John Gruber, commenting on Bryan Clark’s piece entitled “We’ve Reached — Maybe Passed — Peak Apple: Why the Narrative Needs to Change“:

Clark makes it sound like this is because the rest of Apple’s business is in decline, whereas the truth is that the iPhone continues to grow at an astonishing rate that even Apple’s other successful products can’t match. Is it worrisome that iPad sales continue to decline? Sure. Would it be better for Apple if the iPad were selling in iPhone-esque quantities? Of course. But iPad still sold 9.9 million units and generated $4.3 billion in revenue last quarter. […]

Name a product introduced in the last five years that has been more successful than the iPad — either in terms of revenue and profit for its maker, or in terms of aggregate hours of daily use and customer satisfaction of its users. I can’t think of one.

I’ve grown tired of the whole “iPad is doomed, Apple should just cut their losses” thing. I understand that Apple isn’t finding a larger number of iPad buyers with each passing quarter, but the user base is still growing. There are far more iPads being used today than there was last year. And as long as the device remains profitable for Apple, shouldn’t that be enough?