John Gruber of Daring Fireball has subtly noted today that Apple may be moving to a 6-month release schedule for their popular iPad tablet.
In response to the unveiling of the HP TouchPad, Gruber says:
The software looks great, it really does, but:
Planned availability this summer.
Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they?re not only going to be months ... [ read the full article ]
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I guess they have realized that releasing once a year leaves them miles behind the competition who release once a month or less. To bad they still insist on using junky old hardware that leaves them even farther behind than their release schedule.
Or alternately, they release a product that isn't quite finished (external memory, cameras, etc) and continue to develop it as planned with the extra cash they make from the mass sales of the prototype. Yes, there will be improvements in other areas (processor, memory, graphics CPU) but, you just cannot help but think that was part of the original plan given the 6 months between iterations. Seems like the initial release way a cheap but larger IPod in order to judge market demand. It is a good strategy knowing the sheep will flock to each "new" rendition.
Apple is perfectly happy to hear you guys talk about 'sheep'. These devices have iOS. Nothing else ever will. People don't go to these for the technical features very often, but they do go for shiny.
Me, I got an iPhone primarily due to maturity of the OS and apps, and the better games.
Three has yet to be a successful competitor to the iPad for three reasons:
1. Price
2. Supply Chain
3. No matter how hard the others try to surpass them Apple will leapfrog them on the next cycle.
