The quarterly results are in and Apple’s doing fine overall, but the iPad really isn’t, with another year-over-year decrease in sales.

Apple and commentators can keep saying the iPad is “the future of computing,” and it might still be. But we’re starting its seventh year in a few months, and sales peaked three years ago.

What if the iPad isn’t the future of computing?

What if, like so much in technology, it’s mostly just additive, rather than largely replacing PCs and Macs, and furthermore had a cooling-fad effect as initial enthusiasm wore off and customers came to this conclusion?

The moving-average unit sales graph would look something like this, right?



(Courtesy of Six Colors)

And Mac sales might appear mostly unaffected, or possibly even increasing as iPad sales cooled off, right?



(Courtesy of Six Colors)

Is Apple prepared for that possibility?

Is the Mac?