After reading Trevor Melanson’s blog on Canadian Business, I was intrigued by his newest article based on a Vancouver Apple Store employee named Sam Sung. Oh, the irony of it, surely it must be made up. But no, Sam Sung, he exists, and he works for Apple. Incase you didn’t know, Samsung, the company, is Apple’s no.1 rival and enemy. Together, they’ve battled on the fields of consumer preference, advertising, and lawsuits. It all makes for quite the funny story.

Seriously.

Jokes aside, moving onto Apple’s new iPad Mini, it is reported that Apple has sold 3 million iPad Mini’s in their opening weekend. However, their stocks are tumbling of late, and some speculate that it may be the iPad Mini’s release that is causing this. This cheaper tablet (compared to the full sized iPad) means less profit for Apple, and less revenue in a market where there are stronger competitors such as Google (Android) and Amazon (Kindle Fire) who sell for less than $329. With price competition present, Apple will have to drop its price once again to be able to sell effectively. But this means lower profits, and a drop in Apple’s share price.

iPad Mini

Perhaps this is happening, Samsung is really catching up to Apple. Or is Apple just not advancing? It seems like they are just iterating their products tweaking them to be faster, and bigger, and maybe that is why observers were disappointed with the iPhone 5 and 4S. The iPad Mini is yet another example of this iterating, where this time they have made it smaller. While Apple are still selling a desired amount of products, it is time they notice that competitors are catching up, and they didn’t get to where they are now by reiterating products, but by innovating instead. If the company wants to continue to dominate, it’s obviously going to need to starting innovating and stop iterating. No one is waiting for just a faster processor.

Peter Nowak’s blog shines light onto this problem that Apple has grown in the last year or so, and I think it highlights what Apple needs to do very well. It also gives us a good sense of where competitors are in terms of Apple, and really just how close they are as of now. Go Sam Sung!