It was, of course, great to see Steve Jobs well enough to emerge from medical leave to host today's media event in San Francisco to launch the iPad 2.
He was on stage for way more than an hour and seemed to completely counter reports a couple of weeks ago that he had six weeks to live. In fact, it appears the
While Steve Jobs' appearance on stage earned him a deserved standing ovation, it must be said it will also help Apple's slightly sagging share price.
Apple no longer has the shiny smartphone and tablet market to itself. It's facing stiff opposition from dozens of other hardware manufacturers using Google's much-praised Android software as an operating system. When the iPad was launched last year, Apple quickly gained 95% of the tablet market. That figure dropped to 75% by the end of the year and will drop even further as better non-Apple devices hit the market.
Undoubtedly, the iPad 2 will keep Apple top dog for a bit longer in the tablet marketplace, but it will lose ground, as it has done in the smartphone market where it's been overtaken by Android.
Perhaps that's why Steve Jobs did an even-better-than-usual slagging off of the opposition, although the slide showing a downtrodden Android robot was a bit much.
But it was the figures he trotted out that will do more than even his appearance at the event to shore up Apple shares. He says Apple has now shipped 100-million iPhones. It has 200-million iTunes accounts...that's contact and credit-card data on 200,000,000 people. And more than $2-billion has been paid out to app developers selling their wares in the Apple App Store.
He did a good job and launched what seems a good product, but there are doubts this Apple high-profile launch tactic will continue working forever.
Comments