The iPad has always labored under the shadow of its little brother the iPhone. When Apple launched the tablet back in the spring of 2010, everyone thought it was derivative—it’s just a big iPhone! Even now, after proving itself a worthy alternative to personal computers, the iPad rarely gets its due. When investors and financial analysts think about Apple’s future, they tend to focus on the iPhone, which remains the company’s cash cow. It has been estimated that Apple keeps about 50 to 60 cents in profit from ever dollar it makes on iPhone sales. This makes the iPhone the most profitable product in the world. In its 2012 fiscal year, Apple sold 125 million iPhones, generating $80 billion in revenue and probably around $35–$40 billion in profits. To put that in perspective, Apple likely made as much in profit from the iPhone in 2012 alone as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Samsung combined made from each and every one of their products.
Poor iPad. Set against the iPhone’s monster numbers, the few billion that tablet sales generate for Apple seem insubstantial. What’s more, nobody gives the iPad credit for launching Apple’s touchscreen fortunes. If only the iPad could explain to the world that it came first—that Apple’s tablet project began in 2003, long before the company started thinking about a phone, and that Apple’s multi-touch operating system was originally developed for the tablet and only then transported to the iPhone. (Apple considered using an iPod-like click-wheel on the iPhone but ultimately changed course.)
