iPad Future Growth

Apple, Inc. AAPL is poised to unveil iPad 3 on Wednesday, and the rumor is that it will have a higher resolution screen, faster processor, and 4G capability. 

While these features will certainly enhance the experience for iPad users, these hardware improvements do not sound as exciting as before now that other tablet manufacturers are catching up on the hardware front

While iPad is leading the tablet market market share by a wide margin, we believe other tablets will catch up quickly, now that hardware from other manufacturers are mostly on par with Apple. 

The problem with other manufacturers now is that the hardware cost is still too high for them because they were behind the technology curve of iPad. These companies still lack the volume to drive down the cost.

Therefore, many of them are restricting their production capacity until such problems are solved.  However, over time the cost of hardware will be driven down continuously. At this point, the companies will be able to compete with iPad just like how Android phones creep up to compete with iPhone.

It is now increasingly difficult to claim excellence on hardware features, but Apple's strength has always been offering a complete system.  With a new iPad 3 launch, we believe Apple will start pushing more and more software solutions onto the tablet. This is not just to enhance the user experience, but to entice users to spend money more easily, much like the Cards app it had when it launched the iPhone 4S.

Look for more news from Apple, not on the hardware front, but increasingly from the custom apps front.