The billion dollar Smart Cover | Hacker News Reader

The billion dollar Smart Cover

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54 pointsraganesh17 comments

If the projections do come true, it will be like adding insult to injury on competitor tablet sales.

This is really a great step forward from Apple. I like the idea of them not just creating a product, but creating the accessories, and building some of the functionality into the product. Keeping both in mind whilst developing each other for best functionality.

Will be cool to see how Apple does this on future products.

it also lets them keep aggressive price-points for the actual products and simultaneously enjoy huge profit-margins on accessories that everyone buys. it's sort of like their cables business, but more people will buy these covers than cables.

Being able to say that you made more from your tablet cover than your competitors did from tablets (combined?) is just ridiculous. But there it is.

There it is? It hasn't happend yet and these numbers are estimations. While things may go that way it would be very presumptuous to claim they already made more money with the cover than all other competitors made with their tablets.

I don't own any apple products, nor am I aboard the Apple bandwagon per se, but I honestly don't think this claim is presumptuous at all. Apple currently IS the tablet market and its competitors are barely competing at all.

Motorola's Xoom has been the only real adversary that I've heard of lately (I do not profess to be an expert). The Xoom was superior in terms of all hardware, but it failed to make a dent against Apple simply because Apple executes the tablet exquisitely. Their attention to design is immaculate and in a market like the tablet market--where the entire platform is dependent on design and user interaction--that attention has set them waaaaay ahead of the pack.

Keeping in mind that the Smart cover is probably the most innovative difference between generations 1 and 2 and that Apple are marketing gods, making every buyer want one, I think a billion dollar valuation is easily attainable.

> The Xoom was superior in terms of all hardware, but it failed to make a dent against Apple simply because Apple executes the tablet exquisitely.

Do you have any hard numbers to back up this assertion?

Let me Google that for you...

Hardware comparisons:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20035092-1.html

http://www.androidauthority.com/ipad-2-vs-motorola-xoom-vs-s...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/xoom-vs-ipad-vs-ipad-2/9257

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ipad-2-vs-motorola-xoom-v...

Sales Comparisons:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/motorola-xoom-sales-tepid-prod...

http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/03/914761/motorola-xoom-sale...

http://internet2go.net/news/operating-systems/xoom-stuggling...

http://www.businessreviewusa.com/industry-focus/technology/x...

Obviously these aren't official company reports. If you'd really like i can drag exact figures out of my university's databases but I'd rather not take the time since this is all pretty evident with a little research.

I googled it before I commented, thank you. Note that I asked if you had any numbers. In each of your sales comparisons links, they point to the very same short quote from an analyst. Not the most compelling data, wouldn't you agree?

They cite Misek, Chowdhry and Sterling--only 2 are redundant though they use the quotation in different contexts--but i see what youre getting at. Thats fair.

Sales of the iPad 2 havent been released officially yet to my knowledge but sales in the first 3 days are thought to be around 600000--more than the original iPad made in its first week and look how well it did in the long run--and to sell around 5.5 million units in its first quarter.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402750457619...

http://www.wowtechy.com/apple-ipad-2-sales-forecast/

Furthermore, iPad is meeting current projections of 45 million (though this likely includes sales of the iPad2).

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/626826/45_million_ipad_sa...

On the other hand, Xoom was projected to ship only 800,000 in its first quarter and 1 million if lucky.

http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net/20110110/motorola-xoom-sale...

however, actual sales for the Xoom have been so terrible that they're not even releasing them and theyre planning to cut back production for future quarters.

http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/03/914761/motorola-xoom-sale...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/motorola-xoom-sales-tepid-prod...

I cant provide any more information than that right now because it literally isnt available to the public as far as I know; however, we can induce from whats above that Apple really isn't feeling the effects predicted by Xoom analysts, if they are feeling effects at all. And this is despite the superior hardware listed in my previous post.

Sure, Motorola dominated at CNET this year, but so did Palm when it announced the Pre and we've seen how that worked out. Like I said earlier, I have no allegiances to Apple but I think its rather difficult to deny that theyre dominating the tablet platform. You seem hypercritical of my evidence which is fine but I have yet to see any to the contrary. If its out there I'm happy to be enlightened.

I don't consider it to be dead-certain (one reason I don't own many stocks), but the fact that we even countenance the scenario and find it likely is an indictment by itself.

Am I the only one that's not into the Smart Cover? It seems like a neat concept, but I don't think I'll be getting one. Marco's suggestion on Build and Analyze of using a media mail envelope makes much more sense because it protects both sides of the iPad in transit and can easily be replaced for pennies if lost or damaged.

Also, at my local Apple Store the Smart Covers aren't even available for customers to try - they're enclosed in a plastic box at the end of the iPad table. If people don't have an opportunity to try it out, it'll just be seen as another case/cover. And with a $40 price tag, I'm sure a good number of people will opt for something different or less expensive.

Good video of the Smart Cover if you haven't seen it yet -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbl_6DmzO4g

I went in the my local apple store to try the iPad 2 out when I saw something I'd never imagined I'd see. There was a guy in a blue shirt, hanging out, playing with a smart cover. That's it. Apple thinks this thing will generate enough revenue for them that they will deticate someones entire day to shilling it for potential customers. They sure didn't do that for my iPad 1 case. Or my iPhone 4 bumper.

The Smart Cover is far more damaging to the revenue potential of accessory vendors than the in-app subscription policy is to content publishers.

But nothing stops an accessory vendor from creating something very similar to the Smart Cover and undercut Apple on price. While you may not be able to beat the quality, you could make a very usable attractive version at $10 and sell at $20.

The only thing that might stop this is if Apple had a patent on the use of magnets in a cover (everything else in the cover already had been done by InCase).

Not only do they not have a patent, but they have stated that other vendors are welcome to make use of the magnets. They probably include them in the specs they make available to vendors.

Seeing from what happened to the ipad case business last year, i would say that this will not impact sales of third-party cases. The market will be there for all.

Some will buy the smart cover and some will buy the traditional folio case...

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