Link: ’10 Reasons Why Apple is To Blame for the Decline of iPad Sales’

Interesting article on 9to5mac about declining iPad sales. I agree with some of the points in this article, but not with the conclusion those points are drawing.

1. Apple’s bigger iPhone 6 Plus phablet has made the once popular iPad mini all but pointless. That’s not entirely true – there are significant cost differences and over 2 inches of additional diagonal screen real estate – but having a huge iPhone makes having a small tablet a lot less desirable.

3. New tiny 12-inch MacBook sales will impact professional/luxury iPad users. The 2-lb light weight and super portability will bring over folks who can spend a lot to get the latest technology.

The word “blame” implies someone has done something inherantly wrong. That is not the case here. Apple releasing new iPhones and Macbooks that compete with the use case of the iPad is not a bad thing for Apple – the profit margins on iPads are far lower than on these other devices. Apple stands to gain far more money if a would-be iPad customer buys an iPhone 6 Plus and / or a Macbook instead.

9. Marketing and the Apple Watch. iPad hasn’t been getting the marketing spend it got in its first years for a variety of reasons. Last year Apple had the big iPhones to explain to the public. Before that it was iOS 7’s new look and feel. This year it seems Apple is focusing its attention and every extra marketing dollar on the Apple Watch.

No. Just no. Apple makes more money than any other company on earth. If they wanted to spend more on advertising, they would. They have all the extra marketing dollars. That isn’t how it works. If Apple is advertising higher-margin products, its because they want people buying those products instead of iPads.

2. This year’s iPad hardware updates weren’t terribly magical. The iPad mini got Touch ID (at a $100 price premium). The Air 2 got both faster and lighter, which is always great. And both became available in gold. But for people like me who are very content with the iPad Air – discussed in point 10 below – adding Touch ID or a golden housing wasn’t a big enough incentive to upgrade. Would sales have taken off if Apple offered more storage on the lower end, more laptop-like features, or lower costs?

Yes, sales would have taken off. And Apple would have made far less money on those sales than they would have on higher-margin Macbooks and iPhones. Not upgrading the iPad Mini was putting a line in the sand: the “good” iPad model starts at $499 and has a 10 inch screen. They didn’t somehow “fail” at creating the magical update they wanted to. They intentionally didn’t release that update because they wanted to direct attention elsewhere in their product line.