>The market for fingerprint readers for smart phones was almost nothing. Just look at the motorola atrix. Now Apple has added a fingerprint scanner and integrated it purely to make it slightly easier to log into your phone, and the iPhone 5s has sold out.
The iPhone 5, 4s, 4 etc has sold out too, despite not having one. So I'm not sure it's the fingerprint scanner that's the differentiator here.
And the analogy is not apt for other reasons too. Apple didn't put a "fingerprint reader" because there was a market for it. They did it because it enables some things like easy mobile payments and better security.
Whereas with something like a wacom-like tablet capability, there IS a market, but it's tiny. And the technology doesn't offer much outside of that market (designers, painters and painting enthusiasts etc). There will be an improvement for handwritten notes and annotations, but that's not the major selling point of the iPad. If it was, Surface would have faired better too.
Still, they might add it at some point, if a dual-technology screen becomes cheaper and mature.
>The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.
> The iPhone 5, 4s, 4 etc has sold out too, despite not having one.
The iPhone 4 added a gyroscope, the 4s added a better microphones and associated audio chipset to improve speech recognition. The iPhone 5 added support for Airdrop. Following your logic then Apple really has no excuse not to add features like a digitiser because they will sell out anyway.
> They did it because it enables some things
Yes, and a pen digitiser and palm rejection enables reliable note taking, annotation and illustration.
> the technology doesn't offer much outside of that market (designers, painters and painting enthusiasts etc)
That's like saying that only journalists and novel writers need a keyboard, only photographers need a camera. The success of the iPad over traditional laptops has come from a natural way to interact with things directly like they do in real life. In real life people use pens everyday to jot things down.
> If it was, Surface would have faired better too.
What? The Surface does not have a pen. Only the Surface pro which is $400 more expensive than an iPad and doesn't run iOS.
The iPhone 5, 4s, 4 etc has sold out too, despite not having one. So I'm not sure it's the fingerprint scanner that's the differentiator here.
And the analogy is not apt for other reasons too. Apple didn't put a "fingerprint reader" because there was a market for it. They did it because it enables some things like easy mobile payments and better security.
Whereas with something like a wacom-like tablet capability, there IS a market, but it's tiny. And the technology doesn't offer much outside of that market (designers, painters and painting enthusiasts etc). There will be an improvement for handwritten notes and annotations, but that's not the major selling point of the iPad. If it was, Surface would have faired better too.
Still, they might add it at some point, if a dual-technology screen becomes cheaper and mature.
>The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.
Well, judging by unit sales, it very much is.