Apple’s shares have soared to around the same price as a mid-range iPad3 – on the same day the gadget caused pandemonium across the globe.
The tech giant’s shares reached 600 US dollars for the first time in New York on Friday, to a backdrop of fevered excitement as the iPad3, or ‘The New iPad’ as Apple have officially called it, hit the shelves.
Serious gadget fans queued for 31 hours outside Apple’s flagship store in Covent Garden, London, just to get their hands on the technological marvel, and Tom Royal, deputy editor for ComputerActive Magazine, said Apple certainly know how to throw a party.
“It seems that Apple has this magical ability to conjure up huge, huge interest in every new product,” he said.
“This is actually relatively minor for Apple, given the size of the queues and the crowd when they launched the iPhone 4.”
The main draw is believed to be the new screen – which almost doubles the resolution – but Royal pointed out that this could create problems for software developers looking to create apps to take advantage of it.
“Unless that happens, all these people buying their new iPads won’t be getting that much more than they got before,” he said.
Recently, there has been a rise in iPad usage for business purposes, but Royal explained that bosses might be disappointed by the lack of new features to make their lives easier on the new tablet.
“I don’t think the new hardware is going to make that much of a difference to business use immediately, but it’ll be interesting to see whether bespoke applications are updated for the new screen capabilities,” he said.
Despite this, Royal highlighted one new feature that might be useful for entrepreneurs who constantly have their hands full: new voice dictation software that makes it possible to successfully dictate emails and memos.
Royal said the new technology works well and is a definite improvement on using the familiar touchscreen keypad.
“As long as you’ve got a data connection, you can push a little button on the keypad and just talk into it.
“It actually does a remarkably good job of converting what you say into text.”
Apple’s shares boost following the latest launch comes a month after its stock prices crossed the 500 US dollars threshold for the first time.
The new iPad has now gone on sale in 10 countries, including the UK, US, France, Canada and Singapore.
Leave a Comment