So on Wednesday 7th march Apple announced the new iPad 3. The event started with Apple again stating that we are in a “post PC era” and their products (iPod, iPhone, iPad) are the leading devices in this era. In the last quarter of 2011 apple sold 62 million of these post PC products. They highlight how they play to their strengths by making their products with simplicity, allowing them to introduce their customers to products that they would normally not experience.

A key ingredient of this experience was their success of the Apple retail stores. Currently there are 362 Apple stores around the world and they attracted 110 million visitors in the last quarter of 2011 alone. The experience customers have in their store is one of interaction of products and services when purchasing, then one of continued discovery and learning in the many classes and help centres that they provide on a daily basis.

Another major strength of the Apple brand is of course their app store. Currently there are over 585,000 apps available with 200,000 of these being dedicated iPad apps. Apple reached a massive milestone with the 25th billion app download occurring further proving their dominance and the mass gap they still have on their rivals. This popularity of the app store has helped to contribute to the 15.4 million iPads sold in the last quarter of 2011.

The last area of note before the iPad 3 reveal was iCloud and Apple TV. Apple noted that there are currently 100 million iCloud subscribers and mentioned that iMovies would now be available to this service, allowing the re-downloading of any movies purchased on iTunes on any of their devices.  Apple TV now has full 1080p support for which is being accompanied by a more streamlined user interface providing the user with a greater experience. The genius function has now been included into apple TV, giving the user recommendations on similar titles based on what they have previously watched.