While the Tame Apple press bangs on about how tablets are changing the world, it seems that the memo is not getting through to the customers.

When the latest iPad came out, there was talking that Apple was going to sell trillians and even Nick Farrell would have to buy one because they were so damn superior. Now Apple has fessed up that tablet sales, while respectable, are nothing like the hype that the Tame Apple Press and some analysts have been peddling.

In its latest sales figures, Apple said iPad sales fell well short of Wall Street's targets. iPad sales of 14 million in Q3 were well below lowered forecasts for the tablet as the economy remained weak. IDC claimed that tablet sales would be 107.4 million units, up from 69.6 million in 2011 and just 19.4 million in 2010. It said that Apple would make about 65 per cent of those sales, which would end up being 70 million iPads, depending on which cocaine fuelled analyst you spoke too. At 14 million units last quarter, Apple is clearly falling short. Analysts see the tablet market growing to 176 million in calendar 2015, as it marches toward eclipsing PC sales. But we could be seeing the first signs of tablet fatigue and these figures might be on the optimistic side.

What is more funny is that this figures are supposed to be signalling the death of the PC. True PC sales have dropped but that is more likely to be the global economy rather than any Jobs' Dream. What might be particularly scary is that Microsoft appears to have fallen for it and decided to copy Apple in the one area which is really hype over reality.

The Tame Apple Press has done its best to explain the figures as saying that buyers had delayed buying a tablet because they were waiting for the iPad Mini to come out. Yet Apple fanboys have already bought bigger tablets, why on earth would they buy something that is smaller and less useful than what they have already got.  Why would a non-Apple fanboy buy something that is even less useful than anything being made by Google and Samsung. It is starting to look like the reality distortion field around the tablet is beginning to crack.