
Worldwide tablet shipments have declined 8.5% - prostoalex
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/04/worldwide-tablet-shipments-declined-8-5-past-year-q1-tenth-straight-quarter-decline/
======
mabbo
There's lots of good reasons for this- phones doing the same job being the key
one- but I wonder if people are paying attention to the replacement time on
tablets as a possible cause as well?

My wife bought a Nexus tablet a few years ago. It's tough enough to survive
minor drops or bumps and we don't take it outside of the house ever so I have
a hard time imagining it breaking. At the same time, the things we use it for
are simple and we won't really ever need to upgrade to a better tablet.

So why would I need to buy a tablet again anytime in the next decade?

Maybe part of the reason for declining tablet sales is just because everyone
who wants one already has one?

~~~
wand3r
I take your point but 10 years maybe a bit hyperbolic. The replacement cycle
of a phone is likely 1-2 years a tablet maybe 5ish unless it is mission
critical.

I wonder if tablets are declining in business & education; which are likely
large consumers of tablets. Maybe that, or they haven't hit their stride yet.

------
blackoil
Post PC era passed faster than teenage fads, and we are back in PC era.

~~~
computerex
I don't think we'll ever be in the PC era ever again. We are in the mobile era
right now, not PC era.

~~~
barking
My theory:

1) The sort of people who had pcs before everyone got them, use pcs as much as
ever, though they also use mobile.

2)The sort of people who got pcs because of the internet have moved to mobile
and won't get another pc.

3) Tablets are being replaced by smartphones rather than by new tablets.

~~~
walterbell
Someone with access to historical sales data for PCs, tablets & phones could
check the data for support of this plausible hypothesis.

------
meri_dian
As phone screens get larger and laptops get slimmer and lighter, tablets
become more and more useless

~~~
zyxzkz
The laptop is like the perfect tablet... compact, more powerful, comes with
its own built-in keyboard AND screen stand.

What more could you want?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
A full-sized keyboard. My hands are a bit too big to comfortably use a laptop
keyboard.

(I realize that, if the lack of a full-sized keyboard is the problem, a tablet
is _not_ the answer...)

~~~
bostand
Have you tried 13" ThinkPad recently?

------
bsharitt
I was all in on tablets when they first started out. I've had the original
iPad, the Motorola Xoom, the HP Touchpad, and many more including convertibles
like the Asus Transformer. I really wanted tablets to be the future and
replace at least my desktop, but all these years later it hasn't worked out.

I've still got two tablets, and iPad mini that I mostly use to read either PDF
or pictureful rulebooks for table top games that won't work on my Kindle and a
Dell Venue 8 Pro that mostly goes unused and I kept it around with the idea of
working on a good tablet UI for Linux, but haven't had time or really the
desire to do that.

When my wife's Galaxy Tab died, rather that get a new Android tablet or an
iPad, she opted to just upgrade her laptop to a convertible(ZenBook Flip) that
mostly gets used in plain old laptop mode. Even my kids who have had some kind
of tablets for some time of their lives have started preferring "real"
computers, especially daughter who is the oldest and gets how much more she
can do on a real computer.

I think for me What it boils down to was that there was nothing that tablets
really did best. If I'm going to be sitting on the couch doing some web
browsing or watching a movie, a keyboard is nice to have for the web browsing
and for both it's nice to be able to side the laptop down rather than holding
a tablet for log periods of time. And when I do need to be more mobile, phones
handle that aspect just as well and maybe better if I need to be able to put
said mobile device is a smaller-than-tablet-pocket. I think in the long term,
the extent of tablets will largely be some kind of pseudo-tablet convertibles
like the aforementioned ZenBook and probably fewer like the Transformer of the
Surface Book and most tablets that do stick around with be Surface like
holdouts that can't more easily be converted into real computer mode.

------
rezashirazian
I think most people use tablets to watch TV in bed. Now that iPhones and
Androids are shipping with larger screens and higher resolutions, there isn't
much need for a second device.

~~~
fhood
I still think the need for tablets exists, because even larger phones feel
inadequate for browsing the web, particularly on sites were the desktop
version is superior to the mobile one. That said, tablets tend to limit the
user's ability to perform other day to day tasks, most notably moving files
around. My suspicion is that sales have fallen in part because tablets,
particularly iPads, have too narrow a use case to justify their price.

~~~
digi_owl
Pretty much. The Apple devices assume that you buy into their ecosystem. It is
interesting to note that back when the first ipad shipped, Apple release a
camera kit that plugged into the tablet. But it only allowed files to be
transferred to the tablet, not the other way.

Similarly Google started out allowing bi-directional file transfers, but then
later rolled that back to only allow reading, not writing, with regards to
removable storage.

This leaves Windows. But there there fusing of Windows Phone's UWP and NT's
win32 is awkward at best. Resulting in the best use of the "tablet" to prop it
on a surface and attach a mouse. This because UWP file management is highly
restricted, leaving us to use touch-hostile win32 programs for that task.

~~~
pjc50
Android can do bidirectional file transfer quite happily, you just need a
"file manager" app. My Zenfone even had one preinstalled.

~~~
digi_owl
Thats the thing, only system apps are allowed to write to removable devices.

Yeah, some OEMs include a minimal file manager with their devices. But they
are a pale comparison to what third parties can offer.

------
AdmiralAsshat
My tablet doesn't do much more these days than serve as an e-reader. I use it
to read books, Pocket articles, and RSS feeds, primarily. I _very
occasionally_ use it to watch some downloaded videos as well, either on a
plane or at the gym. But otherwise, there's little on it I do that I couldn't
probably do on a Kindle or a Kobo.

Nonetheless, I'm not convinced that this is really a problem, assuming you
didn't pay an arm and a leg for yours. I paid somewhere between $200-$300 for
my 2013 Nexus 7, it's held up for about four years now, and I still use the
thing regularly.

Tablets sales are down in part, I imagine, because nearly everyone who wants a
tablet already has one, and if the one you bought was above a certain
threshold (i.e. Not Crap), you can comfortably use the thing for several years
without needing to upgrade. Manufacturers need to realize that tablets are not
phones, particularly as phones get bigger and more useful; people aren't going
to upgrade their tablets every two years. Nor should they.

Case in point, I'm fine with the stock OS on it at the moment, but when I
decide I no longer want to use it as is, I have at least three other OS's I
could potentially load onto it, such as:

\- MaruOS ([http://maruos.com/#/](http://maruos.com/#/))

\- Kali Nethunter ([https://www.kali.org/kali-linux-
nethunter/](https://www.kali.org/kali-linux-nethunter/))

\- LineageOS

~~~
bostand
Nexus 7 2013 must be the optimal tablet. Perfect size and weight + stock
android.

If they ever released a 2017 version I will order 4.

------
frik
Make the smartphones smaller again, make high end 10 inch tablets again with a
competitive price. All I want is high end smaller than 5 inch smartphones, and
a 10 inch high end tablet, and a 12 or 14 inch notebook and a 30 inch 4k
monitor.

I have the current gen, but the outlook looks worse and worse to get a brand
new high end smartphone in the 4.5 to 4.8 inch size. You cannot put a 5.5 or
bigger phone in your jean's pocket. Only women and certain hipster carry a
extra handbag to store their big smartphones. Bit no wonder, when you already
have a 5.5 inch or bigger smartphone there is less reason to buy a tablet as
well. Another factor is that the hardware spec stalled for two years. The
Android and iPad Air 2 tablets were completely unchanged for straight two
years - no wonder there is little reason to upgrade a 2013 tablet if the 2016
model is almost the same hardware spec. Where are the multi window features,
where are the octo-core tablets with 4+ GB memory? iPad Pro segmented the
models, so you now have to pay more for high end, where as in previous gen you
got more for your bucks. So new non Pro devices are as slow and little changed
compared to previous gen.

------
Etheryte
With constantly improving mobile flagships, it's hard for me to see what niche
tablets are targeting. Could anyone enlighten me?

~~~
jeron
niche tablets or just tablets in general?

Personally I just use my iPad to watch TV shows in bed

~~~
adrianmonk
I think they're asking which niche tablets are targeted at.

~~~
jeron
you are right, whoops

------
dec0dedab0de
i think most people who have a tablet are still able to do all the things they
want to do on their tablet. No reason to upgrade.

~~~
barking
True but not the whole truth I think. My tablet's battery recently died and
rather than get a new one I now use my phone for everything I used it for.

------
post_break
There isn't a decent android tablet out there save for maybe the Tab S3 but
it's pretty expensive and only 32GB. Everyone who wants an iPad already has
one, and Microsoft is eating Apple's lunch with the surface line.

~~~
linkregister
The Asus Nexus 7 was probably the best Android tablet for size, features, and
value. I didn't buy a tablet this year because I couldn't find any Nexus 7s.

~~~
maxxxxx
Unfortunately the Nexus devices went to high end pricing range after the first
few versions. The Nexus 7 was great.

~~~
sudojudo
Being in the market for a tablet (to use as a document viewer when
backpacking), I just looked it up on Newegg.

$400-$600, for a device from 2013. Wow.

------
huangc10
I can't really think of an essential daily app (minus work / minus business
related / minus intensive reading) that I use which has better UI and UX on a
tablet. Everything just seems easier on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Plus as some people already mentioned, tablets from couple of years ago still
run quite well right now. Especially newer iPads.

~~~
wtbob
> I can't really think of an essential daily app (minus work / minus business
> related / minus intensive reading) that I use which has better UI and UX on
> a tablet.

For me it's TV. While I own a TV, I essentially never use it. A tablet has
more viewing area than a phone, which makes it much more pleasant to consume
TV shows on.

I think you hit the nail on the head re. how well relatively recent tablets
work. At first I thought a tablet would be like a phone — replaced annually —
but I find that I've had the same tablet for four years. It does its job, it's
a nice size (and Google haven't come out with another 7" tablet since!); why
replace it?

------
digi_owl
The problem, imo, is that Google dropped the ball, and nobody really picked it
up.

And by dropping the ball i mean the gradual rolling back of distinctiveness
between Android tablets and Android phones.

With 3.0/honeycomb, Android tablets got a distinctive interface with a single
system bar, aimed at using tablets primarily in the landscape orientation.

Alongside this the first generation of Android tablets often shipped with a
full size USB A port, to allow connecting things like storage and input
devices (3.0 also introduced basic HID support to Android).

But come 3.1, Google did the inexplicable move of introducing a new set of
storage permissions distinct from the "external" RW permission that had
existed since Android 1.0. There were "media" RW permission, specifically set
up to cover removable storage.

The real problem was that by default the write half of the permission set was
exclusive to system apps, meaning apps bundled with the device.

End result was that Android went from being a potential production platform to
being a straight media consumption platform.

Then as 4.x rolled on, more and more of the tablet UI was rolled back,
replaced with a variation of the 4.0 phone UI.

This culminating in 4.3-4.4 where the single bar was fully removed on all
sizes of tablets, replaced with a dual bar setup where the bottom bar would
move to always be at the bottom (on phones it sticks to the portrait
"bottom").

And while MS seemed poised to pick this up with Windows 8/10, they largely
fumbled.

For example UWP apps are not allowed to access anything but the users home
area, unless they make a specific request and the user approves. But the
approval has to happen via the age old win32 file picker dialog, that is a
right pain to operate using fingers.

This then leaves us with the equally old file explorer to handle file
management. And not only is it still a win32 program, though now outfitted
with a ribbons UI, but it is the same process as is operating the overall
Windows UI!

Similarly win32 programs still have a close button everpresent on screen,
making it easy to close those by grabbing the device by upper right corner.

Never mind that the Windows 10 tablet UI has sprouted a Android-like back
button, but that do not interact with win32 programs except to send them to
the background.

Nor is there a good indication that something is running. You have to
basically tap the switcher button (same one used to handle multiple desktops
in desktop mode), and see if anything pops up.

All this result in the best option for using Windows "tablets" is to prop them
on some surface and attach enough devices to use them as ad-hoc desktops.

~~~
bsharitt
Dropping the tablet specific UI in Android (it was in 4.1 or one of the other
Jellybean releases, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich had a good evolution of the
Honeycomb UI) for the giant phone UI was where I started to sour on tablets in
general.

~~~
digi_owl
4.1 did so for screen sizes around 7". 4.3 or 4.4 did so far anything 9" and
up.

There were some elements added to the base phone UI when using a tablet
though. For example you either get notifications or the quick options
depending on what half of the top bar you swipe from.

