Weak OLED iPad Pro Demand Forces Panel Supplier to Pivot to iPhone

[nottorp]

Only a small minority of users benefit from an iPad Pro or even an Air. Those will pay the premium. Some early adopter types will also pay the premium because they have to have the latest and greatest.

Normal people... i keep an iPad (not Air, not Pro) on my nightstand. I don't remember which year it's from, it's good enough.

 

[cult hero]

I hate to keep sounding like a broken comment record, but until iPadOS does more, there is no point in spending so much money on an iPad Pro when software wise it is the same as an iPad or iPad Air. No point.

Yeah. Seriously. I got the prior gen iPad Air last year and have tinkered with it for more than a casual device. I’m not saying no one can be productive but… good lord man. Stage manager is terrible. Mouse use is terrible.

As a pure tablet it’s great. I read on it a lot, watch media, and do light writing on it with a keyboard. Fine. As a programmer it’s kinda useless otherwise. Stage manager is sluggish and just… whatever.

There’s no reason these can’t run macOS. And there’s no reason the UI can’t switch modes for touch only. An iPad better for my workflow than a laptop because 95% of the time work happens at my desk. It would be nice to just have everything on a single machine rather than two.

An iPad Pro + macOS is the device I really want. I’m not alone either.

 

[stevemiller]

my ipad pro m4 11 feels marginally better than my almost 9 year old ipad pro 9.7 (which more than anything just isn't supported anymore). i can only imagine how barely imperceptible it would be coming from either of the m-series ipads.

and yes, i'm sure there are niche users out there that are like "but the screen refresh and colour clarity are improved!" - and i can tell you that the group for which that matters the amount it matters to you... is exactly the size of "weak ipad pro demand forces panel supplier to pivot"

 

[SoldOnApple]

I have the new OLED iPad Pro and I honestly can’t tell much difference from my previous iPad Pro. The screen is fine, but certainly not as vivid as I expected. I suspect two things might have impacted sales: the higher cost of the new iPad and the fact that older iPads still work just fine.

I think to get the most out of good HDR you really need a bigger screen.

 

[DrJR]

Maybe if they added a CD/DVD drive it would have sold better. Retro music is back with the youth I hear.

 

[5167767]

My next iPad will be a Pro 13 inch. I don’t like the Touch ID sensor on my iPad, sometimes it doesn’t work.

 

[Arytonsenna]

> Released in May of this year

Really??

 

[Premium1]

Not surprised. People aren't spending $1,000+ on a tablet that is held back by iPadOS.

 

[Populus]

Please don't revert to LCD

They won’t, but they will probably think about leaving the other iPads alone for a while. In my opinion, they should leave the Air with an LCD screen (for the people who can’t stand OLED’s PWM or just don’t care), and spec it up with a better SoC. Same with the base iPad.

 

[Fraserpatty]

Do people really still get excited about iPads? They felt more useful way back when phones were tint. my home one gets used like twice a week to look at a recipe while cooking or watch a simple show sitting at the table. My work iPad gets used a lot more but mostly to take photos and write measurements on it and it's a 2018 and I don't care to upgrade.

I think I am pretty much the average iPad user and yes, I get excited about iPads and absolutely love my M2 11 inch. I recently added the mini 17 Pro so as to save the battery life on my M2 because I am using an iPad almost all day every day. Do people love Macs and MacBooks as much as iPad users love theirs? I mean the average iPad user, not the niche ones here on Mac rumors who need their macs for work.

 

[dabi]

However, due to sluggish sales of OLED ‌iPad Pro‌ models, the ‌iPad Air‌'s switch from LCD to OLED could be delayed by more than a year, according to DSCC.

What a horrible conclusion to make. So they released an overpriced iPad, with expensive hardware that iPad doesnt really need (M4 for iOS?? why?), and because of the bad sales they assume it's because people dont want OLED as much as they thought? OLED is amazing, it's just the iPad Pro specifically is a horrible deal.

 

[robertosh]

Of course price and limited use case does not help, but I think Apple did a terrible work with the marketing for this device. I think it deserved a proper real keynote. I think It's a incredible piece of tech, hosting that amount of power and technology in something so thin. I did not remember the last time that I hold an Apple product for the first time and I felt the "I want this". And this happened with the M4

 

[JamesMcFlyJR]

I know this is overstated but I love the hardware of the iPad but the software is extremely limiting.

I literally want a 13in tablet that does all of the functions my MacBook pro does. Ability to manage my music library, sync my ebooks to my kindle, run any app downloaded from the internet, coding apps, terminal, etc.

the only tablet that I believe fulfills that role is the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet since it runs full windows 11. However, I haven't used windows since windows 8.1 on the daily so have no clue how well windows works nowadays. Plus the Surface is a bit hefty compared to the 13in iPad Pro.

 

[PassiveSmoking]

I've got an M1 iPad Pro. Honestly, even for being several years old it's still got plenty of horsepower. Probably going to be at least 2 more generations before I think about upgrading again.

 

[ksec]

I hate to keep sounding like a broken comment record, but until iPadOS does more, there is no point in spending so much money on an iPad Pro when software wise it is the same as an iPad or iPad Air. No point.

Unfortunately yes. And I would argue with our current set of data even with MacOS on iPad. It still wouldn't change much at all. 95% of iPad users use it as a consumption devices with minimal data input.

Which means iPad Air and iPad mini is good enough. I would even argue they should shrink the iPad lineup to iPad and Pro, with Mini serving as Entry point. Get rid of the Air.

 

[jonnyb098]

I have the new OLED iPad Pro and I honestly can’t tell much difference from my previous iPad Pro. The screen is fine, but certainly not as vivid as I expected. I suspect two things might have impacted sales: the higher cost of the new iPad and the fact that older iPads still work just fine.

It’s not supposed to be overly vivid. It’s supposed to be accurate

 

[5167767]

Unfortunately yes. And I would argue with our current set of data even with MacOS on iPad. It still wouldn't change much at all. 95% of iPad users use it as a consumption devices with minimal data input.

Which means iPad Air and iPad mini is good enough. I would even argue they should shrink the iPad lineup to iPad and Pro, with Mini serving as Entry point. Get rid of the Air.

Yeah, I agree get rid of the iPad Air. I have an iPad 8th generation, will get the pro version next.

 

[Megatron]

I would have bought one but the screen really messed with my eyes. Strangely my oled iPhone is fine. Got the 13” air and love it.

 

[Rychiar]

I think I am pretty much the average iPad user and yes, I get excited about iPads and absolutely love my M2 11 inch. I recently added the mini 17 Pro so as to save the battery life on my M2 because I am using an iPad almost all day every day. Do people love Macs and MacBooks as much as iPad users love theirs? I mean the average iPad user, not the niche ones here on Mac rumors who need their macs for work.

I mean I like my Mac a lot more than my iPad. it's a lot more useful. I prefer my iPhone 15 pro max to my iPad Pro M1 big time. Most of the time I use the iPad if the phone is dead lol. and when it comes to loving a device I'm all about Vision pro, which is the only thing I'm super excited about as far as updates go

 

[5167767]

I mean I like my Mac a lot more than my iPad. it's a lot more useful. I prefer my iPhone 15 pro max to my iPad Pro M1 big time. Most of the time I use the iPad if the phone is dead lol. and when it comes to loving a device I'm all about Vision pro, which is the only thing I'm super excited about as far as updates go

I am the opposite, I like and use my iPad way more than my MacBook 💻

 

[platinumaqua]

Existing iPads still work very well and there have been no compelling upgrades.

My M1 iPad Pro still runs fine; even if I were to upgrade, I would switch to the Air because I prefer LCD for the longevity and Touch ID (as I found Face ID annoying)

 

[sledgehammer89]

No macOS (or iPadOS Pro) on iPad Pro M4, no iPad Pro M4. Smart Keyboard Folio has also been discontinued. It doesn't matter whether I make sure that dust and crumbs don't get into a MacBook or an iPad Magic Keyboard.

 

[Spock]

I recently upgraded my 11” iPad Pro 12x to the M2 11” iPad Pro. I did not jump to the oled M4 as I didn’t want to have spend for a new Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil. If my existing very expensive accessories worked I would have made the jump to the M4.

The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that the USB C Pencil works with every iPad and yet the Pencil 2 does not. That is a very blatant move to force users into spending more money on a new Apple Pencil.

 

[sdz]

iPad Pro is too expensive for what it is by today’s standards. Apple should have moved Air to OLED first, those would probably sell better.

They should just abandon the ipad pro and give the macbook a 5G Modem.

 

[Joshuaorange]

I bought one day one with the keyboard and pencil pro. Used it maybe twice. The pencil’s magical features aren’t supported by adobe or apparently anyone else. It is a severely restricted product with a very bloated price. Sales are slumping for very good reason.