iPad Demand Surges as Apple Strengthens Grip on Tablet Market

[rembert]

Happy to have ditched my iPad for a reMarkable Pro Move tablet as, sadly, it seems I’ll have to replace my 13 mini with a larger phone when it dies. I just cannot justify any usecase for an iPad. My daughter is very happy with the iPad, she uses it in college.

 

[klasma]

I game on my tablet with a controller almost daily

Controllers attached to the tablet, or the tablet mounted somewhere as a display? To be honest, I would find either inconvenient.

 

[maflynn]

What ever happened to those MS surface pro x86 tablet things?

Not a bad idea, just too niche.

On paper its a good idea, in execution, it wasn't very good to use. I never really cared for windows in tablet mode, if I need a tablet, then the iPad is the best

 

[zenmacx]

Samsung's tablets are quite good, especially the Ultra lineup.

Yes indeed they are. However Samsung lacks the clever marketing tactics Apple has implemented for years.

Furthermore by targeting the kids, juveniles and other easily impressed individuals Apple has the schoolyard reputation as the “cool” must have devices.

Then there’s iMessage, a stroke of genius, further capturing the buyers and locking them into Apples Walled Garden.

 

[uczcret]

My buddy absolutely hates Apple and always jokes about them being communist.

Say what now?

 

[zenmacx]

I contributed to those numbers. Apple iPad Pro with M5 chip is an exceptional device. The speed is unbelievable. That display is absolutely luscious. Throw in the Magic Keyboard &  Pencil, you will start using your Mac less & less.

I have this iPad Pro, Magic Keyboard & Apple Pencil combination.

It’s OK, but heavier, bulkier and sluggish to type on as compared to my feather light, beautiful M4 MacBook Air.

For serious work nothing beats the fast comfortable keyboard on MBA & MBP laptops.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Yeah that's not a good thing. Apple is already doing sneaky move after sneaky move in spite of not having a true monopoly, imagine what it'll be if/once they reach a near total dominance

 

[lazyrighteye]

Hmm I'm not so sure. I think the general trend is a march away from tablets back to laptops as many of the benefits the iPad had (such as better battery, instant on, lightweight, no fan) are wiped out with modern ARM chips. In fact today a MacBook Air gets double the battery of an iPad. You also have the market being further squeezed by larger phones.

Personally I think Apple needs to reimagine the iPad as an ultra lightweight laptop/phone companion, a magic piece of paper which is used as a second screen, to draw on, to read, to watch tv where it makes sense and then put away, maybe it even folds, or magnetically attaches to your laptop when not in use. I think this represents a better function for the device rather than adding keyboard cases and trying to turn it into a laptop. Treat the iPad as an accessory to the core devices which are the iPhone and MacBook.

I'd love to see some real experience driven innovation here rather than trudging out spec updates of the Air, the Pro, the base every year.

Exactly. Apple's move to their own silicon, flattened some of iPad's initial selling points. iPad was initially positioned - especially with the addition of a BT keyboard - as a lighter, more portable alternative to a laptop. And as the OS ha matured, that potential has only increased.

For me, when I bought my M2 MacBook Air, the iPad-as-laptop-replacement concept quickly evaporated. Of all the Macs I've used/owned over the years (towers, iMacs, iBooks, MBPs, etc.) my M2 MBA has easily been the Mac I've enjoyable using the most. It's ridiculously portable and shockingly capable. It and an M1 MBP are my current daily drivers. When headed out the door, and needing to take one, 99% off the time, I happily grab my Air.

I also have an iPad mini 6 + Pencil. Incorporating it as a MacBook companion is exactly how I use that iPad in my current creative pro workflow. I've yet to be able to use an iPad as a laptop replacement. Instead, it's always a companion of. Your idea around reimagining it as a laptop/phone companion is interesting.

 

[NeonNights]

I am rather shocked of the increasing sales. I am not saying iPads are bad, but rather that they last so long and the micro-improvements to the lineup don't seem enough to trigger an upgrade wave. And since so many people already have iPads, I did not expect huge numbers of new buyers. Apple clearly knows better than I do.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Last iPad I bought was iPad 6th generation. No need for another ever from Apple again. Maybe if it worked like a Real Tablet...otherwise MS has better offerings.

I have owned 2 Surface Pros and 3 iPad Pros. I sure have preferred the iPad Pros to the Surface Pros in every single regard. I guess if I had no PC at all and I wanted my tablet to stand in for that the Surfaces would have been better suited to my use case. But I was not impressed with the Surface experience. Yeah, the hardware is good. The OS did not really make sense for the form factor without the keyboard and trackpad attached.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

What ever happened to those MS surface pro x86 tablet things?

Not a bad idea, just too niche.

They are now Snapdragon ARM copilot PCs.

 

[Momento_Mori]

As a Pixel/iPad user I can safely say an iPad is the best Google tablet you can buy.

Why do you prefer a pixel over an iPhone? I’m just wondering because I’ve been wanting to try a pixel for a while but still on the fence. Thanks

 

[ScanTheNavian]

In my opinion, the iPad is an excellent device. I am glad to have my Pro iPads. I am not surprised by this news.

I have my iPP M1 here next to me and it still feels and looks super premium. Granted, it's still on 18, but anyway. You get what you pay for. It'll be interesting in a few years when I get one with OLED and hopefully even better speakers.

Overall iPads are great. I got the cheapest one for my mother as they're much easier to use than computers. Updates and installs just work. The whole UI makes it easy to navigate where you want to go and to avoid the rest. To other users, like me, it can feel restrictive at times, but to her it's everything she needs. Just a few specific apps, a browser and youtube. The only times I've needed to visit and aid has been some very minor things that have been easily solved. Otherwise she happily carries it around and taps away.

 

[justanotherdave]

Samsung's tablets are quite good, especially the Ultra lineup.

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra. Competes with the iPad Pro very well and is actually better than the iPad if you use tablets for content consumption due to its much more friendly aspect ratio.

Not when they use phone processors in their full-size “pro” tablets.

Or run inferior Apps that don’t even take full advantage of the larger screen/processing power.

 

[NeonNights]

I have owned 2 Surface Pros and 3 iPad Pros. I sure have preferred the iPad Pros to the Surface Pros in every single regard. I guess if I had no PC at all and I wanted my tablet to stand in for that the Surface’s would have been better suited to my use case. But I was not impressed with the Surface experience. Yeah, the hardware is good. The OS did not really make sense for the form factor without the keyboard and trackpad attached.

My experience has been the opposite. For my wife's dental practice, I wholly preferred the Surface Pro for its flexibility, ability to install desktop apps, and the innovative Type cover, but we ultimately deployed iPads because they were simpler for staff and patients to use and had better battery life.

 

[justanotherdave]

Yes indeed they are. However Samsung lacks the clever marketing tactics Apple has implemented for years.

Furthermore by targeting the kids, juveniles and other easily impressed individuals Apple has the schoolyard reputation as the “cool” must have devices.

Then there’s iMessage, a stroke of genius, further capturing the buyers and locking them into Apples Walled Garden.

Probably nothing to do with:

- Apple placing strict guidelines for iPad Apps to avoid developers being lazy and just reworking phone Apps which resulted in a large number of quality tablet-optimized Apps. Unlike Google who let tablet developers do what they wanted and has been trying to fix it ever since.
- Apple making specialized versions of their processors for the iPad giving it more power than phone-processor based tablets.
- Developers taking advantage of these processors to bring major Apps to the iPad (like Photoshop, for example).

 

[justanotherdave]

My experience has been the opposite. For my wife's dental practice, I wholly preferred the Surface Pro for its flexibility, ability to install desktop apps, and the innovative Type cover, but we ultimately deployed iPads because they were simpler for staff and patients to use and had better battery life.

Windows Surface is all over the place when used as a tablet. Some programs work well while others are terrible.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Probably time for the EU to step in and penalize Apple for spending three decades building a robust ecosystem and killer hardware with which to access said robust ecosystem? How dare their business model prove successful. 😜

Yeah, success based on the hard work of making things people want to buy and helping to create actual useful things like USB-C cannot stand. Probably best for the EU to move on and source all of their tablets from that wildly successful EU based tablet making company. What was the name of it again? I’m sure it’s bound to show Apple how tablets should be made AND how App Stores should be run.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Tablets aren’t great for gaming. Without a dedicated controller, gaming is limited, and with it a tablet is inconvenient.

Strangely enough, I prefer a tablet to a controller for some of my games. Some games provide me instant one tap access to one of 4 options and the same setup on a controller has you cycling through the options to choose the one you want. From what I’ve read about Sony’s reported patent, I wouldn’t doubt that they have a plan to capitalize on the flexibility of a free touch area.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

What ever happened to those MS surface pro x86 tablet things?

Not a bad idea, just too niche.

I feel like it was Intel’s refusal(inability?) to make the kind of performant/efficient chips required for the form factor. It’s not unlike what kept non-Apple watches held back for years by Qualcomm and they’re also behind the limited raw performance possible on non-Apple Vision Pro types of MR devices.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

No real comparison in the tablet market. Apple Kills the competition.

That’s the EU’s definition of “anti-competitive”.

“Apple is behaving anti-competitively by not adopting all the bad ideas of the competition. As a result, they have to be fined for being good at business and making things that people with money want to buy. Because we’ve come to the conclusion that Apple simply existing means no one has a chance to be better.”

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Happy to have ditched my iPad for a reMarkable Pro Move tablet as, sadly, it seems I’ll have to replace my 13 mini with a larger phone when it dies. I just cannot justify any usecase for an iPad. My daughter is very happy with the iPad, she uses it in college.

Apple 100% knew what they were doing with the iPad. Sure, folks coming from years and years of Macs may find it useless, but they’re popular with the most important group of all. Those best positioned to buy new products for the next 20-30 years or more.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I am rather shocked of the increasing sales. I am not saying iPads are bad, but rather that they last so long and the micro-improvements to the lineup don't seem enough to trigger an upgrade wave. And since so many people already have iPads, I did not expect huge numbers of new buyers. Apple clearly knows better than I do.

One thing that many folks fail to take into account is, as Apple has said before, the number of folks buying iPads that are NEW to Apple… having owned no Apple device before… is almost half. Apple hasn’t had to depend on folks owning iPads buying new iPads for years.

Sure, some percentage of the over 670 million iPad owners out there will always be picking one in any given year, but with not even a billion iPads sold yet, there’s over 7 billion folks that don’t have iPads for Apple to grow market share into.

 

[FasterQuieter]

Nearly 16 years later with hours of daily use I still find the iPad magical. My 12.9" iPad Pro is insanely fast, it has the best screen money can buy, it's impossibly thin and it's what I grab for 90% of my fun computer tasks. My daughter is the same. My wife and son don't like tablets. They don't see the point of them. There must be a tablet people and a not tablet people. I am a proud tablet person.

 

[hm42]

I have a confession to make. I still don't know what is the killer app or use case for an ipad.
I've been using iPads since the very first version. Since then I've had two or three at the same time (basic ipads, ipad minis, ipad pros) and always replacing them every two to three years.

At the moment I have an ipad pro M1 with keyboard and pen, and basic iPad with keyboard. I've given my ipad minis to my daughter and wife. I like to have them refreshed so I don't fall under the curve - that is, if I finally would figure a killer use case for a tablet.

I still have not found any real use for any ipad that a larger iphone or a macbook wouldn't do as well (or even better).

For notes taking I'm using remarkable tablets (recommended!) with a much better battery performance, better form factor(s) and more suitable displays (like kindle, works in sunlight without backlight). Current versions even have colors supported. Or then just a basic old fashioned notebook will suffice.

I don't draw so the pencil is pretty useless. Macbooks have better keyboards (forget the butterfly) than ipads.

My ipad use has mostly been for
1) an expensive netflix display
2) doomscrolling interest forums
3) wondering what's the cause of battery drain on an ipad pro. If it's not connected to a charger, the battery is almost always empty.
4) trying to look cool in gen x cafes. Though a macbook would work better for this.
5) well, nothing really

Since the ipad pro is both heavy and rather bulky (with the keyboard), and the battery don't last, compared to macbook air there's really not that much to save when walking "lightly". iphone is usually better for this.

Any ideas?