t be it.”
— John C. Dvorak, MarketWatch, 29 January 2010

“It was a bigger iPod Touch. I question whether those features would be enough to get people to buy new machines.”
— Satoru Iwata, President, Nintendo, 29 January 2010

“I added it up and … like 800 people are going to buy the iPad… . It’s not that the iPad is a failure. It’s just a product ahead of its time. No one should actually buy this iPad — between its inevitable first-generation bugs, fulfillment problems, and buyer’s remorse over added features and price drops, it’s heartbreak waiting to happen.”
— Molly Wood, CNet, 31 January 2010

“Yet it’s hard to see how the iPad, in the form unveiled last month, will come close to transforming daily life as much as the iPod or iPhone. The challenge with the iPad will be less about improving an established market than building a new one.”
— Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek, 5 February 2010

“You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream on that. So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”
— Bill Gates, Microsoft, 10 February 2010

“Fewer capabilities (than a netbook) but a similar size? Not a good start.”
— Lee Gomes, Forbes Asia Magazine, 5 March 2010

“We hope our tablet PCs can reach a global market share of 10–20% initially, and become the market leader in two to three years.”
— Gianfranco Lanci, CEO and President, Acer, 26 November 2010

“I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 30 wanting an iPad. A PS3, Wii, GameBoy, or even a useful laptop maybe, but an iPad? Furthermore, I do not recall ever seeing anyone under 30 actually using an iPad.”
— John C. Dvorak, PC Mag, 13 December 2010

“Yes, yes, Apple makes an iPad, but does it make a movie? We will prove that it’s not who makes the tablet first who counts, but who makes it better.”
— Howard Stringer, CEO, Sony, 31 Aug 2011

“Tablet PC fever receding, notebooks regaining interest.”
— J.T. Wang, Chairman, Acer, 24 Aug 2011

“I don’t think anyone has done a product that I see customers wanting. Windows 8 is really all about enabling new, creative, imaginative devices. PC Notebooks, PC desktops, PC laptops and now PC tablets as well, that you can touch and interact with and that are alive with information in a way, that frankly, no other device is available on the market today.”
— Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, 25 Nov 2011

“Tablets will not replace the traditional personal computer. The traditional PC is changing to adapt to the customer requirements. The tablet is an extra market for some niche customers.”
— Yang Yuanqing, Chief Executive Officer, Lenovo Group Ltd., 11 Jan 2012

“Apple, indeed, has a history of making fine products that are very expensive and proprietary — only to give the market away to the competition. The problem Apple is facing currently is much like the same problem they encountered during the Operating System wars of the 1980′s – 1990′s, (i.e., they produced a far superior product that was light years ahead of the competition, yet they blundered by overcharging). This allowed a horde of inferior “affordable” and “good enough” products such as Microsoft’s Windows along with the legions of IBM-compatible clone makers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell to overtake Apple. Now we see Apple repeating its past mistakes…but this time with Android.”
— Austin Craig, The Motley Fool, 23 January 2013