Comments on: Apple iPad is Nice, Probably Not a Game Changer Yet

By: Luminess Air

Luminess Air — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:59:26 +0000

worrying more about their end user. This often is the one means which i buy books anymore. The prices for brand new hardback books is actually outrageous. That is not really to yet mention the obscene selling prices that they charge for paperbacks. Score an additional success for company greed.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:19:31 +0000

Supersized iTouch really, not iPhone. Yeah, definitely not a game changer on Rev. 1. But estimated 3-4MM units this year and double that next. That $4B+ incremental revenue by 2011.

By: Chad Brand

Chad Brand — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:09:44 +0000

Joe,
Yes, it’s $40B if you include $15B of long term investments (expected holding period of more than 1 year), which I excluded.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:49:37 +0000

As per last quarter’s report, cash on balance sheet was ~$40bn or $43/share.

By: Chad Brand

Chad Brand — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:59:11 +0000

Bobby,

Don’t you think the shutdown of Napster played a role in the adoption of paid digital music? The lawyers went after free downloading and the few services that stayed online were filled with malware that scared people even more.

I think digital pricing served to shift from CD sales to digital downloading (since digital is at worst the same price and often cheaper) but I wonder what iTunes music sales would look like if a free Napster was still around and not looked down upon. iPod unit sales would still be the same, but the music industry would be the loser.

I think the difference here is that even if all of the major newspapers and magazines go to the paid model (the equivalent of shutting Napster and adopting iTunes), there will still be plenty of free options online for getting news. In that case, why pay? With music, there are less attractive free options.

Should be interesting…