The new iPad sells 3 million units in three days

[Jumpin]

marioboy2004 said:
I'm not criticizing Apple, but the people who are addicted to it and need an upgrade every year. At least consoles last 5-6x longer without a 600-700$ yearly upgrade.

Well, you certainly don't need to upgrade every year, probably every 4 years, particularly since iPad 1 is still a good device even today and most software will support it for sometime yet.

If someone is updating their iPad annually, then they're probably selling their old one, and Apple devices generally do very well on resale (take a look on Ebay, used iPad 2's are selling the lowest end models for a minimum 350 USD, which means upgrading to the equivalent iPad 3 would cost a maximum of 170 dollars -but probably only around $100), better rates than say last year's Sports games.

I would guess that only a very small fraction of iPad 3 owners would be former iPad 2, and that most will be new users to the hardware line. The people who upgrade every year will be the big tech heads and enthusiasts who blog about it - the same people who upgrade many other things much more frequently than most people.

I can somewhat understand, the only videogame console/handheld I haven't upgraded in the last several years was the Wii, mostly because there were no other models, and I didn't want another colour. Although I have updated  Nintendo handheld systems almost once every 2 years since the GBA days, and my Sony consoles once every 3 years since the beginning of the Playstation (although I will note that in the case with the PSX and PS2, it was due to console malfunctioning, PS3 was because I wanted something smaller and more practical for my living room). I upgraded my iPhone once, from the original model to the 4S. My original model is still functioning very well, and they are surprisingly incredibly durable, much more so than any previous phone I ever had (all being Nokia's and Sony Ericsson). I see iOS devices as actually having greater longevity and less needs toupgrade than their competition - and not just due to durability, but because the specifications of other phones by other companies change and evolve so often that models 1.5-2 years old are already obsolete and unsupported by software developers.