iPad failed to garner investors even though total sales increased by 70 percent

Great expectations can sometimes lead to disappointing results. Such can be said for Cupertino based Apple Inc., which, after reporting a 70 percent increase in sales for the last fiscal quarter on Monday, saw a 6.5 percent drop in share prices. Wall Street investors felt that the 4.2 million iPads which were sold from July through September did not live up the hype surrounding the Silicon Valley juggernaut’s newest product.

A reason for investors to remain optimistic is the announcement by Verizon Wireless and AT&T that they will begin selling Wi-Fi compatible iPads at their retail stores later this month.

For the time being, Apple’s true cash cow is its fourth generation iPhone, sales of which have exceeded expectations.

However, Google’s Android phone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry are battling to gain cell phone supremacy. “I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs told analysts, referring to the competition during a rare public conference call on Monday. Jobs went on to add that Google’s Android phone was, “too big to compete with a smart phone and too small to compete with an iPad,” maintaining that the Google software is inferior to his Apple products.

Challenges like these have led to an escalating war of words with Google V.P. of Engineering Andy Rubin, who responded to Jobs’ accusations on his Twitter page, writing,
“mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
According to PCmag, this translates from computer source code to English as reading, “anyone can develop for, hack, or even create a version of Android.” Rubin was alluding to the fact that the Android operating system is “open” for anyone to rewrite the code and customize the product.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported that Research In Motion Ltd. executive Jim Balsillie threw his hat into the ring by writing, “many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple.”

After purchasing 2 million more iPhones then Blackberries over the last three months, it appears that consumers are not getting tired of buying iPhones. Whether they will continue to also buy iPads, iPods and Mac computers is another story.