Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Piper Jaffray delivered some interesting survey results over the weekend. The analyst firm conducted a poll from people standing in line to purchase the iPad 2 during Friday's launch event. While many are focusing on how many people the survey claimed were new to the iPad (roughly 70%), there is another statistic that reveals Apple's true genius — the number of people buying higher memory configurations.

Apple has an entry-level $499 iPad, but it's not model that's selling in the majority, at least not this time around. There was rumor as to whether Apple would bump the base model iPad to 32GB and scale north from there. This seemed plausible considering Peter Oppenheimer's remarks during last quarters financial conference call, claiming margins on iPads were very strong. Many companies, if having the chance, would have jumped at including more storage in order to win the specifications game, but not Apple.

With roughly 30% of the i-Friday night crowd being folks who where upgrading or adding a second iPad to their household, these buyers opted for higher memory configurations. Last quarter the iPad ASP was around $600. With iPad 2, count on the ASP being even higher, in the $650 - $700 range. Who else in the industry can launch second generation products, with more competition (supposedly) and pull in higher average selling prices? Only Apple, and it's pure genius.

Apple has struck a perfect balance in the iPad 2. Enough change to bring in a fleet of new customers, and not too much to leave nothing left to sell in iPad 3. Apple could have delivered more memory, a 5MP out-facing camera, and more RAM on it's processor core to run applications, but it wasn't necessary. 

Rewind even further and Apple could have thrown in camera's on the original iPad, but 15 million sales later, Apple shows that patience, and doing things well — not doing everything — is the key.

Steve Jobs once stated the secret to innovation is "saying no to 1,000 things" and that he is just as proud of what Apple has chosen not to do, as much as he is in what Apple's chosen to do. Delivering what is desired and useful at the time, vs giving away the farm, it's a balance most companies don't understand. No company does it better than Apple, and it's absolutely brillant.

NOTE: We are very skeptical about the 70% new-to-the-iPad result. Of the lines T-GAAP was involved with, the main contingent consisted of iPad upgrad-ers. And here's something to ponder: Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray believed there would be no lines for iPad 2, siting multiple outlets and iPad 2 not being an entirely new device to the market. If Gene truly believed his claims, then how on earth did he quickly formulate this massive survey and organize his team to conduct this polling Friday night — for the very lines he wasn't expecting?...

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