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That doesn't mean you want a 17 month old model once you decided to buy a new one. When people replace their four year old iPad, they want something as new as possible.

Not necessarily true. I work for an Apple reseller and awe have a HUGE market for refurbished iPads. I would easily say that most people that hit me up about iPads ask about used ones first.
 
Clearly this is happening, but I don't really "get" this argument. There is a huge difference between a 7.9" 4x3 screen and a 5.5" 16x9 screen.

I think the point behind the argument isn't the screen size or dimensions themselves, but the usage behind them. A 5.5" 16x9 display is just large enough to get plenty of tasks done that were previously better suited for an iPad over a 4" iPhone.

I love my iPad mini 2, for example, because it's small enough to be comfortably handheld while large enough for playing games without my hands getting in the way (like with my 5s.) I can also bang out texts and emails with plenty of screen real estate for the keyboard without cramping everything else together. My calendar is nice and spread out so I can see more events all at once (especially on the monthly view.)

If I get a 6+, I can easily do much of what I do on my iPad, on my iPhone. Sure, the display is much different from the iPad mini's, but it'll still be large enough to reach for my phone in times when I'd normally reach for my iPad.

I could go back to the iPad for things like drawing or extended word processing, but I'm usually just doing that on my iMac at home. I'm not saying there is no longer ANY use for iPads at all, for anybody. It's just that gap between "stuff I like to do on my phone" and "stuff I'd rather do on my computer" is getting smaller now that iPhones are getting larger and base-level Macbook Airs are getting cheaper, more powerful, and can hypothetically accomplish more than an iPad could.
 
As mentioned here, two of the issues causing this are:

1) Larger iPhones. Sure, they're not tablet-sized, but they are big enough where you don't quite long for "just a bit bigger" anymore, reducing the want for a tablet.
2) iPads are well-built. My iPad 3 is going strong, even in the hands of a child for the last year. My iPad Air is great and there's nothing compelling about the iPad Air 2 that makes me want one (compared to the Air 1, that is).

So, it's unlikely I'll be upgrading to a new iPad for years to come unless they come out with a killer feature that isn't a gimmick.
 
Works great is a real reqson to keep the hardware around.

Quote:
Apple needs some killer features to make the upgrade worth it.


I keep seeing this posted yet nobody seems to know what those great features might be.

This is what I think Innovation means. Features we haven't thought of or a combination of features in an arrangement that hasn't been done before. Change in screen size- simply change. Touch id and Apple Pay- innovation.
 
I'm with you on tablets being little more than a gimmick, but I feel that the :apple:Watch has some potential.

Every time you reach into your pocket, pull out your iPhone, glance at something, and put it back, that was a potential use case for the :apple:Watch.

Glancing at data on the iPhone can be a bit awkward, getting it in/out of your pocket, unlocking it, locking it. That all eats up seconds repeatedly throughout the day.

With an :apple:Watch, you can skip all that and just rotate your wrist and look at whatever notification or glanceful of information you wanted.

Is that $350+ worth of useful? Probably not. But it gives you an idea of what an :apple:Watch could do better than an iPhone.

Ok, I see your point. It's clearly just a personal thing. I see my phone as more of a message-taking device. I let it collect texts, emails etc so I can choose when to read/reply to them. In fact, my phone is usually on silent/vibrate.

The thought of being interrupted even more frequently and even more directly fills me with dread! I hate being a slave to my technology.

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You comment does not make sense, and is bordering on trolling.

I stopped reading at this point. Just because my opinion is different to yours doesn't mean I'm trolling.
 
I'm not against split screen multitasking on tablets but I can't understand people "multitasking" when they're watching a movie. I must be too old.

The iPad multitask today, I'm not sure what these people are asking for. I have to wonder if they have never heard the audio dim during movie playback, while a chime plays indicating an E-Mail arrival. The fact is IOS is multitasking all the time.
 
Tablets are the perfect device for many different things--much better than a phone or laptop in many cases. However, the things they are good at do not require a yearly hardware upgrade, or even a bi-yearly upgrade.

I've never heard an iPad owner say they don't like the device or don't use it. What I HAVE heard a lot of is, "It still works just fine for everything I do. Why would I buy a new one?"

There's a few of us as per the lists here who've had ipads and given them up. I had an iPad2 and iPad3 both at launch. It was quite handy for a first pass import for photography and watching some TV whilst on the exercise bike/cross trainer, but it got too laggy for me. My husband has the v2, and is fairly happy with it, my son has the v3 and he's happy.

I'm more than happy to stick with my phone and MBP.
 
Without any innovation, there's no compelling reason to upgrade a tablet every year. This last iPad update was slightly thinner and had a slightly faster processor which people won't notice in real world use.

This is all about lack of innovation at Apple, a concern that has reportedly been discussed as high as the Apple board level. Milking profits out of their current products is a great short term strategy, but a failure as a long term strategy. And no, a watch that displays time for less than 3 hours a day won't solve the innovation problem.
 
My wife and I still each have an iPad 3 model. We've had absolutely zero desire or need to upgrade to a newer iPad model. Our iPads are still running iOS 7. That slowed them down a bit (over iOS 6) but we aren't the least bit interested in upgrading them to iOS 8. In fact, we sorta feel like each revision of iOS seems intentionally designed to slow things down just enough, that consumers will feel they need the latest and greatest iPad hardware.

Screw that. For how we use them (check mail, light web browsing, play a few games, etc.), these iPads will last us for several more years to come. iOS 7 is just fine, thank you.

Mark
 
My 12yo daughter is tired of the tablet, wants a laptop. Guess maybe she's not the only one.

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I've been a Mac user longer than 98% (ok, so I just made that up) of the folks in this forum -- since April of 1987.
That's probably true, I'm used to being in a small percentage. 1985 for me.

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I'm not against split screen multitasking on tablets but I can't understand people "multitasking" when they're watching a movie. I must be too old.
I do it all the time. I just use a 90" screen for the movie and something smaller for the work.
 
I have an iPhone 6, iPad third-gen, and a retina MacBook Pro. The device that gets the least amount of use among those three is definitely the iPad.

Even if the iPad third-gen weren't underpowered and thus slow as molasses, I'm not convinced that I would be using it any more than I do currently. I thought recently about selling it and getting a little bit of cash to put toward a new iPad; but then I wondered if I really need an iPad.

All of my work (3D medical modeling) requires an actual computer. There's no way around that. All of my communication is done via cell phone. For my uses, the iPad is simply a "nicety" but it doesn't really help me be any more productive.

Sure, I can answer e-mail and texts on it; but with the larger screen on the iPhone 6 compared to previous iPhones, I find myself picking up the iPhone 6 99% of the time to respond to texts and e-mails if I'm not in front of my Mac. Meanwhile, apart from the occasional Netflix binge in bed, the iPad sits on the table collecting dust.
 
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Here is my blunt assessment of the tablet market.

The tablet form factor's main value was, from the start, to be a secondary or tertiary remote screen to a far more powerful desktop PC.

It only really needed sufficient power/ability to run in a "solo" state for minor tasks such as general web surfing and correspondence. It was never a stand alone device category.

Apple failed to recognize this from the start. The original iPad should have played easily and nicely with a headless MacMini, and sold the MacMini as the home media station with iPads for the family. With each iPad drawing resources from the Mini as needed. Apple decided to abandon the home server market, in what I consider folly and shortsighted over the excitement of trying to push every consumer to own ever product iteration.

Not that any of the composition has really filled this space well either.

Why is this important? Because the tablet, with the hardware it currently has "is good enough." Even the iPad 2 with its A5 chip is still in that range of "good enough" when paired with a home media and application server.

There are very few reasons for anyone to upgrade their tablets for several hundred dollars, when that same money can be put toward that "home server" that's actually doing all the heavy lifting. This pushes out the upgrade cycle far longer than the "phone" forced cycle of 2 year contract renewals.

I see 5 years being a minimum lifespan expected for a Tablet in this situation, with many holding on to their old "high end" (the several hundred dollar devices Apple sells) tablets even longer. This is more in line with expected life span of "classic" (pre-ever part is soldered to board) Apple Macintosh product lines. 5 years+ was not an unexpected lifespan.

Apple needs to slow the refresh rate of "tablet" level devices and put some major advancements in each iteration. As someone with an iPad 2, I've been watching each "new" iPad go by and thought "nah, I'll hold off and wait until they've really got every thing in there." And that hasn't happened... yet. Since the next Tablet I buy into is, again, going to be one that's likely going to be hanging around for 5+ years of use, and aiming for a bit of future proofing doesn't hurt in terms of connectivity doesn't hurt. Since that's where it all comes back around. It really comes down to what the Tablet's can connect to and use the resources of, not the built-in processing power.

*You can replace Home server with Cloud server in some instances.
 
I believe there are several reasons for the decline:
1) apple hasnt really added anything new to the iPad in about two years. There is no incentive for people to upgrade. I know quite a few people who are still rocking their iPad 2.
Let's see IPad Air 2 has:
. A better screen
. A tri core processor
. A vastly improved GPU
. Touch ID
. Double the RAM, in most cases far more tha double from the apps standpoint.

The reality is far different than what you are suggesting, IPad Air 2 was the biggest IPad update yet if you look at it objectively. However that didn't keep Apple from loosing share to "other".
2)the arrival of iPhone 6 plus. Which is not much smaller than a mini.people who brought the iPhone 6 or 6+ aren't going to put out $500 for new iPad when they have a good smartphone screen.
Depends upon the person. I'm certainly not going to buy a 6+ because it is too big.
3)IPad still has it limitations in terms productivity. Other tablets like the surface pro 3 have shown what a productive tablet looks like. People are not going to spend money a tablet that is only good for
I'd be the first to admit that Apple has issues with software. However I don't see a big draw for Surface like features. Apple needs to wrap its head around feature parity when it comes to IOS and Mac OS apps for one. Even more so they need to wrap their head around file storage / file system access in a way that makes sense. We are on what is now Apples third attempt at cloud storage and it still sucks.
 
Amazon in particular has always been tightfisted with giving out real data. Also not clear if 'tablet' here includes dedicated ereader models like the Paperwhite and the new Voyager. I could believe the Kindle Fire line is not doing that well--it has no real advantage over an ipad or normal Android device, and someone who really wanted a to buy a lot of Kindle books would be better off with a Paperwhite most of the time. Personally, I would not shed a tear if the Kindle went away; in fact, I would dance on its grave.

I'll bet this data includes very cheap tablets that aren't used for much more than watching video.
 
If they would just add accounts to the ios I'd get another one. My kids have accosted mine and I stopped using it 3 years ago.

Even some sort of "guest" account with limited access to the user data on the iPad would be a start.

Not necessarily true. I work for an Apple reseller and awe have a HUGE market for refurbished iPads. I would easily say that most people that hit me up about iPads ask about used ones first.

People want refurbs or previous models because they are priced lower than the current model. Nobody wants to pay full price for a 17 month old model with a new version on the way.
 
I'm sure iPad will be fine. But iOS really really needs to improve - it feels increasingly stale and underdeveloped on tablets. :confused:
 
iPads are like roller blades.

Besides, every one has one now. People get the applications they wants and that is it. You can not make more processing consuming applications for iPads because no one will use them, makes no sense and an iPad can do so much. If you want to do more get a laptop.

The only reason to get a new iPad is if your brakes or get stolen. Most of the times you can live without it.
 
Love my iPad 3 and iMac, but I'd swap them in a heartbeat for an Air and an iPhone.

The iPad is fine for consuming data, but a pig for creating work.
 
But like the iPad, it duplicates what you already have on you. The Watch doesn't seem to offer anything massively different or additional to what the phone can already do.

Plus, at 6pm when the battery dies or when you forget to charge it overnight, you'll quickly get out of the habit of having it.

Only time will tell of course but, personally, I think the Watch is a pure gimmick.

So you've used one and know the battery dies at 6pm? Because you've spent all day using your watch to duplicate what you do on your phone?
 
Speaking only for myself, I haven't felt a need to replace my iPad 2 as it still does reasonably well at the things I bought it for. On top of that, my iPhone 6 Plus has taken over several of those tasks so I find myself using my iPad less anyway.
 
I wonder if Apple needs to bring the iPad closer to the Mac in terms of functionality.....

I completely think they should add functionality. If you consider a macbook air, the macbook air is light, with USB ports, and can do so many other things it really doesn't make sense to have an ipad (for a generic user).

The surface 3 is quite the machine also in comparison (if you exclude price points). While it only took microsoft a couple of tries to get it right, but I think Microsoft might finally be learning to put out good hardware. Hololens with the next xbox??
 
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I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade an iPad all that often. What does a new one do that my 3 year old one won't do? Nothing.

That's why sales are flattening. iPad users keep using the one they have. Samsung tablets remain in the drawer they were left in.
 
Dear Apple,
make an iPad worth upgrading to and people will upgrade.
I bought the 1st iPad for obvious reasons.
I bought an iPad 3 for retina.
I bought an iPad air for the small dimensions.

I didn't get an iPad 2 because "being a bit thinner, lighter and faster" wasn't worth the outlay.
I didn't get an iPad 4 because adding a lightning port wasn't a good reason to call it a new generation.
I didn't get an iPad air 2 because "being a bit thinner, lighter and faster" wasn't worth the outlay.

It's like the even numbered iPads were just like "S" models of the iPhone.
Hopefully the iPad air 3 will have something on it worth upgrading to.
 
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