Price to performance they are ok. If all you want is a device to watch some TV/Films, browse and use a few apps then it will do that just fine. On sale, you can get a 10" Fire for $80. It does the job when your needs are basic and don't want to pay 4x that for an iPad. Replace it every year if you want.
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Apple Continues to Dominate Tablet Market With an Estimated 19.2 Million Shipments in Q4 2020
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Apples market domination in this area is well deserved.
iPad provides the only fully baked tablet experience available. Still.
iPad provides the only fully baked tablet experience available. Still.
That's the problem with android devices - better specs on paper don't necessarily translate into a better overall experience.
hmm..and you're point? Andorid has specs for the target use, i.e. if you only want to browse the web, watch a film, read or listen to a book, why do you need to spend $600 when you can spend $60 for essentially an identical overall experience. No doubt the iPad is a premium device but for what most people use them for [see above], it's a premium price to go with it. Likewise when the use is more widespread and intense the Ipad [Air & Pro] handle that with a breeze, but then so do Galaxy S tablets.
BTW when considering specs, try and use an iPad outside; the "overall experience" is very poor , whereas the Galaxy S7 is excellent in daylight.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I believe the reason for this phenomenon is simple: The iPad is the ONLY tablet designed from the ground up for touch.
To me it seems every other tablet out there is a hybrid trying to shoehorn a desktop or phone OS into a it, and it feels like it.
I loved it when people dismissed it as a "giant iPod Touch" in it's introduction (like it was an insult), and failed to realize that the EXPERIENCE of using it is what matters.
Other manufacturers just don't get it.
To me it seems every other tablet out there is a hybrid trying to shoehorn a desktop or phone OS into a it, and it feels like it.
I loved it when people dismissed it as a "giant iPod Touch" in it's introduction (like it was an insult), and failed to realize that the EXPERIENCE of using it is what matters.
Other manufacturers just don't get it.
You just stated the issue right there.
When people want a premium tablet experience, they buy the higher-end iPads, which are already dipping into laptop-pricing category, and this is without the Apple Pencil and smart / magic keyboards. What this also means is that the iPad remains a lucrative product category for Apple, which in turn means that Apple does not hesitate to invest additional resources in developing the iPad platform.
So when someone buys an iPad, they are also buying into the apple ecosystem. This means the A-series processors (souped up if the timing is right), which in turn guarantees 5 years of software updates, a library of optimised tablet apps (eg: lumafusion for video editing), and full integration with other apple hardware and services.
Compared to this, a Samsung tablet is a lot less appealing.
Conversely, based on your assertion, the only time anyone would buy an android tablet is when it's being sold at a price point far below even the cheapest iPad that Apple has to offer. At such low margins, these tablets are unlikely to be making the company much money, which in turn means that said company probably can't afford to invest too much into supporting and developing them further.
Expect this disparity to only continue to grow with time.
Talked about on the MacRumors forums? I mean all sorts of craziness was talked about in this place!
But since they have been a top of the segment since day 1, I don't think anyone of real consequence would have stated it was a failing product line. 🤷🏻♂️
Amazon tablets are quite capable. I don't even need to add the qualifier, "for the price". I have threads here on MR from a few years ago where I show what those devices were capable of back then... even doing things that the iPad Pros of the time couldn't do.
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For tablets, there is only iPad. Everything else is literally trash.
They are good for kids. Also you can run streaming apps on them that you can’t on the iPad.
Kindles and I believe lots of Samsung tablets are developed for touch first and in most cases only too. They don’t necessarily get used more as hybrid devices- especially since the iPad has a better ecosystem of accessories, keyboard cases etc that make it easily transformable.
The iPad has in many cases failed to get out of the big iPhone comparisons too, which is partially nice as it is a similar experience but also in other cases frustrating as the iPad often offers zero functionality enhancements over an iPhone.
Not specific to Amazon and just in general you have more freedom and choices on Android. With Apple, daddy Timmy Cook has the final say in what you can install/run on the device they lease to you even though you've paid for it so, for example, you can't install/run Kodi which is a better VLC nor emulators and a lot of other apps.
Yup there are more unmoderated options for sure but I don’t find any content lacking personally. I wouldn’t however trust a device from Amazon in any way shape or form any further than any other provider either.
If one couldn't afford an iPad. I don't think the buying power represented on the forum is indicative of the average casual Apple user.
Maybe ask smart consumers. I'm guessing it has hardware and software features that iPads lack like OLED, DeX and more freedom to start.
The mini benefitted from being the cheapest model in the lineup until the base iPad was introduced in 2017 (in fact I think it was the cheapest 3 models at one point!) so that probably drove quite a lot of sales on its own. Now it's more or less just a size option of the iPad Air (though seemingly on a different upgrade cycle).
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
By hybrids I meant devices that use an operating system designed for either phones (Android) or desktops (Windows), not an OS designed from the group up for the specific touch device itself. Don't get me wrong though, Samsung tablets and Dex are nice and I like Android, but they're still not there with the device optimization.
The iPad offers significant enhancements over an iPhone, especially today (like the Pencil). The iPad, and it's OS, SEEMS like a blown up iPhone but again it is designed from the ground up to be it's own thing, even before Apple changed the OS name. And Apple requires apps specific to the device as well (even if it will run iPhone apps).
Remember, Steve Jobs was working on the iPad BEFORE the iPhone. So in a sense, the iPhone has always been a dwarf iPad, not the other way around.