Google quits selling tablets • Hacker News Board

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#261

Post by tambourine_man » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

doingmything wrote: post #252

__sr__ wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that varies from person to person. My iPad Pro, for example, is my most used personal device. I prefer it over my phone whenever possible. In fact, I like phones small - it’s a pain to pull out a brick every time I want to talk. It’s a matter of personal taste, I guess.

Do people stilll talk on phones? Serious question. I think I do about 99% of my communication via text or other messaging

I guess it depends on the demographics.

But one thing that annoys me is that people don’t usually realize how much faster and clearer voice conversation can be.

After 4 or 5 rapid text exchanges I usually send “can I call you?”

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#262

Post by GordonS » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

dschuler wrote: post #116

The problem is that people just don't buy a lot of tablets compared to smartphones. This is true of iPhones and iPads also. If you take a look at the most recent annual SEC report for Apple [0], you can see that Apple sold 5 iPhones for every iPad in 2017, and the number of iPads sold has dropped for the two years prior to that. It doesn't matter if Google/Nvidia/Samsung could or couldn't make a good Android tablet w…

I think this is a good point.

For some reason, being seen with a new phone seems to have more 'street cred' associated with it than with tablets. Maybe it's just because most people tend to use their phone in public more often than their tablet.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#263

Post by giancarlostoro » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

macjohnmcc wrote: post #254

EpicEng wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s a matter of personal taste, I guess. Of course it is, but tablet sales have been declining for years.

Is it because of the lack of interest or is it because people aren't replacing them because they are still working for them? I haven't lost interest in tablets but I also haven't bought one in four years because mine suits my needs.

I never buy a tablet because none of them are competitive enough. I usually have better specs on the phone in my pocket than tablets I usually see. I never understood why Android tablets did not get more competitive.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#264

Post by GordonS » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #9

> ... few people see any reason to upgrade a device that was originally sold for its simplicity and ease of use, not its specs. I, for one, have been using the third-gen (1st Retina) iPad since its release approximately 500 years ago and have never felt any compulsion whatsoever to get a new one. This seems a little weird to me. Don't tablets age in a similar way that smartphones age? As in, the battery gets weaker o…

I have a Nexus 10 that I guess is around 5 years old, and it has indeed slowly-but-surely gotten slower and slower while the battery has slowly died too. It's now so slow as to be unusable, and can only be used while plugged into the mains, as the battery doesn't hold a charge.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#265

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

sundvor wrote: post #73

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #41

This is somewhat strange. I thought tablets killed the PC market. My wife is a primary school teacher and it's very difficult to teach children to use a mouse because they all have tablets at home. I know Android tablets haven't been selling well, but that's because people like me have been desperately waiting for a decent device to be released. iPads are absolutely everywhere. What's the proposed alternative for med…

Set them up with Fortnite and that won't be a problem much longer. (You'll have plenty of new ones, though!)

FWIW Fortnite has a PEGI 12+ rating for violence.

It also, I gather, has text chat making it difficult to monitor in a teaching environment and open to problems at home.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#266

Post by nashashmi » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

I don't like the name of this article. "Quits" is akin to giving up.

It should have been "Google no longer promotes Android tablets" and the larger reason for this is that they have a competing product called Google Chromebook Tablet which will eventually run Android apps natively and with a plethora of features.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#267

Post by octorian » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

mortdeus wrote: post #55

Im just happy that tablets are finally dead. You have a super supped up desktop computer at home sitting on your desk, and you have a relatively supped up smart phone sitting in your pocket when you cant be sitting at your desk. Where does tablets fit into this scenario? It doesn't. All tablets do is make app developers think they can somehow make app experiences you can only achieve on the desktop, somehow attainabl…

Just try using a laptop on an airplane whose seats were laid out any time in the past 20 years. There simply isn't enough space in front of you to accommodate the geometry of it anymore. This was the first use case of mine where tablets were absolutely superior. Oh, and battery life in these scenarios as well. Really, pretty much anything involving traveling and wanting to use a larger screen in a "less comfortable" scenario.

When at home or work in my typical "sitting at a desk" or "out and about" mode, you're right. Its either a phone or a real computer.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#268

Post by chapium » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #236

makecheck wrote: post #148

For me the tablet form factor was killed not by apps but ironically the non-apps: web browsing went from perfection to trash once sites tried to detect touch screens and “improve their experiences”. Pinch-and-zoom with normal sites goes a long way and should have been the preferred tablet web model.

Reddit is trying to force me into downloading their app and constantly switches to the mobile interface. I always have to request desktop site, as I really like the desktop format, using pinch and zoom.

Same here, their requests are getting more and more intrusive. I'm about to abandon the platform. The desktop site works so well on mobile, I'm not sure why they want to move away from that.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#269

Post by GordonS » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #118

With the new low cost Ipad, Apple will absolutely kill any and all competition. I am a graduate student, bought the new ipad with 290$ + 90$ pencil from my university book store. My life has totally changed. All my notes, and research now happens in the ipad. The writing is so smooth it feels like I have been doing it all along, and I won't ever need to go back to pen and paper. It is a mind blowing combination of ha…

I'm so used to typing that I actually rarely write with a pen; actually feels odd when I do, and my hand cramps up fairly quickly. Give me a keyboard any day of the week for note taking!

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#270

Post by snuxoll » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #257

snuxoll wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought one for my five year old, it's a pretty damned impressive device - she loves drawing on my 12.9" iPad Pro and having Apple Pencil support across the whole product line means she can do so on a less expensive device (the 12.9" Pro is already beastly enough, I cannot bear to put a case on it). With some fairly large games loaded up we've still got roughly 40% of the storage free, and with app offloading i…

The 12.9"iPad Pro is one of the few pricey electronic devices I've found myself buying and then not really using. I had a lot of ambitions for using it for instructional-type drawing but I didn't really get that going. And it's just too big and heavy to use generally. And I say this as someone who really likes its smaller sibling, especially when I'm traveling. But the big iPad now just sits on a stand in the kitchen…

The 12.9” is rather large, I certainly use it less than I anticipated because of it since it’s not particularly friendly to hold for expected periods. When I eventually upgrade I might consider getting the 10.5” model as a result - though I enjoy the larger screen still for certain activities like reading replica newspaper and magazine subscriptions.