When questioned about plans to release an iPad 3 at a recent earnings call, Apple was quick to say that it has no plans for an iPad 3 in 2011. Apple stated the reason being because the iPad 2 is selling extremely well and they would like to see how the market unfolds over the next several years.
The problem with “the next several years” is that Apple is not the only player in the tablet market. With tablets just coming to market with Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS – the OS designed specifically for tablet – it’s clear that we are talking about a market that is in its infancy. And added to that, everyone is shooting directly at the throat of Apple’s iPad.
With the massive amount of competition getting ready to flood to the market, and push to innovate to get a leg up over the iPad regarding technology, it would seem to be that Apple should have a much shorter time frame for releasing the iPad 3 other than “a few years” from now.
Between now and three years from now, we will have an entirely different landscape in the tablet marketplace. A landscape that is full of Android tablets, Blackberry tablets, and of course iPads.
I would argue that Apple would be taking a huge risk with their marketshare if they waited another three years to release the iPad 3.
Thoughts?
