"Tablets, however, are a luxury item... The people who buy them are buying them as luxury/status items, and that means Apple."
iPads replace laptops for many people which explodes your hypothesis. I've never purchased a laptop in my life due to expense but I did buy an ipad. New category =/= luxury.
Apple has won this category because (among other things) they were the first successful entrant, their software is more refined, their ecosystem is better and their distribution is leagues better.
But this just means that a laptop would also have been a luxury for you. Apparently you don't need a mobile computer or you would have bought one before the tablet became an option.
Like a lot of people I'm working on the go all the time and as much as I like tablets for certain things I need a real laptop.
"But this just means that a laptop would also have been a luxury for you."
You're pivoting to a very circular definition of luxury here. A laptop is something that would have been very useful to me, as it turns out it always ended up one lower then other things on the budgetary priority. That doens't make it a luxury/status item as you said 3 up.
Ultimately there's a contradiction in your claim that a laptop in general is not a luxury/status good ("sign of affluence" - wiki) but a cheaper iPad, which often functions as a laptop substitute, somehow is.
iPads replace laptops for many people which explodes your hypothesis. I've never purchased a laptop in my life due to expense but I did buy an ipad. New category =/= luxury.
Apple has won this category because (among other things) they were the first successful entrant, their software is more refined, their ecosystem is better and their distribution is leagues better.