Regardless of the accuracy of IDC, we have Apple's own reports on iPads to know the market, in terms of units being shipped, is "in a stall", or contracting. That is a fact. I suspect the factors affecting "high end" tablets (iPad and a few others) are different than the majority of the small/cheap/limited use units. The question of course is why, and it is too early for anyone to know for certain, as the (modern) tablet market is only a little over 4 years old. It very well could be that the average upgrade cycle is more PC-like, in the 3-5 year range, and growth will resume (slowly) in next couple of years as more of existing base upgrades. In our house, we still have the original iPad used by the kids, I purchased an original Mini a couple of years ago for work, and got my wife an iPad Air last year for Christmas. All three still in constant use. I am going to get an iPad Air 2 for myself this Christmas. So some households with multiple family members may add to the collection (those with more disposable income), but don't believe there is a lot of upgrading/replacing happening yet.
Each person's mileage for iPad (tablet) use cases will vary. We find ours much more in use than laptops at home or away, as they are used for web surfing, videos, books, comics, digital magazines, digital newspapers, online shopping, social media - and even some light work uses (email, note taking, presentations). I am a typical white collar worker, so it will not replace a laptop for me, but find it much nicer to use for general digital activities when heavy typing is not involved. My in-laws never used a computer much, but have really gotten their money's worth with the iPad (2 - still quite adequate for their uses). I suspect this is the case for many in that segment.
Specific to Apple, the question is what can they do to increase the use cases & broaden the market for sales. Pretty hard to argue that Apple doesn't have the best devices on the market, so it isn't a lack of design/specs/execution that is affecting sales. Is there more that they could be doing? I think Apple has invested more into the iPad in last year, and is clearly hoping that this will bring about an increase in the segment. Initiatives underway that we know about:
- Partnership with IBM to increase enterprise and SMB adoption. Will take a year+ to see if this bears significant traction.
- Much improved device for the highest unit in iPad Air 2 to spur upgrades - CPU/GPU large advances, TouchID, better screen, better camera, 2GB RAM, thinner/lighter
- Apple Pay for online commerce. May take time but could be a huge driver - most secure e-commerce solution.
- Broadest iPad lineup going into holidays. Many have been critical of Apple here, by still keeping the original Mini and the small updates to Mini 3 (no argument on the last one that $100 for the small technology difference is tough to swallow for those in the know, but it is simply a choice - don't want TouchID & Apple Pay, then get a Mini 2). However, it mirrors the approach the took with Mac early this year, and that appears to be paying off. From $250 to $500 (US market), there is an iPad for each budget, and with clear (to consumers) differentiators between each. More colours and better storage upgrade options.
The only segment that seems to be lacking is education. There hasn't been much new/announced in this area. All-in-all though a solid effort, but it remains to be seen if this third device will find a permanent home in the post-PC world.
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
People take to technology differently, I highly doubt the Android tablet was the problem. I bought my mother a MacBook Air a couple of years back and she never used, it wasn't until we got her a HP ChromeBook that she really started to use a computer, now she has an iPad, a smart phone and a Sony Z tablet for the bathtub. The main reason she took to the ChromeBook so well was that our entire family have ChromeBox's connected to our TV's to communicate and share media such as pictures and videos, she wanted in on the action. A person needs a reason to want too use something.
Chromebooks, rather than MacBooks, are probably better fit for a lot of people. A couple asked me to help them pick a laptop under $500. I suggested a $300 Chromebook based on their requirements - a device for watching movies and using the internet and they don't need or use DVD or CDs or need console-style games - and they don't like tablets. I also recommended Chrome because they are foolproof.
I didn't mention Windows PCs, because Windows has too many potential problems and let's not get started on Windows 8...
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
As I noted, definitely the uses and usefulness of a tablet will vary for people, and I agree that tablets (and by that I mean tablets like an iPad that can do many things, not cheap media viewers) are not going to outsell PC's for some time, if ever.
For me & my family, we really do like our iPads, and this 3rd device fits in well with our day-to-day computing activities. For me, there is a huge difference from the 4" 5s screen and the 9.7" iPad screen in terms of which I want to use when at home or on a trip. The iPhone is of course the mobile device, the iPad is the general content consumption device (with some uses in my work when traveling), and the iMac/MacBook Pro are the work horses (business, photos, video, music management). I personally rarely reach for the MacBook Pro to read the newspaper online, digital magazines, flip board, get recipes, etc.
Anecdotally would seem that the iPad brought general consumer computing to a group of people that would not have really used computers much before (seniors, artsies, younger children), and so has certainly added to the overall growth of computing platforms.
I believe the iPad/tablet market is going to be here for some time, but it will not be as big as many expected.
Chromebooks, rather than MacBooks, are probably better fit for a lot of people. A couple asked me to help them pick a laptop under $500. I suggested a $300 Chromebook based on their requirements - a device for watching movies and using the internet and they don't need or use DVD or CDs or need console-style games - and they don't like tablets. I also recommended Chrome because they are foolproof.
I didn't mention Windows PCs, because Windows has too many potential problems and let's not get started on Windows 8...
ChromeBooks aren't for everyone but those that have one, embrace and really do enjoy them. My daughters school is using them and it's really fascinating to watch just how fast they've been integrated into the curriculum. My daughter can retrieve her homework online in case she misses school because of illness, almost all of the tests are now given out via their ChromeBook, it's pretty neat. I like mine because of it's simplicity, it always works the way it's supposed to, their very fast and great machines for streaming multimedia. Like I said above we have one connected to almost every TV in the house, we use these tiny handheld keyboards from Logitech to control them, their great. In fact we no longer have cable, just HD streaming TV, which has a TiVo like feature that allows you to record future shows. I'm not going to discuss legality but my entire family share movies with each other, we of course own the actual media. Our movie collection is upward of 2000 films. Music, Spotify, then of course you have the web apps, I love sitting on the couch and playing with AudioTool, check it out, you we'll be instantly addicted.
I also own a Google Pixel, I didn't pay for it, got it as a gift from a friend who works at Google Switzerland in the PR department, I could have a room in my house dedicated to Google with the amount of free stuff I've gotten from her over the years. I'm also really good friends with the young gentleman who created Hexxeh, a site that houses Chromium OS images for none Chrome devices, he now works for Google as well. I'm also an active developer for Chromium OS, though I haven't helped in a while, my inbox is huge. I'm going to start participating more very soon, Google is currently porting Material, their new design philosophy and architecture to Chrome OS, I'm very much interest in this. Not necessarily the look but the technology behind it. Their also going to release more support for Android, you can install pretty much what you want too right now in dev mode but their planning on doing a wider release, this is going to make Chrome OS a lot more interesting.
I like using systems in which I've personally contributed too, big reason why Arch is still my favorite Linux Distro, at one time I was a very active programmer within the project. I know Chome OS has a bad reputation around here simply because it's a Google project but I don't have a problem using it. It's a great community of programmers and I've learned a lot. My next Chrome OS device is going to be an HP G3 14, with the Nvidia K1, 4GB RAM, 32GGB SSD which I'll upgrade to 256GB and a 1080P IPS display. Talk about your perfect ARM development kit, first thing I'm going to do is install Linux4Tegra in a Chroot, it's Nvidias development OS based off of Ubuntu 14.04. You'll be able to run Linux along side Chrome OS, the coolest thing though is being able to use CUDA with the K1's GPU, encoding media files is going to fly on this thing, I'll be able to also hook up my K1 dev board up to it for an extra kick.
The ChromeBook unlike the Netbook is here to stay, the amount of programming hours that have gone into the project is staggering, the difference between Chrome OS two years ago and today is absolutely amazing, I have never seen another OS receive the amount of updates in such a short period time than Chrome OS has, no, not because of bugs, but just the amount of features being added. It's a fun project to be a part of, especially for those who want to learn programming.
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
I'm the direct opposite.
When I only had the iPhone, it was great. When I got an iPad, it replaced the iPhone for most things. I don't see that ever changing. If a 13-18" iPad comes out, then that will probably replace my current iPad for most things.
The common mantra seems to be that a phablet will replace a phone and tablet. I think that is more a symptom of the Asian market, where many more people can't afford both.
Comments
Regardless of the accuracy of IDC, we have Apple's own reports on iPads to know the market, in terms of units being shipped, is "in a stall", or contracting. That is a fact. I suspect the factors affecting "high end" tablets (iPad and a few others) are different than the majority of the small/cheap/limited use units. The question of course is why, and it is too early for anyone to know for certain, as the (modern) tablet market is only a little over 4 years old. It very well could be that the average upgrade cycle is more PC-like, in the 3-5 year range, and growth will resume (slowly) in next couple of years as more of existing base upgrades. In our house, we still have the original iPad used by the kids, I purchased an original Mini a couple of years ago for work, and got my wife an iPad Air last year for Christmas. All three still in constant use. I am going to get an iPad Air 2 for myself this Christmas. So some households with multiple family members may add to the collection (those with more disposable income), but don't believe there is a lot of upgrading/replacing happening yet.
Each person's mileage for iPad (tablet) use cases will vary. We find ours much more in use than laptops at home or away, as they are used for web surfing, videos, books, comics, digital magazines, digital newspapers, online shopping, social media - and even some light work uses (email, note taking, presentations). I am a typical white collar worker, so it will not replace a laptop for me, but find it much nicer to use for general digital activities when heavy typing is not involved. My in-laws never used a computer much, but have really gotten their money's worth with the iPad (2 - still quite adequate for their uses). I suspect this is the case for many in that segment.
Specific to Apple, the question is what can they do to increase the use cases & broaden the market for sales. Pretty hard to argue that Apple doesn't have the best devices on the market, so it isn't a lack of design/specs/execution that is affecting sales. Is there more that they could be doing? I think Apple has invested more into the iPad in last year, and is clearly hoping that this will bring about an increase in the segment. Initiatives underway that we know about:
- Partnership with IBM to increase enterprise and SMB adoption. Will take a year+ to see if this bears significant traction.
- Much improved device for the highest unit in iPad Air 2 to spur upgrades - CPU/GPU large advances, TouchID, better screen, better camera, 2GB RAM, thinner/lighter
- Apple Pay for online commerce. May take time but could be a huge driver - most secure e-commerce solution.
- Broadest iPad lineup going into holidays. Many have been critical of Apple here, by still keeping the original Mini and the small updates to Mini 3 (no argument on the last one that $100 for the small technology difference is tough to swallow for those in the know, but it is simply a choice - don't want TouchID & Apple Pay, then get a Mini 2). However, it mirrors the approach the took with Mac early this year, and that appears to be paying off. From $250 to $500 (US market), there is an iPad for each budget, and with clear (to consumers) differentiators between each. More colours and better storage upgrade options.
The only segment that seems to be lacking is education. There hasn't been much new/announced in this area. All-in-all though a solid effort, but it remains to be seen if this third device will find a permanent home in the post-PC world.
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
People take to technology differently, I highly doubt the Android tablet was the problem. I bought my mother a MacBook Air a couple of years back and she never used, it wasn't until we got her a HP ChromeBook that she really started to use a computer, now she has an iPad, a smart phone and a Sony Z tablet for the bathtub. The main reason she took to the ChromeBook so well was that our entire family have ChromeBox's connected to our TV's to communicate and share media such as pictures and videos, she wanted in on the action. A person needs a reason to want too use something.
Chromebooks, rather than MacBooks, are probably better fit for a lot of people. A couple asked me to help them pick a laptop under $500. I suggested a $300 Chromebook based on their requirements - a device for watching movies and using the internet and they don't need or use DVD or CDs or need console-style games - and they don't like tablets. I also recommended Chrome because they are foolproof.
I didn't mention Windows PCs, because Windows has too many potential problems and let's not get started on Windows 8...
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
As I noted, definitely the uses and usefulness of a tablet will vary for people, and I agree that tablets (and by that I mean tablets like an iPad that can do many things, not cheap media viewers) are not going to outsell PC's for some time, if ever.
For me & my family, we really do like our iPads, and this 3rd device fits in well with our day-to-day computing activities. For me, there is a huge difference from the 4" 5s screen and the 9.7" iPad screen in terms of which I want to use when at home or on a trip. The iPhone is of course the mobile device, the iPad is the general content consumption device (with some uses in my work when traveling), and the iMac/MacBook Pro are the work horses (business, photos, video, music management). I personally rarely reach for the MacBook Pro to read the newspaper online, digital magazines, flip board, get recipes, etc.
Anecdotally would seem that the iPad brought general consumer computing to a group of people that would not have really used computers much before (seniors, artsies, younger children), and so has certainly added to the overall growth of computing platforms.
I believe the iPad/tablet market is going to be here for some time, but it will not be as big as many expected.
ChromeBooks aren't for everyone but those that have one, embrace and really do enjoy them. My daughters school is using them and it's really fascinating to watch just how fast they've been integrated into the curriculum. My daughter can retrieve her homework online in case she misses school because of illness, almost all of the tests are now given out via their ChromeBook, it's pretty neat. I like mine because of it's simplicity, it always works the way it's supposed to, their very fast and great machines for streaming multimedia. Like I said above we have one connected to almost every TV in the house, we use these tiny handheld keyboards from Logitech to control them, their great. In fact we no longer have cable, just HD streaming TV, which has a TiVo like feature that allows you to record future shows. I'm not going to discuss legality but my entire family share movies with each other, we of course own the actual media. Our movie collection is upward of 2000 films. Music, Spotify, then of course you have the web apps, I love sitting on the couch and playing with AudioTool, check it out, you we'll be instantly addicted.
I also own a Google Pixel, I didn't pay for it, got it as a gift from a friend who works at Google Switzerland in the PR department, I could have a room in my house dedicated to Google with the amount of free stuff I've gotten from her over the years. I'm also really good friends with the young gentleman who created Hexxeh, a site that houses Chromium OS images for none Chrome devices, he now works for Google as well. I'm also an active developer for Chromium OS, though I haven't helped in a while, my inbox is huge. I'm going to start participating more very soon, Google is currently porting Material, their new design philosophy and architecture to Chrome OS, I'm very much interest in this. Not necessarily the look but the technology behind it. Their also going to release more support for Android, you can install pretty much what you want too right now in dev mode but their planning on doing a wider release, this is going to make Chrome OS a lot more interesting.
I like using systems in which I've personally contributed too, big reason why Arch is still my favorite Linux Distro, at one time I was a very active programmer within the project. I know Chome OS has a bad reputation around here simply because it's a Google project but I don't have a problem using it. It's a great community of programmers and I've learned a lot. My next Chrome OS device is going to be an HP G3 14, with the Nvidia K1, 4GB RAM, 32GGB SSD which I'll upgrade to 256GB and a 1080P IPS display. Talk about your perfect ARM development kit, first thing I'm going to do is install Linux4Tegra in a Chroot, it's Nvidias development OS based off of Ubuntu 14.04. You'll be able to run Linux along side Chrome OS, the coolest thing though is being able to use CUDA with the K1's GPU, encoding media files is going to fly on this thing, I'll be able to also hook up my K1 dev board up to it for an extra kick.
The ChromeBook unlike the Netbook is here to stay, the amount of programming hours that have gone into the project is staggering, the difference between Chrome OS two years ago and today is absolutely amazing, I have never seen another OS receive the amount of updates in such a short period time than Chrome OS has, no, not because of bugs, but just the amount of features being added. It's a fun project to be a part of, especially for those who want to learn programming.
I've bought 4 [Android tablets] over the last three years and they all had serious problems. They were returned.
There's a saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I don't know how it goes for "fool me four times".
Fool me four times, I'm a goldfish.
More people are buying smartphones and forgoing the tablets. As I've said before, a tablet, for most people, is a "tweener" device.
Most of us have computers and we have a smartphone. Adding a third device...not as likely for a lot of people. Even if they buy that tablet, they will reach for their phone.
Three devices is one too many for many people.
People love their smartphones. They do about everything and you can put it in your pocket. Not so much love for a tablet.
And when it's not convenient to use your phone, you use your computer.
(Speaking in generalities here. Take this all notionally.)
And now that MS is battling Chromebooks on the cheap PC front, those decent cheap PCs will easily outsell tablets. Tablets just don't fit in well - phones and PCs fill the gaps for most people.
BTW, our household does have an iPad, but it's not use nearly as much as our phones. Mostly for watching movies.
I'm the direct opposite.
When I only had the iPhone, it was great. When I got an iPad, it replaced the iPhone for most things. I don't see that ever changing. If a 13-18" iPad comes out, then that will probably replace my current iPad for most things.
The common mantra seems to be that a phablet will replace a phone and tablet. I think that is more a symptom of the Asian market, where many more people can't afford both.