I think it was pretty obvious that the iPhone was going to be a huge success. It's one reason why Microsoft's board is negligent in keeping Ballmer as CEO. If it was obvious to me that the entire cell phone industry (or at least the only profitable part of it) was being turned on its head, it should've been even more obvious to Ballmer, Lazaridis, and other key industry executives.
The iPad, though, was a different story. I knew I wanted a giant iPod Touch as soon as the iPhone came out, but when the iPad was finally announced I wasn't sure if they were going to sell 2,000 of them or 20,000,000. To this day I think my uncertainty was defensible, because unlike phones there was no existing mass market.
If you think Alan Kay had any vision and market sense whatsoever, you might have guessed they'd do well (this was the day before the iPad was to be released):
I think it was pretty obvious that the iPhone was going to
be a huge success.
There's more 20/20 hindsight in this thread than a rear-view mirror convention. Could you please furnish the public statement you made four years ago where you asserted the doom of all the market leaders, or failing that, brokerage documents showing your massive investment in Apple Inc in 2007?
I didn't assert anyone's doom. At the time I assumed that everybody interested in the smartphone business, not just Apple, was heading in the same obvious direction.
Jobs' boast about being three years ahead of everyone else sounded like empty hype, and Ballmer's public assertion that the iPhone would never gain significant market share sounded like strategic misdirection.
I'm not going to post any trade confirmations, but I did buy some AAPL in response to the iPhone announcement, thinking it was a good way for the company to leverage its existing strengths in UX design. Should've bought more, but hey, it was AAPL, and the conventional wisdom at the time went something like, "What kind of moron would put a lot of money into AAPL?"
I don't lay claim to any magical insight, and that's the whole point of my post.
The iPad, though, was a different story. I knew I wanted a giant iPod Touch as soon as the iPhone came out, but when the iPad was finally announced I wasn't sure if they were going to sell 2,000 of them or 20,000,000. To this day I think my uncertainty was defensible, because unlike phones there was no existing mass market.