After 8 years, IDC admits Apple's iPad is leading the tablet market 'unabated'

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in iPad edited October 2018
Since iPad launched in 2010, International Data Corporation has dutifully crafted various media narratives that belittled as it as a toy, dismissed it as merely a "media consumption" device in a world that needed Windows, and disparaged it as inconsequential in a vast sea of cheap Android tablets (some of which were literally children's toys). But they were wrong, here's why.

iPad Pro

iPad is rising in a sinking tablet industry: just ask IDC

While not alone, IDC has prominently constructed media narratives explaining why Apple's iPad can't possibly matter over the last eight years, initially because it didn't run the all-important Microsoft Windows, then because masses of ultra-cheap Android tablets were portrayed as an insurmountable "market share" diluting force, then because Microsoft itself was entering the tablet market with Detachables, and then because public interest in tablets appeared to be seriously dissipating in favor of more conventional computing devices.

However, IDC has recently been forced to essentially admit that it was completely wrong about virtually everything in the tablet market. Tablets were indeed having an impact on the demand for conventional PCs. The public clearly wasn't buying into Microsoft's vision of tablets, whether the original Tablet PCs, Windows RT netbooks, or the latest batch of Surface-like Detachables. People who needed Windows were sticking to conventional notebooks.

And the hardest fact to deny: Apple has remained the market leader in tablets in the critically important metric of dollars earned-- as everyone else with a tablet strategy crumbles or stagnates in a global market that's shrinking faster every quarter.

Bad news for iPad haters

Global tablet sales have shrunk YoY (year-on-year) for the last fifteen quarters, according to IDC's data. Across just the last year (shown in IDC's quarterly data below), the pace of declining global tablet unit sales has incrementally accelerated from a 5.4 percent drop last fall to 13.4 percent drop this summer.

IDC iPad
As the global tablet industry collapses, Apple's ~10 million iPads shipped quarterly have ballooned from a quarter to a over a third of all the tablet shipments IDC estimates.


Only two of the top five tablet makers have turned in quarterly growth in each of the last four quarters: Apple (the largest tablet maker, which sold over 44 million iPads) and Huawei (which shipped 13.1 million tablets).

Across those four quarters, Apple's iPad sales grew incrementally, adding just under two million new sales. Second place tablet vendor Samsung lost more than two million units over the same year, and its total annual sales were only 23.3 million to begin with.

Note that Samsung sells over 70 percent more phones than Apple but earns only half as much. In tablets, Samsung is moving about half as many units as Apple across an impossibly wide range of different models (and platforms) that can't possibly be making any money at all, even as the general demand for tablets bleeds away.

The world's third place tablet vendor by units is Amazon, with annual sales of 14.8 million units over the last four quarters. Amazon's sales are extremely seasonal however, with nearly all of its sales occurring during the Q4 holidays and on its Q3 Prime Day Sale, when it blew out units of a 7 inch model for under $30, as IDC noted.

The best IDC could say about Amazon's tablet business is that the company is now incorporating Alexa in the hopes of bolstering Amazon's retail sales. But we also know that Alexa is used mostly for playing music, that only a tiny 2 percent of its users have ever placed an order with it, and that 90 percent of those who have subsequently never tried to place an order again.

The fifth largest tablet vendor is Lenovo (combined with a joint venture with Fujitsu), which collectively shipped 10.2 million units over the past four quarters. IDC also counts another 48.8 million tablets from "other" vendors. However, this group of other tablet vendors reportedly shipped 65.9 million in the previous year, accounting for a 25.9 percent collective drop in units YoY.

Add in the top five vendors, and the entire global tablet market shrank by 9.2 percent YoY (from 170.1 million to 154.3 million units). Take out Apple's iOS tablets, and the market for Windows and Android tablets looks even worse: a 13.5 percent drop over the last four quarters, from 127.4 million to 110.2 million.Just as with smartphones, watches, and PCs, Apple is proving it can grow and profit within the shrinking, cutthroat tablet market

The fact that Apple's iPad sales are growing within a market that is shrinking significantly-- and has been for the last four years-- is particularly remarkable when you note that Apple's least expensive iPad is $329, or about ten times higher than the loss leader that accounted for much of Amazon's sales volumes (and a vast number of those "other" tablets).

Just as with smartphones, watches, and PCs, Apple is proving it can grow and profit within the shrinking, cutthroat tablet market.

In tablets, Apple is winning in units, in revenues, and in premium

All of the iPad boogeymen that IDC previously invented-- "powerful" Windows tablets, cheap Androids, and then tablet indifference (the idea that customers really want a PC or a smartphone, but certainly not an iPad)-- have not unseated Apple as the top vendor of tablets raking in tens of billions in revenue.

The last hope for some real iPad rival has been Microsoft's push to get PC makers to build a tablet-like device that runs Windows, which IDC named "Detachables," as distinct from notebooks or notebooks with a convertible display offering some tablet-like functions on a full sized PC notebook.

In 2015, IDC explicitly predicted that Windows Detachables would rapidly eat into iPads on the high-end, offering users a hybrid middle product that was more powerful than an iPad, but more tablet-like than a MacBook. Three years earlier, IDC had similarly predicted (again without any evidence) that Windows Phone would arrest demand for iPhones by 2016.

Both were a simple endorsement of Microsoft's strategy, without any data backing up the idea that the company was really stoking any demand among buyers. A major focus of Windows 8 and Windows 10 had been the addition of touchscreen features and a Windows Phone "Metro" interface to forge a new PC category that was sort of iPad-MacBook, to take on both the iPad and MacBook, after failing to successfully take on either iPad or MacBook alone.

iPad Pro
IDC calls iPad Pro a "Detachable" to compare it only against Microsoft Surface units. It's really a larger, premium iPad

This all happened before

The Microsoft-IDC strategy of Detachables (aka the "2in1") worked out about as well as when Samsung applied the same logic in competing with Apple's iPhone and iPad by releasing its 2011 Galaxy Note, a middle-sized mobile device that was a large phone and a small tablet in one box.

Critics hailed the new "phablet" and called it a success immediately after it shipped its first two million units. Yet like Microsoft's Detachables, interest was initially limited. And then once it appeared to be picking up steam, it ran into competition from Apple itself.

Apple launched its larger iPhone 6 models in 2014, crushing Samsung's high-end, larger phone business and forcing it into a much less profitable cheap territory of middle and lower-tier smartphones, where it has been stuck ever since.

A year after launching its own larger iPhones, Apple debuted the new iPad Pro. In its first full quarter of sales it dominated the Detachable PC market Microsoft had been trying to build up over the previous three years.

If Apple had only been able to quash one huge multinational rival and strip bare its competitive strategy, that would have been impressive. But to deftly strike down both, just one year apart, forcing both the world's largest handset maker and the largest platform licensing company to scramble up expensive new survival strategies while writing off losses as Apple stood on their faces and raked in all the profits is really quite remarkable.

Dispatching the PC Detachables

Last November, after years of hyping Detachables as the way Windows would take back the tablet market from iPads, IDC analysts noted that "growth in the detachable tablet market has been slower than expected," adding that "Apple and Microsoft are essentially the only two vendors supplying the category" while "other PC vendors champion the convertible PC form factor."

iPad vs Surface revenue
IDC writes of Surface and iPad as if they are neck and neck, but iPad generated $19.5 billion over the last year while Surface struggled to bring in $4.7 billion. Macs added another $25.2 billion in revenues over the same period.


In other words, despite Microsoft's efforts to push Windows PC makers to build devices like its own Surface, those licensees preferred to build more conventional laptops with some tablet or touch features layered on top. That left Surface to be "essentially" the PC Detachable market.

The following quarter, IDC reported that the premium Detachable segment of tablets had reached 6.5 million units, chalking up 10.3 percent growth over the previous holiday season. Given that Microsoft reported only $1.3 billion in revenues for all of its Surface devices, that means that Apple, "essentially" the only other vendor, sold most of those in the form of iPad Pro.

The revenues Microsoft collected could only represent at best about 1.3 million Surface units (at an Average Selling Price of around $1,000). Further, the ten percent growth in Detachables that IDC reported certainly didn't come from Surface sales, because Microsoft's revenues over the holidays were virtually flat YoY.

On the other hand, Apple's holiday iPad revenues grew by ten times as much as Surface YoY while its holiday quarter iPad unit sales were flat. That means Apple's ASP increased, indicating that it sold a more premium mix of iPads, including the newly-refreshed mid-2017 iPad Pro models.

If Microsoft's Surface can't compete with iPad Pro, it makes it easy to see why other PC vendors are avoiding the same direct competition with Apple and instead marketing more conventional notebooks, a business they see as more secure and reliable.

Are tablets even relevant anymore?

Steve Jobs introduced iPad as a new device category between the iPhone and a notebook, noting that the only way it could stand on its own is if it could be much better at some tasks than either alternative.

Steve Jobs iPad intro
Steve Jobs introduced iPad as a new category, not a replacement for Macs


Apple wasn't trying to replace the Mac with iPads. Instead, it has increasingly presented iPad as a replacement for basic PCs, with Macs serving the demand for more powerful computing tools above it.

While IDC inadvertently documented the floundering waves of would-be iPad competitors for years, in retrospect it's now clear that iPad serves a role that cheap Android tablets can't. In fact, after glutting the market with loss leaders, cheap Android tablets have fallen drastically and keep shrinking.

On the other end, Windows PCs acting as tablets have also failed to blunt the rise of iPad. Windows 10 was supposed to displace iPad demand with devices that could run "real" Windows software, but we simply haven't seen this happening. PCs are shrinking alongside tablets globally.

In fact, the only thing that has really decreased the sales of iPad have been Apple's own larger iPhone models, which clearly did erode the demand for smaller iPad minis after those smaller tablets peaked in popularity in 2014. This actually worked out pretty well for Apple, because larger iPhones command a much higher price than small iPads, are more profitable, and have a shorter replacement cycle.

At the same time, Apple has more recently pushed iPad into a stronger role with the new iPad Pro and iOS enhancements that made it a more powerful multitasker. These models are now bumping up into what was once the low-end of Apple's MacBook range. And in turn, Apple's Mac notebooks have incremented up into higher-end tiers with pro features including Thunderbolt's ability to connect multiple 4K displays and high speed storage-- something even Microsoft's most powerful Surface Studio 2 stationary PC can't do.

Pew, Pew: tablets come out blazing

If there is any remaining doubt about the value of tablets after the collapse of cheap Androids, the fizzle of Windows RT, and the stagnant Surface, consider a detail of a recent study that was almost entirely overlooked.

Last week, a Pew Research study on internet and social media use found that after "long stretch of rapid growth in the United States," the number of people "who go online, use social media or own key devices" has plateaued over the last two years. This was widely reported. But there was one notable exception: a growth in tablet use. This wasn't widely reported.




While smartphones remained flat with a reported use by 77 percent of U.S. adults over the last two years, and desktop/laptop computers actually decreased from 78 to 73 percent of users, tablet use among American adults increased from 51 to 53 percent.

That's a slower rate growth among tablet users since the survey began tracking tablets in 2010 (when just 3 percent reported using one), but it indicates that use in the U.S. continues to grow even as the global market for tablet sales decreases.

Note that Apple's Mac sales are incrementing upward despite a significant drop in reported PC use over the last two years. Yet in tablets, use is increasing even as the market overall is shrinking. That strongly indicates that Apple is fueling that growth, in part by finding new uses for its tablets.

For consumers and education, Apple produces its own apps (including Garage Band, iMovie, Keynote, and Swift Playgrounds) and works to help developers build tablet-optimized titles that don't exist for Android and Windows. In the enterprise, Apple has similarly worked to forge relationships with IBM, Salesforce, Cisco, Deloitte, SAP and others to build solutions around iOS. It has also pursued initiatives such as Apple Business Chat.

The fact that Apple is uniquely fostering adoption for iPads as a premium device and in the enterprise-- rather than simply throwing out tablet hardware to see if anyone will buy it-- is reflected in other data Pew compiled.

While 53 percent of American adults use tablets, 58 percent of adults under 49 do. That indicates that tablets are even more popular among working age adults. Among users with a college education, tablet adoption had reached 66 percent. In households with an income of $75,000 or above, tablet adoption had reached 72 percent.

These demographics of working age, educated and more affluent users also reported higher adoption of smartphones and laptops (surpassing 90 percent of users). Pew referred to these numbers as "near saturation levels" for these technologies. It's become clear that in many markets, everyone who wants a smartphone or laptop already has one, meaning that Apple is now largely selling replacements and Services to an installed base.

However, the high (but relatively lower) use of tablets-- and their growth in use over the last two years-- indicates that Apple still has a significant potential for selling iPads to new users even in the U.S. And in other countries, that demand is even higher.

While Apple continues to step up its game in tablets, Microsoft has shifted its initial Surface portfolio from its initial, more tablet-like range to a series of devices that look and work more like a conventional notebook. It advertises Surface against MacBooks rather than iPads. Clearly, Microsoft doesn't see much potential in a pure tablet product.

Google went even further, dumping its Pixel tablet strategy entirely-- after PC vendors including Dell and HP first threw in the towel on their Android tablets.

IDC still carefully avoids revealing its estimates for Apple's iPad Pro, or making any direct comparison to Microsoft's Surface sales, but at least the IDC's pantheon of iPad boogeymen have been put to rest for a more realistic appraisal of the tablet market-- at least for now. It only took eight years.
watto_cobra
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 37
    hentaiboyhentaiboy Posts: 1,252member
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    jbdragon
  • Reply 2 of 37
    BluntBlunt Posts: 224member
    The iPad is my favorite Apple device. Huawei Is giving you a free tablet when you purchase their phone. That's a way to count shipments as sales i quess.
    docno42jbdragonclaire1watto_cobraspheric
  • Reply 3 of 37
    It is interesting to consider that of the key 21st century technologies shown in the chart above, three of them (personal computers, smartphones, tablet computers) took on their modern shapes at Apple. Apple Watch, AirPods and (someday) Apple Glasses may be just as important for the era of wearable computers.
    StrangeDaysalbegarce90gilly017jony0claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 37
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    Apple could make an modified iPhone X-Max without a cellular chip to replace the iPad Mini.
    christopher126
  • Reply 5 of 37
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    While Ive said they were working on the 6’s for a long time (trying to get it thin enough to not
    feel like a big brick), in either case I don’t think they worry about cannibalization per previous product statements, as long as they’re still buying an Apple SKU. 
    canukstormclaire1watto_cobraspheric
  • Reply 6 of 37
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    It won't, just as the 8 PLUS doesn't cannibalize the iPad Mini. You just need to draw on an iPhone X/Xs versus a iPad 2018 9.7" or better the 10/12.9" models to realize it's no comparison. On the flip side, one isn't whipping out their iPad to send a tweet. Each device has some overlap, but overall, their targets are set in stone.
    canukstormalbegarcpscooter63claire1watto_cobraspheric
  • Reply 7 of 37
    scartartscartart Posts: 201member
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    Xs Max costs as much as an iPhone 4 and iPad combined so they get the same revenue and make more margin so I don't think Apple will mind too much.
    entropysretrogustoclaire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 37
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    I just wish Apple would hurry up and make the iOS file system more useable. I got an iPad Pro as a replacement for my MacBook Air about a year ago and after that 6 months of trying to make it work I gave up and bought a MacBook Pro. There are still too many compromises in IOS. If they can fix those limitations the would expand the iPad market significantly.
  • Reply 9 of 37
    thedbathedba Posts: 762member
    MplsP said:
    I just wish Apple would hurry up and make the iOS file system more useable. I got an iPad Pro as a replacement for my MacBook Air about a year ago and after that 6 months of trying to make it work I gave up and bought a MacBook Pro. There are still too many compromises in IOS. If they can fix those limitations the would expand the iPad market significantly.
    It all depends what you want to do with the iPad.
    If you bought it to do regular desk job type of stuff then I agree, it's not the ideal tool. Not because of file system or ports, but mostly due to ergonomics. I'd be willing to bet that many young people today crouched over tiny screens all day long will eventually develop back problems in their 40's and 50's. 
    If on the other hand you want to do casual work, like reading news, personal banking, watching videos on your commute to work, then it's the ideal device. Better even then an iPhone XS max.  
    claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 37
    thedbathedba Posts: 762member
    Hi Dan,
    I think there's one more reason why Surface should be considered a failure, that no one has touched upon.
    The potential pool of the world wide Windows users. We constantly hear how MS Windows has an install base of more than 1 billion devices, therefore there should be that many potential upgraders to the holy grail of the Windows world.  Why is it then that Mac is outselling them quarter after quarter with their minuscule "market share"? 
    radarthekatwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 37
    I thought most analysts considered the iPad as a massive failure and even worse now that Chromebooks are said to be kicking the absolute crap out of the iPad in the K-12 market. All I ever hear about is how the iPad can't compete against Chromebooks and tablets running Windows OS and how crippled iPad applications are. I would think the iPad would strike a nice middle ground. More than a smartphone and less than a laptop. I see nothing wrong with that but obviously, tech-heads and analysts do.

    I'm not sure why Apple can't sell more tablets but if consumers don't have a need for them, then there's not much Apple can do (I think a bundled video/music/magazine service might help a lot). Are iPads too expensive for what they can do? I don't think so. Maybe they're built to last for too long a time but I'm all in favor of that. I want products that can last and be useful for a long time.

    I would think a tablet running an A12X Bionic chip and the right (powerful) applications would simply blow Chromebooks away and even put i5 laptops to shame. Surely, it can't be just the lack of a keyboard that's holding the iPad down in sales. Something must be missing but I don't know what it actually is.  Maybe everyone is buying those cheap Amazon tablets.
    edited October 2018
  • Reply 12 of 37
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    The cannibalization was of the iPad Mini. The larger models are pretty much safe from all but a very small amount.
    claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 37
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    MplsP said:
    I just wish Apple would hurry up and make the iOS file system more useable. I got an iPad Pro as a replacement for my MacBook Air about a year ago and after that 6 months of trying to make it work I gave up and bought a MacBook Pro. There are still too many compromises in IOS. If they can fix those limitations the would expand the iPad market significantly.
    There’s nothing that has to be “fixed”. Added to, yes. But business and government users are almost entirely on iPads for tablets. And over the years, a number of companies, and government agencies, have replaced notebooks with iPads.

    so it depends on the use case. There’s no reason why a tablet has to replace every use case a notebook has, just like there are a lot of things notebooks can’t do that desktops can.
    StrangeDaysRayz2016christopher126pscooter63claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 37
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    thedba said:
    Hi Dan,
    I think there's one more reason why Surface should be considered a failure, that no one has touched upon.
    The potential pool of the world wide Windows users. We constantly hear how MS Windows has an install base of more than 1 billion devices, therefore there should be that many potential upgraders to the holy grail of the Windows world.  Why is it then that Mac is outselling them quarter after quarter with their minuscule "market share"? 
    DED got a few things wrong, and one of them was the pricing. While the cheapest Surface Pro is $799, and the most popular is the $999 model, almost all of these are sold with a $140 keyboard. Some people also buy a Microsoft mouse with it too, as the trackpad isn’t very good. Actually, the average selling price of a Surface Pro, therefore, is over $1,350.

    that’s pretty expensive for a Windows user. So most Surface Pro sales are to IT departments that can use these while holding them, even without the keyboard, for specialized software. Otherwise, that cost is a limiting factor. Microsoft has attempted to introduce Surface models that are more tablet-like. That’s is, having tablet software, with a tablet OS, and ARM chips, but they’ve failed. Now they have a cheap model with a 10” screen, but performance is so poor, the reviews have been terrible, for the most part.

    its amusing to think that while iPhone and iPad users are called iSheep, by the crackerjack crowd, the reality is that both are bought and used Mostly by, wait for it - Windows users!
    edited October 2018 muthuk_vanalingamtycho_macuserclaire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 37
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    let’s keep in mind when talking about IDC (and Gartner) that these are for profit companies that have client lists. While those lists include Microsoft and Samsung, for example, they do not include Apple.

    on their web pages are a “mission statement”. That tells what a company, or organization intends to accomplish now, and in the future. Their mission statements talk about how their goals are to advance the purposes and successes of their clients.

    when you understand this, you understand what their statements mean, and why. Why did they say, for years, that Windows computer sales are expected to rise by the end of the year, while instead, it kept falling? The intent was an attempt to effect that very goal. The value to saying it was to influence those potential purchases into a direction of actual purchase.

    why do they so often underestimate Apple’s sales? For the same reason.

    of course, these are public statements. The reality is that these companies couldn’t retain clients if the information they pay thousands a year for, wasn’t useful, and largely correct. The work they do is far more complex than what they tell the public, and necessarily much more neutral. But we don’t see it.
    edited October 2018 muthuk_vanalingamclaire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 37
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,273member
    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    It will only cannibalise the iPad mini, which has effectively (if unofficially) been placed on life support, with the plug in plain view. A larger tablet is extremely useful for its greater versatility and readability over smartphones, though really I think the day is coming in the not-too-distant future when your tablet and your smartphone will merge, with larger tablets acting like phones in all respects (and AirPod-like devices as the interface so you don't look a prat holding an iPad Pro up to your head).

    Alternatively (as is already obvious) your watch will replace your "phone" and your tablet will replace all your other devices. Full-on notebooks/desktops will be for people who need to edit 8K video and the like.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 37
    Good article and analysis.

    The hidden truth in trying to boost android and windows is so they can continue to sell $20k white papers/analysis to dozens if not hundreds of interested party. THey have a vested financial interest in pretending others can compete ...

    Bottom line, Android is only used when it's free on a super cheap phone or included as part of a subsidized phone. If you have to pay full price for android, hardly anyone does (watches, tablets, home devices) - even sales on heavily subsidized products (like Kindle and Tv sticks) are not great. Surprise, Apple after 1 Q makes 88% of the profits in the smart speaker market. Or that Samsung mobile includes their cip manufacturing and screen manufacturing revenue so it's hard to tell exactly what the numbers are. Industry analysts guess the Galaxy sells about 15% in numbers what the flagship iphone sells. BTW, Amazon and Samsung have NEVER announced sales numbers for their models. NEVER - while Apple announces specific numbers EVERY QUARTER. 

    Same with most media - they cannot sell ads if they simply announce the truth of android phones versus iPhones - 1 potential advertiser versus a few dozen or hundreds ... so it's better to do a lot of fluff reviews and hope your skirt over things like the review of Pixel (photos are blurry but Google assures us its a pre-production software and will be fixed - can you a) imagine Apple allowing that to be released and b) any media company not adding "GATE" to the end to the end of that?) BTW, the Pixel has a 0.07% market share but reviews make it seem like it's breathing down the neck of Apple ... afraid of Google much?

    But ultimately, consumers know. 

    BTW, your FICO score will drop about 45 points when you buy an android phone ... so if that's important to you ...
    claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 37
    Quote: "Note that Samsung sells over 70 percent more phones than Apple but earns only half as much. In tablets, Samsung is moving about half as many units as Apple across an impossibly wide range of different models (and platforms) that can't possibly be making any money at all, even as the general demand for tablets bleeds away."



    Samsung are just wearing out their factories, contributing to climate change and filling up the landfills with "obsolete phones!"

    Just say'n! :)
    edited October 2018 macky the mackyclaire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 37

    jbelkin said:
    Good article and analysis.

    BTW, your FICO score will drop about 45 points when you buy an android phone ... so if that's important to you ...
    Haha...my former boss 'hated' all things Apple...when his Android phone rang, I used to say, "it's the Taliban calling!" B/c he and the Taliban were the only ones using Android phones.

    I also used to say, 'He's right. Owning the best device in the history of man, is not for everyone!'

    Best.
    claire1watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 37

    hentaiboy said:
    Will be interesting to see if the Xs Max starts to cannibalise iPad though. Steve never envisioned 6.5” phones...
    Apple could make an modified iPhone X-Max without a cellular chip to replace the iPad Mini.
    I hear you...interesting idea. But don't you think that would be a step backwards? I think Apple would prefer all iPads to have cellular capabilities...much like the AppleWatch. Just thinking out loud. :)

    watto_cobra
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