14 DAY TRIAL // Retrevo, a consumer electronics shopping and review site, has determined that more and more people see Apple’s iPad as a somewhat unnecessary device, following the famous January 27 announcement. Before Steve Jobs unveiled the gadget to the crowd attending the San Francisco event, people had been intrigued by the idea of owning / using a tablet computer. Following the iPad’s unveiling, however, the public is rather resilient to the thought of using such a product for their daily needs, a Retrevo study aims to show.
The Retrevo report gathered its data from a study of more than 1,000 randomly selected Retrevo users. The first users were surveyed between Jan 16-20, 2010 before Apple pulled the cloth off the iPad. A second random sample of users were surveyed between January 27 and February 3, 2010, following the announcement. Distributed across gender, age, income and location, the sample was taken from people residing in the United States. Most questions had a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level, according to Retrevo.
The Pulse study looks at consumer interest. Acting as a follow-up, Retrevo’s survey has provided results that now indicate a failure to convince any new buyers to consider the iPad, Retrevo asserts. Not only that, but Apple may also be on the verge of losing more buyers who, just now, realize they may never need such a device.
“Retrevo’s study asked consumers whether or not they had heard about the tablet before the tablet was introduced and again after the announcement,” the company says. “The word definitely got out as the number of respondents saying they had heard about the tablet rose from 48% shortly before the announcement to over 80% after the media frenzy on January 27th,” Retrevo explains. “Unfortunately for Apple, the number [of] respondents saying they had heard about the tablet but were not interested in buying one, doubled from 25% before the announcement to over 50% following the announcement,” survey results now show.
“When asked before the announcement if they thought they needed the tablet, 49% of respondents answered ‘no’ with 30% saying they needed to know more about it before they could decide. [...] After the announcement the percentage of respondents indicating they needed more info had dropped by half but the overwhelming majority of those who felt they now had sufficient knowledge, decided they didn’t need a tablet. This raised the total number of respondents saying ‘no’ to the iPad, after the announcement, to 61%,” Retrevo concludes.
Other key points in the survey included a clear testament that those who would consider the iPad don’t really want to pay for 3G, while the same apps that “motivate buyers to run down to the Apple Store” may, or may not sell people on the iPad. Retrevo itself notes that it’s “doubtful” that the existing App Store content will make much of a difference. However, developers are known to have received a new Software Development Kit (SDK) specifically tailored for the iPad’s big screen, so it’s safe to say we’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
