Apple Is Killing Off The Tablet Market

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Isn't this one of the reasons Apple gave for not wanting to make a big phone in the first place?

This seems to imply that nearly all the sales gains that Apple’s new, large iPhones have made were stripped from the hide of the tablet market. Consumers happy with compact smartphones are not switching to larger iPhones for now, but former tablet buyers are.
 
Apple's tablet sales have been shrinking for a while now, its not because of the new iphones.
 
Or perhaps the tablet market just needs to offer a few more features to differentiate itself from the phablet market. Tablets (like the Surface Pro) are actually becoming true productivity tools (rather than a media consumption device). Making tablets more laptop like should help them (as the laptop market is still doing fine) and making tablets bigger (I would love to have a 12-15" tablet) should help tablets find their second wind :)
 
I think people are realizing how limited tablets are. They are ok for some things - but never great.
With larger phones, it kind of makes the need for tablets really limited.
People do not want to carry multiple devices. It sucks. You need multiple chargers, a backpack/carry bag, manage multiple devices, etc. If a phone can do everything and be pretty usable - why carry a tablet?
Want to type or edit documents? Tablets suck. (Note: The Microsoft Surface is blurring the lines - I consider it more of a laptop than a tablet. I'm really talking about iPads and Android tablets without keyboards).
Watch videos? Tablets are ok but if I'm at home, I'd rather watch it on a TV. On an airplane, tablets are ok.
You betcha that Apple knows tablet market share is diminishing. I think that is why they released the larger phones this year. Make no mistake - Apple is a smart company (regardless if you like their products or not). I think we will see some lackluster iPad's coming out so they can capitalize on whatever market share they can get.
Look at AAPL's revenue breakdown: iPhones are where they are making most of their money. I'm sure Tim Cook is well-aware of this.
 
I don't know about this, I think that the majority of people who buy tablets just keep them for ages. The things a tablet is good for don't require replacement every 2 years like they're always trying to get you to do with your phone.

It doesn't really matter either way anyway because a tablet is just a big smartphone without the phone part. If smart phones get bigger they're just tablets with a phone transceiver.
 
I have a big clunky Dell E5500 laptop, my little girl has an old hand me down Android phone (with no service) and a new Android tablet that is pretty fast. She always uses the phone or my laptop to watch Youtube. Never does she use the tablet. Even I can't get her to use the tablet
 
Well they had no choice, they had to catch up to the rest of the market with a larger and larger phone.

Just as the market had to play catch up to them when the iPad came out. Apple is relatively smart, they will wind down production of iPads the same way they did with iPods. There will most likely always be a small market for them regardless.
 
I think Apple might need to take a page out of the PC playbook. Give the users a non-iOS hybrid. A tablet with a detachable keyboard that runs OSX (or whatever it's called). Add the ability to emulate/VM for iOS apps.
 
I use my tablet strictly for reading books and online video when i don't want to hold my laptop
 
Want to type or edit documents? Tablets suck. (Note: The Microsoft Surface is blurring the lines - I consider it more of a laptop than a tablet. I'm really talking about iPads and Android tablets without keyboards).

The Surface Pro is a hybrid. Indeed Microsoft's tag line "The tablet that can replace your laptop." does pretty well describe the idea. I'd never recommend the Surface Pro 3 to someone looking solely for a laptop. Nor would I recommend it to someone looking solely for a tablet except in cases were someone wanted a tablet with digital pen support for artistic or note taking purposes with full desktop applications like Photoshop and OneNote.

People will constantly say "I can buy a much better and/or cheaper laptop than the Surface Pro 3." And to that I always say "Sure, but the Surface Pro 3 isn't a laptop." The point of the device is to serve as both a laptop and tablet and with the dock even a possible desktop replacement. Over Christmas had in-law kids over for a few days. I let them use my SP3 (I have Microsoft Complete on it;) and not once did they bother with the Type Cover. They used it strictly as a tablet doing all kinds of nonsense. They'd have not touched it if were a conventional laptop. One of the kids even had her own iPad but ended up using the SP3 for hours and hours over Christmas. The 12" display does seem to draw a lot of attention.

Or perhaps the tablet market just needs to offer a few more features to differentiate itself from the phablet market. Tablets (like the Surface Pro) are actually becoming true productivity tools (rather than a media consumption device). Making tablets more laptop like should help them (as the laptop market is still doing fine) and making tablets bigger (I would love to have a 12-15" tablet) should help tablets find their second wind :)

It's been a long time coming but I think hybrids are finally gaining some traction. And I think it's all but certain that Apple will launch a 12"+ tablet with some sort of transforming capability into laptop like devices. Even if the iPhone is making up for lost iPad sales, having a shrinking presence in the tablet market which is still growing, albeit much more slowly, can't be a good thing. Apple is all about high end and high margin. So I can't imagine they'd never pursue the high end tablet market.
 
I absolutely love the Surface. Tablets that blur the lines between laptop and tablet is really where the market is moving toward. No one is really buying tablets anymore from what I've been seeing.

I doubt Apple will make something like the Surface to compete. It would take away from macbook revenue no?
 
I think Apple might need to take a page out of the PC playbook. Give the users a non-iOS hybrid. A tablet with a detachable keyboard that runs OSX (or whatever it's called). Add the ability to emulate/VM for iOS apps.

OS X hybrids and convertibles have had something of a cult following over the years. There was a company that did MacBook mods that made them work like convertible Tablet PCs some years ago, can't remember the name offhand.

An OS X hybrid would be a pretty stunning about face considering what Tim Cook said about Windows 8 refereeing to it as a "refrigerator\toaster". I don't think Apple is quite ready to go there yet. x86 hybrid solutions are not easy to do. And while I'm sure Apple would do a much better job on their initial attempts than Microsoft did with the Surface Pro and Windows 8, I think there's still a ways to go before the x86 hybrid market reaches critical mass. That won't happen until Windows 10 at any rate.

But I do fully expect a 12"+ iPad in 2015. Apple isn't going to sit by and give Microsoft all the space it wants to entrench itself in a new market with nothing to counter it. Just as Apple didn't let Android have the small tablet market to itself and released the iPad Mini.
 
lots of love for the Surface, but it almost never gets used as a tablet in our household.

I held off on buying a "proper" tablet, but wasn't ready to commit until I found one that could replace my aging netbook. I still don't feel Android is suited for the task, but I'm looking thinking of the smaller HP/Dell Windows tablets will be my next purchase.
 
I have a note4 and iPad. I'll admit there have been times where I browse on my phone while my iPad is sitting right next to me. I never did this with smaller phones.
 
Not buying a tablet until there's one with i7 4700hq power and 2 days battery life, and 1cm thick max.
 
lots of love for the Surface, but it almost never gets used as a tablet in our household.

Honest question if I may. This is the Surface Pro device? If you rarely use it as a tablet do you think you'd have been happier with a conventional laptop?

Happy New Year!:D
 
Honest question if I may. This is the Surface Pro device? If you rarely use it as a tablet do you think you'd have been happier with a conventional laptop?

Happy New Year!:D

yes, it's an SP3 (someone should try installing XP/sp3 on an SP3...). my spouse is the primary user, and she wouldn't have been as happy with a conventional laptop. she likes the slim form factor and and uses the pen a fair amount. while only on occasion does she remove the keyboard (like at a conference, for taking notes with the pen), she finds those usages very handy. as light and slim as it is, it allows use in places where she wouldn't take her old laptop.

i know a lot of people say "you could just get a regular laptop for the same price!", but only suitable replacement for her usage would have been a touch-screen ultrabook, and at that point the cost advantage of a laptop largely dissipates, and the tablet premium is more reasonable.

As for myself, my laptop is currently (and will likely always be) secondary to my desktop, which is why I'm fine with a 3 year-old netbook-level Acer Aspire (albeit upgraded with an SSD and 8 GB RAM). It's starting to show it's age too, which is why i'm spying the new tablets.

it's really a lesson in user needs. we're quick to project our wants, needs, and constraints to other people, which is why other people's choices in purchasing can seem so inscrutable to us, but makes perfect sense to them.
 
Man the media cannot stop sucking Apple's peen for half a second. Its like literally their mouth salivates all day for it, and until they have a mouthful so they can mumble out "the news", they feel empty inside.

Apple was the LAST major phone manufacturer to offer a big phone, not some trend setter. Jesus Christ.

But yes, "phablets" make having two devices redundant for most people. I'm an exception because I want to big LCD screens in my car. So I can have say my magnetically mounted 7" tablet in the car be my music player, while my phone is mounted to its A-pillar mount to act as GPS or integrated to my "smart" radar detector simultaneously.
 
Have a couple iPad's in the house, they are very good at what they are used for (kids, media, etc.)

Had a surface RT, which was very good quality and user experience. But very limited usability.

Bought a Microcenter $60 7" windows tablet and I freaking love it. $60 this thing is a miracle. It makes me excited to see what will available in another 12 months.
 
I like how this forum is totally shocked at the idea that Apple might cannibalize its own products. That's sort of what Apple does, and it's why it keeps succeeding; they disrupt their own businesses before others do. Look at what the iPhone did to the iPod.
 
yes, it's an SP3 (someone should try installing XP/sp3 on an SP3...). my spouse is the primary user, and she wouldn't have been as happy with a conventional laptop. she likes the slim form factor and and uses the pen a fair amount. while only on occasion does she remove the keyboard (like at a conference, for taking notes with the pen), she finds those usages very handy. as light and slim as it is, it allows use in places where she wouldn't take her old laptop.

i know a lot of people say "you could just get a regular laptop for the same price!", but only suitable replacement for her usage would have been a touch-screen ultrabook, and at that point the cost advantage of a laptop largely dissipates, and the tablet premium is more reasonable.

As for myself, my laptop is currently (and will likely always be) secondary to my desktop, which is why I'm fine with a 3 year-old netbook-level Acer Aspire (albeit upgraded with an SSD and 8 GB RAM). It's starting to show it's age too, which is why i'm spying the new tablets.

it's really a lesson in user needs. we're quick to project our wants, needs, and constraints to other people, which is why other people's choices in purchasing can seem so inscrutable to us, but makes perfect sense to them.

Thanks for the response! To me a fair amount of use of the pen falls into the tablet category, or at the least something that isn't in the standard clamshell laptop category.

I completely agree with your points about "you could just get a regular laptop for the same price!" and your last statement. While obviously mort people don't use pens with their computing devices if you find it useful a conventional laptop can't do the job.
 
Thanks for the response! To me a fair amount of use of the pen falls into the tablet category, or at the least something that isn't in the standard clamshell laptop category.

I see. I considered pen use not "tablet" per se, since the Type Cover is often still attached, and a touchscreen clamshell laptop could theoretically use a pen as well. OneNote handles both pen and keyboard pretty well.
 
I like how this forum is totally shocked at the idea that Apple might cannibalize its own products. That's sort of what Apple does, and it's why it keeps succeeding; they disrupt their own businesses before others do. Look at what the iPhone did to the iPod.

A 5.5" Full HD phone simply wasn't disruptive industrywide in 2014. And it without question had nothing to do with the start of the huge slowdown in the tablet market or the absolute shrinkage in iPad sales as both events began well before the iPhone 6 had even launched.
 
I like how this forum is totally shocked at the idea that Apple might cannibalize its own products. That's sort of what Apple does, and it's why it keeps succeeding; they disrupt their own businesses before others do. Look at what the iPhone did to the iPod.

Apples to Apples, dust to dust...
 
Apple knew for the longest time that a bigger phone would cannibalize the iPad that's why for the longest time they intentionally kept the iPhone tiny to force people to buy a companion iPad. On top of that, x86-64 hybrids are priced so competitively yet offer a greater superset of functionality that it makes iPads much less attractive.
 
I see. I considered pen use not "tablet" per se, since the Type Cover is often still attached, and a touchscreen clamshell laptop could theoretically use a pen as well. OneNote handles both pen and keyboard pretty well.

Good points. It's not like the input methods are mutually exclusive or that because the Type Cover is attached that the pen and touch don't work. I've been using pen enabled Windows Tablet PCs for a long time and there are a number of different ways that it works. There have been conventional hinge clamshell designs with pens and classic Tablet PC designs that used clamshell twist screens but both are pretty rare today.
Today's designs use detachable folding keyboard docks, 360 flip over hinges or in the case of the Surface Pro 3 a tablet with kickstand and non-supportive keyboard cover.
 
On top of that, x86-64 hybrids are priced so competitively yet offer a greater superset of functionality that it makes iPads much less attractive.

I think this has a lot more to do with lagging iPad sales than big iPhones. People complain about the price of the Surface Pro 3 around here a lot but iPads are pretty expensive. New Android and now even Windows devices are priced well below new iPads. iPhones are subsidized so their up front cost isn't nearly as big of a deal.
 
The dust being their competitors.
I don't know about that. At least in my tiny world most of the apple users I know are shifting to Windows platforms. Some still cling to their iPhones but tablets and computers have gone to windows.
 
I don't know about that. At least in my tiny world most of the apple users I know are shifting to Windows platforms. Some still cling to their iPhones but tablets and computers have gone to windows.

Apple is also not so big internationally. They are popular in the US, lots of iPhones. In the EU, they are a player but not nearly as big. In Asia? They are fairly small, it is pretty much all Android all the time.


In terms of tablets there never was going to be a huge market, because they are a toy. Few, if any, people get a tablet as their primary device. They already own a computer (maybe two) and a smartphone. A tablet doesn't bring much new to the table. It is a nifty gadget, but hardly essential in any way. As such, the market was never going to be enormous, and a lot of the big boom was just an "oooo, shiny" fad. I have a tablet, a shield, and it is fun, but it is also a totally unnecessary toy. Between my desktop, laptop, and Note 3, I've all the information access I need. The tablet could go and I'd notice very little difference.
 
Apple was the LAST major phone manufacturer to offer a big phone, not some trend setter. Jesus Christ.

That's because the reality is that 1/2 the population doesn't want a big phone. The 6+ has not been selling anywhere near as well as the 6.

Apple has always been pretty good about giving you what you need in their product lines. That pisses off some people, but for the majority it works perfectly.
 
Modern tablets are fast enough to last for a decade. No need to upgrade. Everyone has one already.
 
Apple knew for the longest time that a bigger phone would cannibalize the iPad that's why for the longest time they intentionally kept the iPhone tiny to force people to buy a companion iPad. On top of that, x86-64 hybrids are priced so competitively yet offer a greater superset of functionality that it makes iPads much less attractive.

Of course Apple knew that a bigger iPhone would hurt tablet sales. The main reason they finally caved and brought out a larger iPhone is because their small screen was starting to hurting iPhone sales. They where left with a choice between losing iPhone customers or losing iPad customers. They chose the later.

Some of the new Windows tablets with the quad core atom are nice. I'm thinking about replacing my old Acer laptop I use when I travel, and the quad core atom chip is about 2x as fast as the old dual core Celeron I'm currently using. Like to see a nice low-cost hybrid with a 11-12" screen and decent disk space.
 
Apple has always been pretty good about giving you what you need in their product lines. That pisses off some people, but for the majority it works perfectly.

Really?

I know people who switched from apple to android over the past 2 years because they wanted a larger screen, removable flash storage and a lower price.

At least Apple finally has the larger screen which should help them the old person market as it will be easer to read.

As for myself, Apple has NEVER had what it needed in any of there product lines. That's why I don't own any Apple products. I'd rather build my own computer or buy something at a much better price.
 
Like to see a nice low-cost hybrid with a 11-12" screen and decent disk space.

I think the Windows hybrid market will see a nice variety of devices across size and price points especially when Windows 10 launches. One of the surprise devices this season IMHO was the Nextbook 10.1 netbook that is selling at Walmart for $180. A very low end device but is great for the price. I would think that we'll see more devices in a wide range of specs to attract customers who want more than the bare minimum but don't have the budget for something like the Surface Pro 3.
 
Of course Apple knew that a bigger iPhone would hurt tablet sales. The main reason they finally caved and brought out a larger iPhone is because their small screen was starting to hurting iPhone sales. They where left with a choice between losing iPhone customers or losing iPad customers. They chose the later.

Some of the new Windows tablets with the quad core atom are nice. I'm thinking about replacing my old Acer laptop I use when I travel, and the quad core atom chip is about 2x as fast as the old dual core Celeron I'm currently using. Like to see a nice low-cost hybrid with a 11-12" screen and decent disk space.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317594
Not atom-cheap, but not bad.
 
I have a phone
Also i have a tablet
Now im going to go on and on sharing my personal story about phones and tablets as I see them, briefly punctuated with anecdotes about other members of the household. Potato.
 
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