
If hotcakes were selling like iPads, IHOP would be the hottest investment on the block. But hold the maple syrup -- despite the higher price tag on most Macs, Apple’s making more money off iPads these days. Its Q3 2011 iPad earnings were $6.05 billion, up 179 percent since the previous year. Meanwhile, Mac sales raked in $5.1 billion…representing gains of only 16 percent.
What’s driving the iPad’s explosive growth? The “cool factor” is certainly part of it, but the iPad’s utility is the foundation of its success. It’s terrific as a second computing device (the first being a Mac or PC), and for many of us, it’s taking the spotlight as our primary platform for work, email, browsing, and beyond. Thanks to the cutting-edge offerings in the App Store (15 billion downloads served!), it’s even more practical than ever before to handle all your productivity needs with an iPad. We’re talking photographing checks to deposit them, piping video calls to your TV, and loads more. But how?