The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#1

Post by fredfoobar42 » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out
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Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#2

Post by jnesser » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

Personally, I use a tablet for media (ebooks, tv, movies, etc), but as a programmer I need a real physical keyboard and acces to the programmer stack (vim, git, ssh, grep/awk, etc)... But honestly unless you're a student or business doing data entry I don't see the need for a full blown computer, though recent instability in the Android OS has made me wish linux tablets would get to the US market sooner rather than later.

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#3

Post by talmand » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

jnesser wrote: post #2

Personally, I use a tablet for media (ebooks, tv, movies, etc), but as a programmer I need a real physical keyboard and acces to the programmer stack (vim, git, ssh, grep/awk, etc)... But honestly unless you're a student or business doing data entry I don't see the need for a full blown computer, though recent instability in the Android OS has made me wish linux tablets would get to the US market sooner rather than l…

What is this recent instability in the Android OS that you speak of?

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#4

Post by ableal » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

John Gruber had a good observation about the charts published in Quartz (specifically the last one): "Apple has sold more iPads in its first 57 months than they sold iPhones in its first 57 months."

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/27/quartz-chartz-ap...

http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarte...

If Apple pumped out over 250 million iPads, a great majority of which is probably still in use, with the usual Android and Windows numbers the whole tablet population must be in the neighborhood of one billion.

I believe the "slower update cycle" explanation, and I'd guess many are waiting for wireless battery charging, nowadays the obviously missing hardware feature.

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#5

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

My observation has always been, tablets; specifically iPads; are too expensive for what they are doing. That and just because its an Apple tablet doesn't mean I need to pair it up against an apple laptop. Hence cost comparison is done against other laptops which are priced even lower than the iPad at times.

Its hard to get excited by technology when every price point is four hundred and up. How many items do they want me to have now? phone, watch, tablet, and laptop? Far too many redundancies

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#6

Post by larrik » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

I always doubted tablets, and then I got an iPad (3? the first retina one) for the kids and for development purposes. That was a while ago now, and it never really caught on here. It just kind of sits there, sometimes going months between uses.

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#7

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

ableal wrote: post #4

John Gruber had a good observation about the charts published in Quartz (specifically the last one): "Apple has sold more iPads in its first 57 months than they sold iPhones in its first 57 months." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/27/quartz-chartz-ap... http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarte... If Apple pumped out over 250 million iPads, a great majority of which is probably still in us…

A stylus would be nice. One reason I'm seriously looking at Surface (disclosure: Microsoft employee but all iPads at home).

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#8

Post by mladenkovacevic » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

I think an average user has only so much time in the day to commit to "screen time" or some time spent in front of a screen for work or leisure purposes. Between my phone, computer, laptop and TV I am already spending 60-80% of my day staring at some type of a screen. The tablet doesn't help me do my work or leisure activities better than any of those devices.

The only reason I ever spend any time with my tablet is because I love to draw and I have the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 with a built in Wacom digitizer (and even then I sometimes prefer to just pull out a sketchbook and a pencil).

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#9

Post by ghaff » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:56 PM UTC

ableal wrote: post #4

John Gruber had a good observation about the charts published in Quartz (specifically the last one): "Apple has sold more iPads in its first 57 months than they sold iPhones in its first 57 months." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/27/quartz-chartz-ap... http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarte... If Apple pumped out over 250 million iPads, a great majority of which is probably still in us…

First of all, Gruber is absolutely right that there are still a whole lot of tablets being sold.

That said, sales have plateaued at best and there are probably a lot of contributors:

- Slow upgrade cycle as you suggest. I have a 2nd or 3rd gen iPad and I have absolutely zero reason to upgrade at this point.

- They are probably being squeezed to a certain degree. I find that, even with just an iPhone 6 rather than a Plus, I'm often more inclined to just read on my phone than go grab my tablet.

- I've probably become more quick to grab a Chromebook or some other laptop I have laying around than do anything half-way complicated on my tablet. So there may be some realization that tablets are sometimes more trouble than they're worth even for more complex mostly-consumption tasks.

- I suspect that we may end up with some sort of tablet and laptop reconvergence even though tablets took off in large part because the convergence between the two devices was broken.

Re: The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out

#10

Post by bradleyland » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

ableal wrote: post #4

John Gruber had a good observation about the charts published in Quartz (specifically the last one): "Apple has sold more iPads in its first 57 months than they sold iPhones in its first 57 months." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/27/quartz-chartz-ap... http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarte... If Apple pumped out over 250 million iPads, a great majority of which is probably still in us…

I'm a subscriber of the slower update cycle explanation as well. Everyone I know who owns a tablet is happy with what it does for a longer period of time. Have a look at iPhone refreshes versus iPad refreshes and you'll notice that the iPad follows the iPhone, so it should be no surprise where the iPad falls in the growth trajectory of the company.

Following that same line of examination (looking at refreshes), consider the impact of each refresh. What does a new iPad include?

Thinner and lighter? That's a nice to have, but is it cost-of-upgrade nicer?

Touch ID? How important is Touch ID to users who use the iPad casually. With an iPhone you're frequently operating the device with one hand, so Touch ID simplifies the authentication process. When you're using your device for payments, Touch ID is pretty damned incredible. Neither of these apply to the iPad. I'd love to have Touch ID on my iPad, but it's not worth the cost of an upgrade.

Better camera? I'm an outlier here — almost everyone I know uses their iPad as a camera, except me — but I'm just not sure this alone is enough to push people to upgrade. In the iPhone environment, all of these new features act cumulatively to make an iPhone upgrade worthwhile.

Larger size? Oh, wait. That's iPhone only, and it's probably one of the biggest drivers of iPhone 6/6+ sales. It's irrelevant to the iPad.

Tablets, as a product, involve a slower upgrade cycle because they're actually the more traditional product when compared to a device like the iPhone.