Your point (1) is wrong. From 2010, before the iPad: "A report in the Wall Street Journal notes that in the 2010 Apple fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec.

Your point (1) is wrong. From 2010, before the iPad: "A report in the Wall Street Journal notes that in the 2010 Apple fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 26, iPhone and related product revenues came to $5.6 billion, 36 percent of Apple’s revenue total. That compares with $4.45 billion for total computers and $3.39 billion for iPods. The iPhone, clearly, is largely responsible for doubling Apple’s sales over the past three years. Even though computer sales are up sharply at Apple, iPod sales have been roughly flat over the same period. The associated increase in gross profit margin is even more impressive. The iPhone carries higher margins than do other Apple products, so the gross revenue of the company has increased from 31 percent to 48 percent over that same three-year period. " http://iphonetouch.blorge.com/2010/01/27/apple-gets-more-revenue-from-iphone-than-from-macs-or-ipods/ http://iphonetouch.blorge.com/2010/01/27/apple-gets-more-rev... Apple only made 33% of their revenue from their computers. And even moreso, as noted in that article, the iPhone carried much higher margins than their other products. I don't think its any stretch to believe that margins on the iPad are similarly large. IOW, even if the iPad cannibalized all of their Mac sales, they were on solid ground, because its clear their revenue and margin growth was not the Mac, but the iPhone and eventually the iPad. It was obvious that iOS was their key platform, not OSX. Nothing is a sure shot in business, but this was about as easy a call as it gets. On (2) we were explicitly not talking about disrupting an industry. We were talking about Apple disrupting itself. I don't think it was at all gutsy for Apple to sell iPads. The market math just made too much sense. WebApps are gutsy for Apple now, since it undermines their huge app ecosystem. New devices that build on their iOS platform are not gutsy nor disruptive (unless they do something like give iOS away for free and make money just from the appstore).