Personally (I'm no market guy) I think this pretty natural. I haven't found a lifecycle for the ipad yet. I go through iphones every 2 generations (I've skipped each S so far), macbook pro every 3-4 years ..
I got an ipad2, and haven't found a need to replace it yet. The battery's pretty solid, and at this rate, that's likely to define when it's time for a new one.
Most the people I see buying new tablets are essentially buying "my first computer" for a kid. Something to shut them up in the car. And that's not a great market for apple's prices.
So I don't think the tablet is a flash in the pan - but I don't think the initial rush was sustainable either. Now that pretty much everyone who wants one, has one, it'll settle down closer to lifecycle turnover.
And to stray a little closer to on-topic, I'm hoping for the same from the watch. That's really what I'm waiting to find out, and I suspect we won't know any time soon. But that $350 is going to feel much heavier if I feel compelled to replace it as often as my phone. (on that note, I did find it interesting that there was absolutely nothing in the way of tech specs announced on the phone. No mention of resolution, just that it's enough. No mention of speed, or storage. The models are defined by materials, not numbers. Hopefully, this is a good sign that this device isn't meant to fit into a race to double the numbers each year.)
I think a lot of analysis misses this fact wrt tablets. I might upgrade my ipad2 this year or next, but it feels like it has another 2 or 3 years of life in it, and it won't go unused. The market was flooded with so many cheap Android tablets that never got their OS upgraded and were underpowered to start with. Even the first gen Nexus 7 had the bad RAM issue that caused them to become unusable after a year. That plus the underpowered ipad1 must have skewed a lot of perception on what the natural life cycle is for a tablet device.
I got an ipad2, and haven't found a need to replace it yet. The battery's pretty solid, and at this rate, that's likely to define when it's time for a new one.
Most the people I see buying new tablets are essentially buying "my first computer" for a kid. Something to shut them up in the car. And that's not a great market for apple's prices.
So I don't think the tablet is a flash in the pan - but I don't think the initial rush was sustainable either. Now that pretty much everyone who wants one, has one, it'll settle down closer to lifecycle turnover.
And to stray a little closer to on-topic, I'm hoping for the same from the watch. That's really what I'm waiting to find out, and I suspect we won't know any time soon. But that $350 is going to feel much heavier if I feel compelled to replace it as often as my phone. (on that note, I did find it interesting that there was absolutely nothing in the way of tech specs announced on the phone. No mention of resolution, just that it's enough. No mention of speed, or storage. The models are defined by materials, not numbers. Hopefully, this is a good sign that this device isn't meant to fit into a race to double the numbers each year.)