last weekend was the 2-year anniversary of a 3-year "wager"
which michael hart and i made way back on april 21st, 2010.
i'd posted "longstanding question has finally been answered",
a message noting that the ipad -- on the verge of release --
had answered the frequently-debated question as to whether
general-purpose machines or dedicated e-readers would win.
the 300,000 pre-orders for the ipad were convincing to me...
but michael differed, saying dedicated e-readers would prevail.
we eventually settled into a bet where he made me pick a date
when the number of ipads would surpass kindles/nooks/sonys.
i thought it would be from 1-to-3 years, max, so i said that...
> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006648.html
and so the wager was formalized...
> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006659.html
> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006660.html
i said that ipads would outnumber sony/nooks/kindles on
4/21/2013, and michael (for some reason) bet the opposite.
***
along the way, i also made another post full of predictions:
> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006652.html
kind of interesting to go back and look at how close i was...
***
anyway, 2 years in to our 3 year wager, apple just announced
its results for the quarter that concluded at the end of march.
they sold 11.8 million ipads in the quarter, for a grand total
of _67_million_ since the debut of the machine 2 years ago...
pretty sure that dwarfs the other machines, even if you were
to add in all the other e-readers and tablets, even combined.
the ipad is an absolute juggernaut.
apple's market cap -- which is now #1 -- has grown to nearly
$600 million. (exxon, #2, hovers solidly around $400 million.)
***
at any rate, i miss you, michael.
-bowerbird