
What happened to tablet sales? - tadblarney
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/21/what-happened-to-tablet-sales/
======
DigitalSea
The problem with tablets is they're incredibly limited. The hardware seems to
improve with every generation, but specifically in the instance of iOS: the
software seems to be stagnate. What's the point in having super fast storage,
quad core processors and fast memory if the software is so limiting and
horrible it doesn't let you take advantage of it?

As a developer, I find iOS to be a horrible operating system and very limited.
If you want to surf the web or play games then the iPad is great for that. The
same thing applies for Android tablets, however I find Android tablets to be
slightly more developer friendly because you can hack them and access powerful
applications.

Bottom line is tablets can never replace computers or laptops.

~~~
danieldk
_The same thing applies for Android tablets, however I find Android tablets to
be slightly more developer friendly_

But Android tablets are also awful. Although I am primarily an Apple user and
my wife uses an iPad, we bought an higher-end ASUS tablet based on Atom for me
and our daughter (to watch cartoons on long car trips). The tablet came
bloated with all kinds of nonsense apps, of which more than half cannot be
removed or disabled. Android updates stopped after a year or so. It had an SD
card slot, but it could only be used for a small subset of applications.

The Nexus 7 2013 that we owned was better in the lack of crapware department.
But the last Android update was in 2015 (6.0.1).

After some iPads and the Nexus 7/ASUS adventures, I decided to stop using
tablets completely. Laptops have become so light and compact that it's easy to
take them to meetings (especially the MacBook 12" is great in this regard). As
a bonus, I can just store my notes, etc. in plain text (org mode) in git,
rather than being locked in some cloud silo.

~~~
icebraining
_As a bonus, I can just store my notes, etc. in plain text (org mode) in git,
rather than being locked in some cloud silo._

Not a bonus: on Android, you can use MobileOrg+SyncOrg (which syncs to any git
remote). Or you can use Emacs on the terminal and sync using a generic
generic​ git client like SGit.

~~~
danieldk
_Or you can use Emacs on the terminal and sync using a generic generic​ git
client like SGit._

Not practical for my use case: the screen is too small, does not render LaTeX
equations inline, etc.

------
frik
_" The iPad 2 is still in use today," IDC Senior Analyst Jitesh Ubrani tells
TechCrunch. “The [original] iPad Minis and Air are all still in use today.
They were being supported by Apple until very recently. People have been
hanging onto these devices and they’re finding that they work just as well as
they did when they were released"_

It's simply true. I have a iPad 2 and iPad Air 2, and both run fine. The
former still on iOS6, so it is fast. Most people who upgraded iPad 2/3 to
iOS7+ regretted doing so, and replaced their device.

It's Apple's fault, if they want more sales they shouldn't fragment and
confuse the customer with the whole iPad Air 2 not updating for years, than
two iPad Pro models with higher price, and now the 9.7 model.

People want faster hardware and new features with every model, otherwise there
is no reason to switch and replace an otherwise good working device. It's the
same for smartphones, tabets, notebooks and PCs. Only that tablets are in-
between phones and notebooks, and many people around the world just got their
first access to internet and only own a smartphone. So no tablet and notebook
sales from those.

If a brand stagnates, people start looking elsewhere for new more exciting
devices. For example in China tier 1+2 cities the last 6 months there is a new
trend, iPhone 7 was a big let down in their opinion, and so you see more and
more high end Android phones - it happends very fast.

To manufacturers of phones/tablets/notebooks/desktop: produce new better
models with new exiting features. Why is my 2010 notebook has the same spec as
2017 models, despite new ones that meet even the spec cost almost twice as
much? Why is dual core in 2017 models still almost the only option? Where are
the augmented reality camera features in smartphones and tablets?

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
I cannot agree with the quoted statement. Early Apple tablets do not work as
well as when they were released. I bought an iPad 3. After each major iOS
release it became slower. Now it runs iOS 9 and it is unbearably slow. I only
ever use it to watch YouTube, and even this is an exercise in patience.

Because of the performance drop, I had bought an iPad mini 4. After half a
year I sold it because I simply didn’t use it often. I cannot imagine spending
$400 on a new iPad. I will keep using my iPad 3 until it breaks. And I will
not buy a new iPad again. The OS and form factor is too limited to do any
serious work on it. (I’m not going to buy a keyboard and stand for a tablet
just to have a subpar laptop experience.)

~~~
grzm
As counterpoint, I used my first generation iPad until I broke the screen last
year. (It withstood more than a few drops as the corners attested before
finally succumbing.) Granted, my use case wasn't overly intensive: mostly just
web browsing and video viewing (Netflix, HBO Now, iTunes). My primary gripes
are with iTunes and video storage management, and while that was more acute
with the limited storage of the first generation iPad, it hasn't changed with
its 9.7" iPad Pro replacement. But that first generation iPad worked well for
me, even with iOS 9.

~~~
exergy
Can I asked something? Why are iPads popular? Genuine question. I will admit
first that I also use an old iPad for watching YouTube, but that's because I
run Linux on my surface pro 3, and YouTube sucks my battery dry faster than
you can say sudo.

But, the iPad is _still_ too heavy to hold for extended periods, falls over
all the time on its rubbish case if I keep it on the uneven bed, and I find
the surface kickstand does the job much better. Or just a normal laptop. Even
for playing music when I cook, laptops somehow have less friction.

~~~
acchow
Offline Netflix and Amazon Video only works on tablets. Useful for flights.
Otherwise, I'm not really sure what an iPad is for...

~~~
timdafweak
Content consumption? I am reading this on my bed, on my iPad Pro.

------
jimjimjim
For me the ideal tablet size is the 7 inch tablet. Easier to browse with than
a phone (possible to use mobile sites and desktop sites), easier to read (it's
paperback size), easier to hold than a ipad/10inch tablet.

can ANYONE recommend anything at least as good as a nexus7?

~~~
danieldk
I find reading on a tablet quite terrible. Your eyes get tired and use late at
night delays melatonin production. I like the Kindle Paperwhite _a lot_ more
for reading non-technical books and magazines.

~~~
icebraining
_use late at night delays melatonin production_

If you root Android, you can install F.lux (the real deal, not that fake red
layer crap), which helps considerably.

~~~
plorg
This is actually a native feature now in both Android and iOS.

~~~
icebraining
Oh, nice. I'm afraid my Nexus 7 (2012) wasn't bestowed with the latest version
of Android :)

------
OneTimePat
Tablet sales are lagging in America because manufacturers are not innovating.
One of the top rated Android tablets today is the Nvidia Shield K1. It's a
great tablet. It costs $200. You can use it to stream a very playable PC
gaming experience via GeForce Now provided you have a solid 20 mbps
connection. You can connect it to your television and use it as a console.
It's 3 years old and still pretty rock-and-roll weighed for it's entertainment
value. Its display is easily cast to a television or monitor for anyone that
needs to use it for a workspace via Google apps. And there isn't even anything
on the American market that offers serious competition.

Sure, there's the Google Pixel C. It's got a top notch Tegra X1, but it
hobbled itself by not including an SD card slot. Google Drive is nice, but I
don't want to be beholden to Google for my files. And the Switch looks
gimmicky (and sub-par).

So this far there's really no reason to move beyond the Nvidia Shield. At
least not on the American Market.

Then Asian market is doing much better. They're cranking out some quality spec
Core M tablets for $200 to $300. If American tablet sellers would get in on
the trend, we might see a decent uptick in sales.

~~~
bostand
The nvidia tablet is still king of the tablet hill, despite its age.

When the new one is released, I'm buying two.

~~~
thrownblown
I had the first 1, and managed to turn that into 4 through two recalls (all
basically cosmetic flaws) that have all at this point died. one was
killswitched, recovered and killswitched again and bricked. one is stuck in a
bootloop after a cm10->cm11 auto upgrade. the other two's batteries failed and
i soldered usb cables in their place and they have a second life in the back
of my electric junk drawer.

I thought about buying a k1 tablet, but i really couldn't justify it as i have
a one plus 3 that does almost everything a tablet did. and i can make calls on
it and not feel like a goober.

i don't think there's another tablet in the pipe:
[http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/11/rumored-follow-
nvidi...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/11/rumored-follow-nvidia-
shield-tablet-k1-cancelled/)

I have the first shield tv and its awesome. I use the g-force now service to
stream witcher 3. I love streaming games. I used on-live back in the day, and
was bummed when it failed. I lost like 10 games.

I did here that nvidia had a lot to do with the nintendo switch, but i don't
care enough to vet that rumor, so i will jsut spread it anyway.

------
oomkiller
My parents recently bought a new Windows laptop because their modern iPad
can't do all of the things they want. If tablet software can't compete with
PC, then their sales are bound to go to zero as PCs like the Surface become
more prevalent. Personally, I don't own one as my phablet does everything that
I would want a tablet to do, and my PC and Kindle do the rest.

------
hyperion2010
5 years ago I was given an iPad 2 by a friend who had received it as a gift
and was never going to use it (I think he had had it sitting in a box for a
year at that point already). I have never updated the OS and I use it for
reading. Sure, it is a little bit bigger than I would like, and the screen is
low rez, but it lets me read books for the entirety of even the longest
flights. I have looked at getting a newer android tablet (nexus 7 style) but
nothing is worth the money since I have a perfectly functional one already.
There are pretty hard limits on the performance you need to deliver all kinds
of content since no one is using a tablet for serious production, there are
better tools that are actually fit to task. All they can do is up the battery
lifetimes. Well, marginally better for the environment I guess.

I wonder how resale affects these markets.

~~~
ianai
They could do plenty:

-better screens (oled? color e-ink, perish the thought?)

-better graphics processing (maybe sacrifice some battery or thinness)

-incorporate top of the line features ('truetone' display, pens, etc)

All I'm saying is car makers find a way to make it work every year.

------
dcw303
There's some kind of obscure irony that the longevity of tablet hardware and
software is having a negative effect on sales. Like netbooks, that could
ultimately mean manufacturers lose interest in the form factor in favour of
something with higher revenues.

The tablet would have doomed itself by being too user friendly.

------
norea-armozel
Am I wrong in assuming that electronics firms just don't realize the special
nature of the rise of modern consumerism? What I mean by that is that I think
it's obvious that consumerism as we've known it isn't sustainable in practice.
Sure, there's always going to be a demand for new devices but I think the rate
of replacement of them is and will be very slow for a long time. Once devices
get good enough or service demand well enough then it becomes a different
market entirely just like how cars are today (people replacing them years
later and not just every year).

------
ianai
"In the past month, both Apple and Samsung have refreshed their flagship
tablets for the first time since 2014"

The first sentence doesn't say it all? These things aren't cheap (for most of
us) and people want the latest and greatest. Updates have been coming in the 6
month to 12 months window for phones/tech. I know I wait for releases to
purchase hardware. It's the only way to ensure the longest support window, for
one.

------
shams93
Back when the ipad first came out the iphone was far more limited and had a
small screen. Now most of the ipad only apps are migrating to the iphone as
well. With the large screen and powerful processor on par with the ipad
there's less reason to need the ipad. Same with android, with large screens
and powerful processors the need for tablets is going away, its an extra
expense most people can't justify anymore.

------
Piouw
Recently I dusted my Asus Transformer TF700 and slapped an AOSP Nougat rom on
it. It's reactive, has a good form factor and a crisp, luminous 1980x1200
screen. I can't see a reason to change it. (Bonus: I took on a little
challenge with it: No Google services and only FOSS apps. It's an interesting
experience.)

------
ouid
Tablets are less convenient than phones or laptops for all tasks. "Hybrid
classes never work in practice, you have to minmax". People hoped that tablets
would be a useful addition to their lives, and now that they know that they're
wrong, they have stopped buying them.

------
yesprabhu
Had high hopes on my purchase of iPad 2. Thought it would revolutionize my
Internet experience. But after getting hold of iPhone 4S and later other smart
phones my use of iPad dropped to zero. Didn't find the need. Now its a device
for my kid for games and educational apps.

------
skc
I rarely see tablets in the wild anymore. Has anyone else had the same
experience?

Even at the office I no longer see execs walking around with them. Just a few
years ago these things were everywhere out in public.

I assume the remaining holdouts have relegated them to bedtime devices.

~~~
antisthenes
That's because tablets are a stupid toy fad.

They combine the worst features of a laptop and a smartphone (too big to fit
in your pocket, too awkward to type compared to a normal keyboard) and offer
very dubious advantages, not to mention probably the worst software support
out of all portable devices (barring smartwatches, another dumb fad).

Sure, a lot of normies and apple fanboys bought into the fad originally, but
now they're beginning to realize that the device is mostly useless except for
some casual youtubing in bed or letting your kid play some educational games.

------
myrandomcomment
I have been using my original iPad Mini since it shipped. I have not found a
reason to upgrade it. I did get the MaxiPAD (iPad Pro) with the pen to use to
draw and take notes however when I want to read or just in general, I use the
Mini.

~~~
aphextron
This is pretty much the answer. Tablets have a far longer lifetime than PC's
(which are endlessly upgrade-able) and phones (which are constantly lost or
destroyed).

------
tannhaeuser
Yet not long ago everybody was anticipating the end of the general-purpose PC
because a tablet (with an optional keyboard) was seen as good enough for
"ordinary people", and the merger of MacOS into iOS is expected any day now.

Now what is it?

~~~
mercer
I think that assessment wasn't entirely wrong, it's just that _smartphones_ ,
rather than tablets, turned out to be that general-purpose PC for many people.

~~~
alanfalcon
Smartphones got much larger. I think if it were just Apple, we'd still have
tiny screens on our phones and iPads for general purpose computing at home.
Thankfully there is competition and people voted for larger phones with their
wallets, so now our phones are as large as we "need" them to be.

~~~
mercer
I'm sure that played a role. Personally I hate big phones, which is why I have
the smallest iPhone (thankfully they keep that option, at least) and an iPad
Mini. But many people around me are perfectly happy to use a big ass-phone for
most of what they do. Good for them :-).

~~~
tannhaeuser
I, too, dislike big honking 5+" smartphones, and while I could see how they
replace mini tablets, I don't think they can be used as general-purpose
computing device in the way a tablet can.

------
cft
I use an ultrabook and a 6" phone. No need for a tablet. They are redundant.

~~~
icebraining
I went the other way: 7" tablet + small $20 featurephone. I think the whole
combo is cheaper than a single 6" smartphone, and you can't beat the battery
life.

------
digi_owl
The problem as i see it is twofold.

a) Google got into a platform civil war. Just as Android was getting serious
about tablets, ChromeOS happened.

b) Intel tried to ram ATOM down everyone's throat.

------
Marazan
The same going that happened with netbooks.

Said as a happy eee901 owner and user.

~~~
aphextron
>eee901

Man those things were the shit. I first learned Linux on my brand new EEE901.

~~~
baldfat
My kids still use it and I sometimes for and use it for ssh.

------
erelde
The only tablet I've ever wanted to own is a light 12-13" e-ink reader for
music sheets. Sony did one as an experiment and closed the division I think?

~~~
baldfat
[http://www.gvido.tokyo/](http://www.gvido.tokyo/)

Its a dual screen e ink reader.

From their FAQ:

We are to make an announcement of the product On April 2017. There, You will
find a lot more of GVIDO and related products & services. We are making great
effort to be ready in mid 2017

About pricing The final price hasn’t yet set. Since it has 2 large scale E-INK
monitors, the price of the first model is expected to be slightly higher than
two of iPad Pro 12.9 inches. It’s getting slightly higher because of the new
components though, We try hard to keep it as low as possible.

Format will be PDF and it has a SD reader.

[http://www.gvido.tokyo/#faq](http://www.gvido.tokyo/#faq)

------
skdotdan
Funnily enough, tablets were disrupted by phones, even considering the former
are older.

------
toodlebunions
My iPad collects dust. I use the iPhone Plus constantly though, which is
nearly a tablet.

