As others have said, a lot of people already own iPads and there's nothing about the current concept/design that encourages especially upgrade cycles. Not that there's anything wrong with that from a consumer perspective. It does what it does pretty well and doesn't really call out for incremental improvements to battery life/resolution/processor power/etc. although those do naturally come about with each iteration. And, of course, the carriers don't subsidize upgrade cycles as they do with phones.
Being able to share data plans with phones at nominal cost would be one interesting upgrade driver but that's really in the hands of the carriers and is unlikely.
The other interesting possibility across both Macbook and iPad lines would be some sort of reconvergence of tablet and laptop experience but Apple got to where it is by doing the precise opposite so I'm not sure Apple feels a big impetus to shift up the playing field right now. (Microsoft OTOH has been trying to parlay its desktop strength with tablets that are more tightly coupled but with somewhat limited success--to say nothing of the fact that Windows 8 was largely a product of this thinking.)
> Being able to share data plans with phones at nominal cost would be one interesting upgrade driver but that's really in the hands of the carriers and is unlikely
Vodafone in the UK will let you do this (with no extra fee). They've offered me it several times, but I didn't buy an iPad with a SIM slot.
Anecdotal data point: I'm typing this reply on an original iPad I bought on release day, and haven't yet felt the need to upgrade.
And in response to the last snarky line in the article - who buys magazines that pile up on the coffee table any more? I used to have a $60 or $70 a month magazine habit - its been years since I bought a magazine. About a grand for this iPad (Australian price ing), plus maybe another $900 in 3G connection, I reckon I saved all that in under two years of iPad ownership in savings from not needing to buy 5 or 10 magazines a month to have something to read over lunch.
I gave my original to my dad--who loves it and this is someone who could never really use a computer. Given that I'm tech support, best present (for me) that I ever gave :-) If I hadn't given it away I suspect I'd still be using it and just thinking about upgrading.
I do still buy magazines--but very selectively. Partly because, oddly, I can get some paper magazines cheaper than I can get digital subscriptions. I also just prefer flipping through some magazines than sitting down to read them digitally.
If you subscribe to several magazines, paper or digital, check out "Next Issue".
I agree paper is cheaper than digital when you subscribe at those sweepstakes type rates. Next Issue inverts that again, brings 150 magazines for $10-15/month and a lot less clutter.
Thanks. I'll check it out. Invariably I go through these cycles where I'm tempted by $5-10 subscriptions and the stuff just piles up unread especially when I travel.
Being able to share data plans with phones at nominal cost would be one interesting upgrade driver but that's really in the hands of the carriers and is unlikely.
The other interesting possibility across both Macbook and iPad lines would be some sort of reconvergence of tablet and laptop experience but Apple got to where it is by doing the precise opposite so I'm not sure Apple feels a big impetus to shift up the playing field right now. (Microsoft OTOH has been trying to parlay its desktop strength with tablets that are more tightly coupled but with somewhat limited success--to say nothing of the fact that Windows 8 was largely a product of this thinking.)