
The Tablet Is Being Squeezed Out - fredfoobar42
http://www.sanspoint.com/archives/2015/04/29/the-tablet-is-being-squeezed-out/
======
Shivetya
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

~~~
weego
I'm not going to deny they are expensive, which slightly taints my take on it,
but I see tablets as the ideal consumer device and a terrible retailer device.
Once you purchase a sufficiently powerful device there is no need to upgrade
it in anything like the sales cycle that people like Apple are hoping for.

A yearly product update is useless for a device that is primarily used to view
the internet, check email and watch Netflix or whatever. If it does that when
you buy it, it will do it for 4 or 5 years. It lives on the couch or on the
bed meaning general wear and tear don't exist much so replacement from damage
is a low possibility too.

Apple even help out here because the App Store makes getting old versions of
the apps that are supported on your version of the device (where available)
transparent, thus the feeling of becoming out-dated is kind of non-existent
unless you are a tablet gamer.

For example until last month both me and my partner used a Gen 1 iPad probably
for 2 or 3 hours a day every day. I upgraded to a newer version mostly because
JS heavy pages like the Guardian and Facebook had started to crash regularly.
The latest iterations are so much more powerful that I don't see this being an
issue for another 5 years at least.

Sales can be flat even though consumers can be happy with the tech.

~~~
jader201
While I agree with this, the unfortunate reality is that with the iPad
specifically, older versions become useless as Apple pushes OSes that demand
more from the hardware, and performance becomes a huge issue. And if it's not
performance, it's storage space.

And opting out of the upgrade isn't much of an option, due to app upgrades
that require the latest OS. And I guess you can also opt out of app upgrades,
but then you're left with a 2-year-old+ device and 2-year-old+ software.

Maybe this is intentional. But for me, at least, rather than upgrading, I've
learned to just move on to using a combination of my iPhone and MPB, and my
iPad (3rd gen) mostly collects dust now.

~~~
soylentcola
This is what happened to me as well. I fought off the push to buy a tablet
despite a lot of friends showing me theirs (and admitting that they were
cool).

At the same time, I had a desktop for "heavy lifting" like graphic design and
3d animation, storing a big media library, playing games, etc. I also kept a
cheap, portable laptop for the occasional times I needed to travel and wanted
some semblance of computing from a hotel room or an event. For all of the
other lightweight tasks, I had been using smart phones since the early Treo
days so that was fine for email and looking up info.

But then I was planning a longer trip from the US to Southeast Asia for
several weeks and it was going to involve a lot of hopping from town to town.
Suddenly even my laptop was too much to carry when I already had everything on
my back. I caved and bought an iPad 2 for a good deal more than I wanted to
spend. They were still hard to find so I could only find the larger capacity
models and the only Android tablet worth considering (Xoom) was not as capable
and still cost about the same.

That iPad was pretty cool and I used it for a year or two before it just got
to be a pain in the ass. Updates were de facto mandatory as you mentioned.
Staying on old OS versions meant unsupported apps and constant nagging. But
each OS update made the thing perform worse and worse. The hardware cycle was
much faster than that of desktop/laptop computers at that point so I couldn't
assume the normal 5+ years of usefulness I'd get from a laptop and there's no
option to just install a lightweight Linux distro or downgrade. Even after I
jailbroke it I couldn't really do much to speed it up. At this point, doing
more than opening a single browser tab or lightweight application will make
the thing lag and stutter and generall suck.

I think now it gets powered on a few times a year for me to check on updates
and see if there's anything worth checking out. Haven't bothered selling it
since it's my only iOS device and I figure there may be a point where I want
to try some iOS exclusive so I keep it around for that.

------
ableal
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://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/27/quartz-chartz-apple)

[http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-
quarte...](http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-
quarter-2015-earnings/)

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.

~~~
ghaff
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.

~~~
melling
Nah, tablets will be huge again. The key will be making them a better input
device. Voice recognition, stylus, haptics, keyboards, touchless gestures:
[http://youtu.be/qKQCjwMDiPM](http://youtu.be/qKQCjwMDiPM)

At the very least, sliding a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse next to your tablet
then having it turn into "laptop mode" would solve the problem.

~~~
ghaff
>At the very least, sliding a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse next to your tablet
then having it turn into "laptop mode" would solve the problem.

I don't really disagree. This might well be what the reconvergence looks like
--in combination with software changes that better bridge different modes of
operation.

That said, you may also be right that enhancements to interfaces could make a
tablet-type device qualitatively better than today while also pushing it in
directions that are fundamentally different from the type of device needed to
do the types of tasks we mostly use laptops for today.

~~~
thirsteh
Do you guys know you're actually describing the Surface 3 in detail? ;)

~~~
melling
The Surface probably needs another rev or two. Microsoft is doing a lot with
Cortana. How long before I can sit down and write a small document with it,
for instance, with the ability to make significant edits? It's also laptop
heavy.

Microsoft is approaching the tablet by scaling down a laptop. I like it but it
needs more work.

------
jcadam
I still don't "get" tablets. What are they good for again? If I need/want to
code (or type anything longer than a text message), I want (at least) a
laptop. If I want to consume media while on the go, I care more about
portability than anything else, so I use my smartphone -- it fits in my pocket
so I always have it with me (unlike a tablet). If I want to sit up in bed (or
on the couch) and read a novel, I use an e-reader. It's MUCH easier on the
eyes (and I think I spend enough time staring at LCDs as it is).

There's nothing I want to do these days that would be better served by a
tablet than a more specialized device. I bought a Gen1 iPad when they were
new. It sat unused 99% of the time, until my kids got a little older (they
love tablets, huh).

~~~
erichmond
I use a tablet to do all my reading, 95% of my media consuming, and it's an
integral part of my music studio.

I may be an anomaly, I do not like having a smartphone, and am looking forward
to the day when my device set will be watch, tablet & desktop.

~~~
Silhouette
I'm similarly anomalous, for whatever that's worth. I prefer a feature phone
and sometimes a tablet as well when I'm out but wanting some basic tools and
connectivity. I use high-spec desktop workstations for most real work, proper
servers for shared facilities and larger-scale storage, and a mid-range laptop
for things like meetings or on-site client visits.

I don't really see the attraction of smartphones given the alternative devices
you can use today -- they're sort of half-OK at lots of things but not really
great at anything, and a lot of them seem to have worse stability, security
and privacy problems than every other device I use put together.

------
WDCDev
Tablets are content consumption devices first, and productivity devices
second. I love my iPad, but I see very little reason to upgrade it considering
its perfectly suitable for reading books, browsing the web and watching the
occasional movie / show on Amazon video, Fios etc...

I am also very jaded by how much performance degrades with every iOS update
and refuse to get caught up in the "upgrade every year" Apple cycle.

~~~
coldtea
> _I am also very jaded by how much performance degrades with every iOS update
> and refuse to get caught up in the "upgrade every year" Apple cycle._

I haven't noticed any of this ever, except in the cases of bugs (stealing cpu
for some apps etc) that eventually get corrected. And I update my iPad the
first day any new OS version comes out.

I even still use my 2nd gen iPad update to the brim.

------
jnesser
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.

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

------
netcan
I think this is fairly self explanatory. Since iPad 1 launched, phones got
bigger-better and the median laptop got more portable (weight, battery..). If
you take a bag, your little laptop can come. If not, phones fit in pockets and
need to come anyway. The space between the two got smaller, I agree.

My 3 years old Ipad's job is mostly watching movies on planes. It does that
job well enough and I won't replace it unless it breaks. I just don't need any
more from a tablet.

Honestly, I think iPad's will almost go the way of the ipod, but with tougher
competition. Good enough.

OTOH, if I was king of the apple…. I think a good idea for a new product
category is a ~€500 iOS laptop. Chrome OS is selling well, and I think Apple
would probably do a better job in that general space. Iphone apps could run as
'widgets" which would automatically tick a lot of boxes (Skype, VLC.. whatever
your non negotiable apps are).

There's still a poorly served market here. Home users who don't like computers
much, don't want to spend a lot and need something simple that works.

I don't know if you still call that an iPad, but I reckon it'd sell.

~~~
amatheus
I disagree. What I do with the iPad is different than what I do with a laptop,
and I would guess most of the people who opt for an iPad instead of a notebook
uses it like that too. After starting with the iPad reading anything on the
computer sees intolerable, and this reading web pages/pdfs/etc use case by
itself for me validates the iPad. Now, I understand other people may prefer to
carry a notebook all the times, but if Apple replaced the iPad with an iOS
laptop I would have absolutely no reason to buy it. Everything I like in the
iPad is related to its form - size, weight, no keyboard, can be rotated etc.

------
rsp1984
> Something needs to happen to break it free, but what that is, I don’t know.
> It has to take advantage of the form factor in a way that cannot be
> replicated on the smartphone, and do it better than a small, ultra-light
> laptop.

This is where "perceptual computing" and in particular 3D sensing comes in.
Both smartphones (too small for a decent sensor, battery life and screen
issues) and laptops (too bulky to handle) have sub-optimal form factors for
this but tablets are perfect.

Take a look at Google Tango [1] for instance or -- shameless plug -- my own
company DotProduct [2]. We have been doing this for a while and have tried
many different platforms for 3D capture and what we found is that tablets just
feel by far the most natural in this environment.

[1] [https://www.google.com/atap/project-
tango/](https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/) [2]
[http://dotproduct3d.com/](http://dotproduct3d.com/)

------
josteink
There's several things to disagree with here.

I see a trend where people want smaller phones. The current phone are getting
too big and people are getting fed up.

Secondly, I bought my wife a tablet 6 months ago, and she haven't used the
laptop since.

Tablets have clearly peaked, but I don't think they will be going away anytime
soon.

~~~
k__
Realy? I think the opposite is the case...

Smartphones are getting bigger and tablets are getting obsolete.

I have a 6.1" Smartphone and stopped using my tablet with this. Before that I
had a tiny phone and a tablet.

~~~
michaelbuddy
your choice of the biggest smart phone is a personal choice, makes a tablet
unnecessary for you, not OBSOLETE. You're going to find devices spread out
more rather than consolidate. despite what people think, things get more
complex, not less and the market for products grows a longer tail rather than
things disappearing.

------
emodendroket
Remember how the tablet was going to totally destroy desktop computing?

That said, tablets are a little bit better for reading, or for "computing in
bed" and those sorts of things.

~~~
wvenable
Tablets are also better for non-technical users as their primary computing
device. This is entirely a software issue and has nothing to do with tablet
form factor except that is where this software philosophy became mainstream.

~~~
emodendroket
I don't agree. Apple and Microsoft have been entirely about making computers
easier to use and bringing them to the masses for a long time. To the extent
tablets are easier to use it's because they don't support multitasking.

~~~
wvenable
You don't seem to disagree! Yes, they don't support multitasking. They're also
very restrictive with limited application interaction modes. The primary
interface is a full screen of evenly spaced product icons. All of these things
are why they're good for non-technical users.

These restrictions also make them very malware proof. They're products which
just work and don't much, if any, support or maintenance.

Microsoft and Apple could have never brought out a desktop or laptop with
these kind of limitations before tablets became popular.

------
jdietrich
Whenever this topic comes up, I'm reminded of a line from the BBC drama "Micro
Men", referring to a slump in sales of home computers:

"In December 1983, every child wanted one for Christmas; By December 1984,
every child who wanted one had one."

PC sales have been steadily declining for years, because there are few new
users and existing users see little reason to upgrade. Tablets have reached a
similar point of market saturation and sales are starting to stall.
Smartphones are the exception, because of natural churn - smartphones are far
more likely to be lost or damaged, and they are "free" at the point of
purchase.

------
techstrategist
I honestly think that Apple will be able to reinvigorate iPad sales when they
offer some new capability. The iPhone has (almost) always had a compelling
reason to upgrade. My wife's iPad 3 Retina doesn't seem to perform better than
my non-retina iPad 2. While I'm itching to replace the iPad (it's getting
slow, app crashing, etc.) I'll be moving to a Surface Pro 4 (or 3 if I can't
wait that long) or a $200-300 Android tablet depending on how I see my use
cases playing out. I really like the idea of a 4-5" Android phone + an i5/i7
surface eliminating the need for a tablet and a desktop.

If there was a compelling new iPad coming out, we'd be on the hook for at
least 1, and I imagine that many of the 250m iPad users would be ready to
upgrade ASAP.

Then the question becomes, what would be compelling enough to upgrade?

\- Possibly size, but probably not. A $600+ iPad in 10-12" would be hard to
justify over a Surface. \- New sensors? Adding the PrimeSense 3d sensor (maker
of the original Kinect, now owned by Apple) would enable a TON of new use
cases. \- Multitasking? \- Ability to run OSX software?

------
mladenkovacevic
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).

------
Macha
My Nexus 7 is basically a glorified Reddit + YouTube device. It works quite
well for that, but I've never really seen the appeal for using it instead of a
laptop for most of what I do.

------
spiritplumber
A problem is that a lot of people who might get a computer, and use it to
do/write stuff, get a tablet, and use it to watch/read stuff. Because it has
no keyboard.

------
pjc50
Another data point on upgrade cycle: I dropped my Asus Transformer and cracked
the screen recently. While trying to make a repair-or-replace decision, I
looked around for options with a similar rigid hinge detachable keyboard and
came up unimpressed. All far too expensive; much easier to spend £20 and a
couple of (slightly nervewracking and fiddly) hours replacing the touchscreen.

I suspect a large driver of phone replacement is more frequent accidents,
loss, and theft.

------
graeme
Since I got an iPhone six I find myself using my iPad far less for anything
but drawing.

I bought it entirely to do drawing during skype tutoring sessions. Now I'm
also using it with Astropad to make drawings for screencasts.

When I had an iPhone 4, I started doing a few other tasks on the iPad as well.
But now that I have a larger, faster phone, I have no desire to be on the iPad
apart from the things I can only do on the iPad.

~~~
justmebeingme
iPhone six

------
bluedino
My two cents on the slow upgrade cycle: tablet users just don't care.

Phone users upgrade for two reasons. Status symbol, and phones get abused. You
need the new iPhone. You drop your existing iPhone. You lose it. People are
more careful with tablets. At the coffee shop nobody gives a crap if you have
the iPad or the iPad Air.

Not to mention that tablet users aren't as techy as laptop users or even phone
users. Seniors love iPads. They don't see what the hubbub is all about with
the new models. They can't see well enough to care about Retina screens. They
don't like change and they don't see any point in spending $400 every 2 years
on the latest stuff.

------
protomyth
The iPad is a strange beast from an upgrade cycle. We were upgrading pretty
fast at the start (upgrade ours, give our to others) particularly because of
the iOS compatibility problems with older iPads. That changed in the last 18
months, we don't upgrade as aggressively and it seems like we can keep using
our older hardware longer. The iPhone is an every two years item (buy, skip
next, buy), and that doesn't seem to be changing.

I would bet on a bump with a bigger screen model which will put some distance
from the phablet iPhones. I really see no reason for both an iPod touch and
iPad mini.

------
mark_l_watson
Thinking about device types is backwards. The choice should be what cloud
services from Google, Microsoft, Github, Bitbucket, etc. that we need to use
and make sure that access to our working and entertainment data assets is
simple on all device types.

As much as I like my iPad for web browsing, my Note 4 phone is much more part
of my digital life because it can access my data assets and is almost always
with me.

Microsoft seems to have hit a sweet spot with the Surface 3's and I wonder if
Apple would ever offer an iPad with the same kind of cover/keyboard when you
need it.

~~~
bane
I don't know what happened, but in the last six months, the number of Surfaces
I've seen has absolutely exploded, they're _almost_ everywhere now.

I think there's been a push in some corporations to start offering it as a
truly mobile device in lieu of less portable, and not as useful Dell machines
and the folks I've talked to about them absolutely love them.

The idea of having a tablet you can easily show documents and presentations
off of, and when you have to type the cover _is_ the keyboard, drop it in a
dock and you've got a large screen with mouse and traditional keyboard, grab
it and you're immediately on the run. Great battery life, runs all the
important applications without fuss, decent specs.

I've definitely felt some envy for the beautiful doc, especially when I'm
struggling with all the various cables and dongles and crap I have to plug in
and out of my Mac to make it a useful desktop machine. Maybe the new Mac Books
will solve this with USB-C?

 _sidenote_ I have a Note, and it's easily the best portable computer I've
ever owned. I've easily gotten through an entire day's worth of meetings using
nothing but my phone to deal with emails (while listening to music or
podcasts), get directions, make some calls (often while surfing the web), and
then when I'm there, scribble pages of notes (which I can then email out to
participants before we've left the room). A couple places I go even have
Chrome casts and I can just mirror the screen and present right off of my
phone.

It's kind of a magic portable office device, and I don't think I've ever
drained the battery on it. I know other phones offer all of that, but there's
something about the Note devices that _clicks_ (once you get rid of all the
crapware on it). It might also help I have one of those fold-over covers that
makes it look kind of like an oversized Moleskine.

But it's reduced the amount of _stuff_ I have to haul around to meetings to
something I'm already carrying.

------
TillE
The 12-13" iPad Pro could be a big deal, assuming it comes with a real
multitasking interface in the OS. We've amply covered the market with portable
7-10" tablets, but I think there's space for a device that stays at home or in
the office and does more.

Personally, I just want a bigger screen for reading large-format books.
Tilting a laptop sideways is not a good solution for that.

------
larrik
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.

~~~
matt4077
I was in the same boat. Then I took the iPad on a vacation and got used to it
– it's now the exclusive devise for the hour or so/day I spend browsing.

------
lazylizard
at my workplace there're many fans of the surface pro 3.. enough muscle to run
a few VMs in vmware workstation and portable..easier to carry around to
different customers' sites.. but i guess most tablets aren't like that.

------
karnei
I thought for a second it said sneezed out

