In case you hadn’t heard, the sky is falling in Cupertino. Missed the news, did you? Here’s the headline: Apple only sold 13.2 million iPads in its fiscal third quarter. Cry me a river.

Yes, the quarterly sales are down from the prior three months and the year-ago period. Apple(s aapl) sold 16.3 million iPads in the first three months of this year and 14.6 million in the fiscal third quarter of 2013. Look at the iPad sales data since Apple’s tablet debuted and you can a broader view of the same thing: The iPad sales growth rate overall has slowed of late.

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I don’t think this is cause for alarm. Expecting iPad sales growth to mirror that of the iPhone, which is still on a relatively stronger upward direction, is unreasonable for a number of reasons. First: phones are far more a communications necessity than tablets are, at least…