Think about that for a minute. Three years ago, we watched as Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. That proved to be the genesis of the leading touch screen smartphone, to which competitors are only now catching up. Apple in the meantime introduced the iPad, which has stood alone in the marketplace for most of 2010.
As a result, sales have skyrocketed, and those two products, the iPhone and the iPad, account for 60% of Apple’s sales last quarter. This is from two products, or two product segments even, that didn’t exist three years ago. The touch screen smart phone? Unheard of. We were in the land of BlackBerry and keyboards. The touch screen tablet? An unmitigated failure. Until the iPhone and the iPad, with the revolutionary iOS and Apple’s keen insight into UI, this product segment was nonexistent. And now it accounts for more than half of Apple’s sales.
It’s no wonder that Apple wants to roll back some of those lessons learned in UI back into the main OS, with the next revision of OS X Lion. Using the iOS devices as a testbed for UI, and taking the best elements of it back into the fold of OS X will undoubtedly boost the halo effect; people like to go with what they know. If you feel that it’s easy to flow from your iPhone or iPad to a Mac, you might consider buying one more seriously. Apple is not afraid to innovate, and it’s a smart move.
Article via Asymco
