Reporting and the "news" that iPad sales are slumping

Forbes has an article today titled iPad Sales Slump As Android Tablets Soar by Ewan Spence.

• Ewan cites IDC sales data.
• Ewan describes Android advantages, such as the diversity of devices, lower cost options.
• He argues that a cheap tablet is not pretty, but is functional, and that that is what most people want.  He says Apple is out of step with the rest of the market.
• He argues that there are "other forces" tending towards Android and away from iOS.

Things not cited include who is making money making tablets.  Are manufacturers making money?  Cellular providers?  Google?  Android app makers (specifically from Android tablets)?

Others have other theories.  Mark Hibben of Seeking Alpha has a new article, (must be registered to read the whole thing) Why iPad Sales Will Recover In 2015.  This seems to run along the same lines as a detailed article on October 30th by Daniel Eran Dilger on Apple Insider, How Apple, Inc. went thermonuclear on Samsung, erasing Android's primary profit center.

I am surprised that statistics-generating companies like IDC can get away with ignoring articles like the Apple Insider article.  They are supposed to be performing analysis.  Part of analysis is looking at analysis from others.

IDC and Ewan Spence do not look at all the evidence.  There is a cherry-picking of evidence to lead to a conclusion, ignoring other evidence.  Mr. Spence does not acknowledge in any way the new breadth in the ipad line - a breadth that frankly I think is kind of crazy, but would think would quiet exactly the kind of feedback provided by Mr. Spence.

Where is the Macalope when we need him?