iPad Seen as 'Weakest Link' in Stagnating Tablet Market

[pubwvj]

I find the pessimism so odd. The fact that they're selling a quarter billion tablets a year on a rural back woods planet like Earth with a mere 7 billion population is quite amazing given the economic disparity in the population. I would have expected saturation in the market much earlier. There's some trickle down that the manufacturers can take advantage by doing legacy support for the older tablets to maximize their market for additional media sales but the ongoing sales is remarkable.

 

[RedRaven571]

This is directly related to people keeping their ipads longer. Tons of people are still using the ipad 2 with no desire to upgrade.

Yup, I'm one of them. Won't get a new one until this one stops working....

 

[unlinked]

Even an iPad 2 will run all of todays apps just fine, and an iPad 3 will also. Unlike PCs which you need to upgrade if you want to run the latest and greatest apps without it feeling slow

That doesn't really ring true to me. Anecdotally I see people upgrading their desktop or laptop after 5-7 years. The iPad 2 is at most about 4 years old. I don't see people upgrading PCs every 2 years.

 

[Trapezoid]

Fanbase is the secret. And marketing that creates that fanbase.

I know it's overpriced hardware. Have had tons of problems with my MacBooks, iMac's and iPhones. But I like the OS.

They can only price it at what the market will bear. It's not overpriced if people are buying their products in droves.

Just saying that's because of marketing is not valid. Sure they know how to market, but if you market crap, people will stop buying.

 

[thefredelement]

They need to do a better job marketing the iPad Air 2, out of all the iPads it feels the fastest and is just incredible to use. I thought I was losing my mind going from an Air to an Air 2 but there's def. a speed difference - it's a great tablet.

 

[gavroche]

Apple is doomed. Okay, okay I know...

Yea, good to know
Isn't it amusing how they claim that Microsoft is going to grow its market share considerably on the basis of "delivering a consistent experience," but when it comes to Apple... They want to instead call that stagnation, or boring.

 

[gnasher729]

Apple usually nails it on the head, as far as what users want. But i'm starting to wonder if people are feeling as though iOS is too limited?? I personally don't thing so, but I also don't feel like an iPad replaces my computer.

Quite the opposite. They have an iPad 2 and they think it is just fine, and they are not going to replace it until it breaks down.

 

[RickInHouston]

I'm sitting back and trying to take a really good look at things. Probably with Intel's future chips Surface Pro 4 could change any current wave of momentum.

It has me on the fence and ready to jump. It really is a slick piece of kit.

 

[rwilliams]

There just aren't many compelling reasons to buy new iPads on a regular basis. I would guess that most people still use them as "consumption" devices, so who needs to spend $400+ annually to watch Netflix, Hulu or read e-books?

 

[cocky jeremy]

Tablets are kind of pointless for anything other than portable media consumption, so I'm not surprised. Anything I could need to do on an iPad, I can do on my iPhone 6 Plus. I've bought a few iPads and tried them.. no use. I just use my iMac or iPhone instead 99% of the time.

 

[scott911]

I think the devices are solid - especially like my mini.

But was insulted (maybe that's too strong a word) that they launched the newest hardware with all sorts of hoopla for little more than another color option.

I would also like the mini to be as powerful as the normal size. Except for the consideration of needing power to drive more pixels of the larger screen. The fact that I simply prefer the smaller screen doesn't mean that I should have to settle for slower running apps.

 

[cmichaelb]

I'm not sure how you see Microsoft's Surface business, at less than 1/20 the size of the iPad business as 'eating the iPad for lunch...'

Many businesses have dumped iPads for Surface tablets. Now, I agree, it's not "eating the iPad's lunch' but it is a nice device that has made some inroads.

Product cannibalization is expected which it probably why Apple said they don't expect much growth for the iPad.

Steve Jobs was asked about an Apple product cannibalizing sales of another Apple product and he said he'd rather Apple cannibalize itself then let someone else do it to them.

No that isn't it. The reason is because there is no compelling reason to upgrade. Even an iPad 2 will run all of todays apps just fine, and an iPad 3 will also. Unlike PCs which you need to upgrade if you want to run the latest and greatest apps without it feeling slow, the iPad always feels fast and runs all the apps (due to developers making apps to the lowest specs in order to have the broadest appeal). If Apple wants to sell more iPads they really need to kick the apps up to another level where it forces people to upgrade, unfortunately its hard to do that when most apps are just mini-games

The iPad 2 will not run all of today's apps, and if you use a older iPad you do see the speed difference, but, most people don't download a ton of apps. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a plane (I travel a LOT) and I see people with iPads playing solitaire, sudoku, or some candy crush/bejewelled like game. Most people aren't power users so an older device is just fine - and feels fast to them. They surf, get their email, play a couple of low intensity games.

You're right - the apps or something else. Apple hasn't introduce a compelling new iPad feature in a long time. Maybe now that iOS has had it's revision they'll introduce a big feature.

iPad: The "magical" tablet crippled by iOS.

Apple was right in thinking a desktop operating system isn't right for a tablet, but iOS isn't the answer either. It need an OS all of its own, as powerful as OS X but with a touch-friendly interface.

That's a great idea! Just like iOS has the dock feature on the 6+ that the 6 does not, maybe that's a step in the right direction- Apple starting to customize iOS to each device.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I rarely use my iPad anymore... I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I greatly prefer using my iPhone or my MBA. I have little need for the inbetweener.

 

[unobtainium]

Tablets are a bit like smartwatches. They are less useful than their full-sized counterparts (laptops and smartphones, respectively). They have the advantage of being lighter, and theoretically more convenient, but in reality their small form factor limits their utility.

An iPad is like a terrible little laptop--the worst laptop you could ever buy--but with a really nice screen and incredible portability. Using it for anything productive is always a pain and always requires a workaround.

With laptops becoming lighter and phones becoming bigger, I see more people opting to just stick with a full-fledged laptop/smartphone combo. Ditto for smartwatches. These are secondary categories that will always be seen as luxury gadgets, rather than necessities.

 

[iLondoner]

I took our first iPad back. I wish in retrospect I'd done the same with the second one I bought, but it was purchased mainly to be able to read The Times (UK newspaper) whilst living several months per year in Spain.

The main limiting factor for me is the single login. Maybe Apple thinks this will encourage customers to buy one iPad per person, but most four-person families clearly won't do that, and instead the iPad languishes unused whilst we use laptops instead.

The other thing which is soooo overdue is multiple applications in separate windows.

I appreciate Apple has other product lines to develop but a company this large should have the resources to develop all lines simultaneously. As it is not only won't we NOT be replacing the current iPad in two to four years time, we won't be replacing it EVER, even if it stops working.

 

[2IS]

I can't be the only one who thought this...

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri cautioned investors during its latest earnings call that "We aren't planning to do **** to make the iPad any more functional than an iPhone"

 

[Motawa]

f anything, my iPhone 6 is impacting iPad usage more than my MacBook Air is.

same OS

 

[sputnikv]

i think ios on the ipad needs to be more robust than on its phone counterpart. be it split screen multitasking or what, i'm not sure, but it needs more.

 

[NATO]

Once I got a large screen iPhone (6 Plus), I found myself barely using my iPad because the iPhone was big enough for everything. Something I found particularly interesting was movies were EASIER to watch on the iPhone because of the 16:9 ratio whereas movies played on the iPad barely looked any bigger because of the 4:3 ratio.

In the end I sold my iPad and bought a Surface Pro 3 which I haven't stopped using since I got it. It really is a fantastic device for desktop/tablet use - During the day I use it like a laptop but at night I remove the keyboard and it's a fantastic tablet. I think Microsoft really got it right with the Surface Pro 3 in terms of the screen size, functionality, performance and versatility. So much so, quite a few people in my office have come over to ask about it and some have bought one themselves.

 

[GreenPixel]

I probably won't buy another tablet until Apple comes out with a 15" retina tablet device which I can use iOS when I want to (when holding it) then when I drop it on a kickstand, with my BT mouse/keyboard, I can run full Mac OS.

I really want this to be a thing. This would be the perfect device--one that adapts the OS to a specific use-case.

 

[2IS]

Once I got a large screen iPhone (6 Plus), I found myself barely using my iPad because the iPhone was big enough for everything. Something I found particularly interesting was movies were EASIER to watch on the iPhone because of the 16:9 ratio whereas movies played on the iPad barely looked any bigger because of the 4:3 ratio.

In the end I sold my iPad and bought a Surface Pro 3 which I haven't stopped using since I got it. It really is a fantastic device for desktop/tablet use - During the day I use it like a laptop but at night I remove the keyboard and it's a fantastic tablet. I think Microsoft really got it right with the Surface Pro 3 in terms of the screen size, functionality, performance and versatility. So much so, quite a few people in my office have come over to ask about it and some have bought one themselves.

I've been impressed with the SP3 as well, I don't own one yet, waiting for them to be outfitted with Skylake CPU's then I'm getting one.

 

[bpcookson]

The single best selling tablet in the market is the weakest link because ANDROID MARKETSHARE.
::drops the mic::

 

[NATO]

I've been impressed with the SP3 as well, I don't own one yet, waiting for them to be outfitted with Skylake CPU's then I'm getting one.

The built-in kickstand is utterly amazing as well, whatever engineering team came up with that deserves a medal for the incredible design. The first and second revisions were good, but the one used with the SP3 is absolutely perfect. It really does prove useful in every use case without having to resort to ugly or chunky cases.

Oh, and the Pen is amazingly useful.

 

[kemal]

Apple need another killer app that requires 64-bit. Force an upgrade.

 

[brendu]

Apple usually nails it on the head, as far as what users want. But i'm starting to wonder if people are feeling as though iOS is too limited?? I personally don't thing so, but I also don't feel like an iPad replaces my computer.

In order for iOS on an iPad to replace a traditional laptop for me is for them to give me a finder (or even just an iCloud Drive app) to give me easier access to various file types rather than all files being stored in various apps. That and make it so I can pair the Magic Trackpad and when I do I get a cursor on the iPad screen. Use Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad on it when I'm at home working on a document and I'll be happy.

Until I get those two things my iPad is pretty much just used to browse the web and watch videos.