Tablet: Some Were Disappointed By iPad Sales, But Could The iPhone 4S Have Been The Culprit?

The general move to tablets is well under way now.  It doesn’t matter if you’re an iPad user which constitute a vast majority of sales (not just shipped) and near totality in Web traffic from tablets or an Android tablet, Playbook, or Touchpad user, we are a special breed of pioneers who are blazing a trail towards new means of mobile computing and entertainment.

One of the most interest things is that while Apple has sold millions upon millions of iPads, there does not seem to be a general acceptance that tablets are here to stay.  Moreover, the sales of iPads is something that is watch so closely over that any slip up is cause to disparage the tablet market in general, and specifically, something for analysts and pundits to find fault in Apple.

Apple sold more iPads than its internal numbers reported and above Wall Street concensus.  No, it did not sell thirteen, fourteen, or even fifteen iPads.  But it sold enough.  Eleven point one million iPads to be exact.  That’s a 166% increase from a year ago.

Still, if you want to find fault with this figure, I’ll give you one.  iPhone 4S rumors and the persisting rumors that went all the way back to even before the iPad 2 was introduced by Steve Jobs on March 2, 2011.  A hint, rumor, or whatever you want to call it from John Gruber of Daring Fireball hinted that even though Steve called 2011 the year of the iPad 2, we might see an iPad 3 this fall.

For the next few months, iPhone and iPad rumors worked in tandem to provide eyeballs for blogs and, worse, mainstream media – putting kids through college and food on tables through the ads displayed. Worse, sales of the iPad, like the iPhones, were put off as consumers anticipate an iPad upgrade.

So, if folks want to find a culprit to their wild iPad sales predictions, they need to lay the fingers squarely where it belongs.  The iPad sales could have also been affected by other tablet rumors like Amazon’s tablet plans which we now know is the Kindle Fire.

We’ll have to see just where the iPad sales for the Holidays quarter take us.  Keep in mind that iPad 3 are rumored to be going into production right about now so I would not be surprised if that rumor snowballs into something much much bigger.