Nobody Knows What An iPad Is Good For Anymore

Apple's earnings released today confirms iPad's death with another 18% drop on top of previous year over year losses. If Apple doesn't come out with a Mac OS X tablet/hybrid they're going to be hurting relying on just iPhones alone.

The 75 million iPhones way more than made up for the loss on the iPad side. But yeah, the iPad line is getting a bit dated and expensive for what it is. And I think it's a good bet that we will see the rumored 12.9" iPad Pro launch in by spring and it will probably have some sort of digital pen technology. And it would be surprised if it had some type of laptop conversion capability as well.

Main stream tablets have simply become a cheap commodity with now both Android and Windows in that space. And Apple's not going there. But going for a market like the Surface Pro 3 is much more in line with their business model.
 
Smartphones got bigger, higher res screens and better hardware. Laptops morphed into ultrabooks, and got thinner, lighter, and have better battery life while still being powerful. That didn't leave any room for tablets, which were always pointless middle child devices similar to netbooks.

They're far from pointless and will sell in the hundreds of millions of units and should surface desktops and laptops combined this year. Apple faces the problem of mainstream consumption tablets becoming a cheap commodity that doesn't get the kind carrier subsidizing like the iPhone and other higher end phones.
 
Apple's earnings released today confirms iPad's death with another 18% drop on top of previous year over year losses. If Apple doesn't come out with a Mac OS X tablet/hybrid they're going to be hurting relying on just iPhones alone.
Apple just reported a record quarter of earnings that surpassed even the most optimistic of Wall Street expectations based largely on the phenomenal success of the iPhone 6/6+. They're not exactly hurting for cash.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102372969
 
They're far from pointless and will sell in the hundreds of millions of units and should surface desktops and laptops combined this year. Apple faces the problem of mainstream consumption tablets becoming a cheap commodity that doesn't get the kind carrier subsidizing like the iPhone and other higher end phones.

I think the lack of carrier support is key ... The carriers have trained us to upgrade phones every 18-24 months ... Tablets can be upgraded more like computers on more of a 3-5 year scale
 
They're not exactly hurting for cash.

Not at all, they had a much better quarter than Microsoft. Still, Apple is losing a lot of ground in what is still a major form factor category that's still seeing some growth. They're going to have to respond somehow, which is an unusual position for Apple to be in, especially with a market that in it's modern form they invented.
 
Apple just reported a record quarter of earnings that surpassed even the most optimistic of Wall Street expectations based largely on the phenomenal success of the iPhone 6/6+. They're not exactly hurting for cash.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102372969

Stock performance is based more on future forecast and judging by after hours activity it's only recovered from today's loss so the market isn't too confident. Perfect storm on top of iPad death is Watch turns out to be a flop and iPhones sales isn't repeatable.
 
My kids use iPads a lot. They watch streaming video, sometimes play Minecraft (not sure why - PC version is so much better), and play simple games. Not much else.
I never use the iPad. I have a phone - it does everything the iPad does (albeit on a smaller screen). Why do I need two devices that do the same thing?
 
I find another huge problem (not for the end user, at least for most of them) is the lack of planned obsolesce. My "New" iPad (iPad 3) still works flawlessly. It's fast enough, light enough, and still just a really kick ass tablet (still a limited tablet, but it serves it's purpose very well). I have zero reason to buy a new iPad until this one breaks or something new and 'revolutionary & magical' comes out. They made them very well.
 
I thought it was consensus that tablets were larger than phone computing for when you're on the go right? Because I've seen people try to use a laptop on the subway during a commute and it is not a pretty sight, and I don't even want to see how it works on a bumpy bus. Honestly for something named a laptop I've never liked actually using one on my lap, feels unnecessarily cumbersome.

The real winner of course are tablet/laptop hybrids like the Surface Pro or Venue 8 pro and their ilks, because you can easily adapt that class of machines for both functions.
 
This from someone, who's family's computing requirements are so weak they can get by with an iPad.
Let me guess, email and facebook?

tablet-owner-meme-generator-tablet-does-all-the-important-things-i-do-facebook-netflix-web-my-laptop-is-useless-068f0a.jpg
 
I have an iPad 4th gen. I use it anywhere a laptop is not a good fit, like on my small nightstand. I'll also keep it close when I have something else going on where I don't want a full computer to be a distraction, like if I'm watching a movie on my TV, the iPad is a nice IMDB lookup or heck, wikipedia the ending. But the limitations over a laptop make it a 'better' device there because I'm not tempted to fire up 20 things and forget the movie is playing.

My toddler has an iPad Mini and if you try to take it from her she will attack you.
 
I use my tablet for taking videos at concerts in portrait mode which I'll never watch again.
 
My toddler has an iPad Mini and if you try to take it from her she will attack you.

There is a generational aspect to this. Kids are surrounded by gadgets everywhere now, unlike old farts like me. Phones and tablets are just a natural part of their environment and they aren't constantly debating the efficacy of tablets versus laptops, they just use them.

For all of the conniptions over Windows 8 and the desktop I've been amazed at how easy kids that no nothing of the Start Menu or desktop just pick up a Windows 8 tablet and go. I let some of the in-laws kids use my Surface Pro 3 over Thanksgiving. None of them bothered with the Type Cover but one of them did want to draw with the pen.
 
anyone here would not take the ipad seriously, and that is not what it is for.

it is for kids. every kid in a family have either an ipad or a ipad mini. each kid has one.
if the kids want it, parents would buy it.

it is also for seniors since ipad is easy to use. disabled kids also use it due to its easy of use.

it is not for me of course. but I had to buy it for my kids.
 
First and foremost, I'm not an Apple fan by far, but I have an iPad 2 still on iOS 5 from 2011 (was given to me by work). I'd never spend my money on an Apple device (I prefer android's customizablity), but hey, you can't argue with free.

That being said, I find it useful for reading email/webpages, etc. while sitting on the couch. All tablets suck for modifying, typing, and creating content - Apple isn't alone there. It's screen is larger than my phone (Nexus 5). All tablets are basically glorified web browsers and email clients.
 
Lol.. tablet hate from a bunch of people who love desktop/gaming PC's. Tablets (specifically iPad's) have replaced laptops and desktops for nearly all my immediate family and significant others, outside of myself.

Then they probably didn't need a much of a computer. I like my phone. I even like a tablet, but there's no way I could live with just a tablet. OTOH, I can live with just a phone and a desktop. Hell, I can make due with a desktop and a flip phone....it's not ideal, but it's doable.

Tablets just aren't productive for too many tasks. OTOH, I've seen some amazing photo Apps for the iPad, so I'm not counting them out. I may get one...I may get an Android device or I may go MS. It'll take some research. I'll get on it in a month or so, though if it's a Win device, I'd probably wait till 10 comes out.
 
Main stream tablets have simply become a cheap commodity with now both Android and Windows in that space. And Apple's not going there.

Exactly. Apple has never been able to compete when it comes to price.

With their current record profits, they could have sold iPhones for half the price and still made a ton of money.
Guess the ibots love to be ripped off and over pay for their magical devices.
 
^This. My iphone 3GS slowly had more and more apps that didn't work because of hardware requirements that the phone didn't have, and I learned too late not to 'update' the apps because the older versions simply weren't available ANYWHERE anymore. So I had a phone with a bunch of useless, non working apps, all because there was no notice that they were incompatible with older devices. 256 mg of memory simply isn't enough for the new iOS and the 'new and improved' app versions. For the most part, all the old ones worked fine, and the updates were of the it ain't broken so why fix it routine.

You may be able to get fixes for these issues if you have a developer account or let someone put you on their dev account. I know for a music streaming client the dev no longer supports it, but someone provided an iOS8 solution and he submitted it to Apple....but if he hadn't, we could have gotten it from various people with dev accounts, but you've gotta trust that the're not doing anything malevolent.

Still, downgrading is best. I'm not sure why they don't allow it.
 
They're far from pointless and will sell in the hundreds of millions of units and should surface desktops and laptops combined this year. Apple faces the problem of mainstream consumption tablets becoming a cheap commodity that doesn't get the kind carrier subsidizing like the iPhone and other higher end phones.

This is true, but at least some carriers will finance them at cost (as I recall), so it's affectively the same thing. Assuming it's still true, the reason they don't make money is because Apple doesn't allow them to raise the price.

I don't know where it's going, but I think there's still some surprises in the tablet market. And maybe those changes are more specialized. I don't htink that's a bad thing.
 
Exactly. Apple has never been able to compete when it comes to price.

With their current record profits, they could have sold iPhones for half the price and still made a ton of money.
Guess the ibots love to be ripped off and over pay for their magical devices.

It's probably more that Apple has never had to compete on price. Honestly, that's where you want to be. Sell units with high margins. The only question is will they repeat the past and everyone switches to lower margin devices that are good enough or perhaps even just as good.

I have to say one of these days I'm going to try apple PCs and tablets, just to see if I like them. I'm skeptical on the PCs, because the UI change tend to annoy me (as do the mice, though ithink I could move my logitech mice to the mac too.
 
I don't know where it's going, but I think there's still some surprises in the tablet market. And maybe those changes are more specialized. I don't htink that's a bad thing.

I think the next move for mobile OS devices is productivity. Cheap consumption devices will rule the market share there but there is that niche market that will pay good money for the right device. Who would have thought that Microsoft would be able to make a go of it with tablets hitting the $1k mark? Indeed if they had just left Surface RT out the equation the Surface Pro line by itself would be very close to being in the black right now.
 
Except the Surface Pro line is a hybrid native tablet form factor, not a laptop. I'd never recommend the Surface Pro 3 to anyone that didn't plan on using it some significant percentage of the time as a tablet.

Then you're back to the question whether tablets are worth it.
 
The problem with tablets is that for portable use, they tend not to have data plans, so mobile phones are better 'content' on the go devices because of their size. So, Wi-Fi only usually and their size make them home bound.

Productivity-wise things aren't much better.

Input isn't any better. Touch screen keyboards suck no matter what size they are. On a phone they're small and hard to use. Someone may have expectations, 'scaled up input should be easy now' You find out they still suck. The fact you have to hold/prop the tablet with one hand while you hunt and jab one finger at the screen with the other hand as it moves around on a larger piece of real estate is slow. And if you do make a typo you have to repeat the laborious task all over again if auto correct doesn't have your back, like in a login.

The screen is bigger but if the app doesn't scale up everything including text like I've seen android not do, it isn't any easier on the eyes.

So you're left with content consumption at home as the primary role and phones getting ever large eat into that utility. You certainly don't need to update what you have for that either
 
Hey, it's great for flights, vacations and the occassional lightgaming in bed sessions on the weekends. A laptop is just unwiedly under most similar situations and playing on the phone is just not as fun (unless you install a 3DS emulator and has a gamepad for it and...basically has a 3DS by anything but name, that is.)
 
I still have my iPad2 after all these years, which is longer than any computer in my home now.

My favorite use is for chatting on my sports message board during a Titans game. I can sit on my couch and type away, and the battery life is long enough to last the whole time.

My wife watches more TV and movies on the iPad than she does on our TVs. And the whole family still plays a number of games on that platform as well.

When I first bought it, I didn't know if it would be useful or not, but it is one of the best purchases I have made. However, I have no idea if I will ever upgrade to a newer one.
 
The iPad has the great advantage of convenience for consumers of media. Reading magazines, websites, casual browsing, it's all there. Content creation is another matter.
 
The problem with tablets is that for portable use, they tend not to have data plans, so mobile phones are better 'content' on the go devices because of their size. So, Wi-Fi only usually and their size make them home bound.

An iPad with a cellular radio and 128GB of storage is less than a 16GB iPhone 6+ with 16GB. So if you want data, it's available. Yes you're paying full price, but you're paying for the phone too. You're just doing it over 24 payments. At this point, It hink most providers offer installment plans on tablets.

Productivity-wise things aren't much better.
Input isn't any better. Touch screen keyboards suck no matter what size they are. On a phone they're small and hard to use. Someone may have expectations, 'scaled up input

I agree on this point. I certainly can't type as fast on a tablet as on keyboard, but I'm not sure if that will hold for future generations. I grew up with a qwerty keyboard and I've been using it in college and work for decades, but I bet kids can type much faster than I can.

And if you do make a typo you have to repeat the laborious task all over again if auto correct doesn't have your back, like in a login.
This is true, but generally I think people remain logged in on these devices. You can also use something like keepass for logging in. Pay versions of password DBs may be better than the free app that's keepass compatible. I only use it on my phone for apps that I want max security on.

The screen is bigger but if the app doesn't scale up everything including text like I've seen android not do, it isn't any easier on the eyes.

So you're left with content consumption at home as the primary role and phones getting ever large eat into that utility. You certainly don't need to update what you have for that either

I'd be interested to hear what people who use the iPad (both mini and Air) say. I know that everything I've read says that Apple's Macs handle high DPI better than Windows 7/8, and I would think that they've done the same on the tablets, but I don't own one.
 
For those that use the pen on the Surface Pro 3 the tablet form factor is worth it.

Is that mostly for photoshop/illustrator type stuff? I could definitely see how that'd be useful. To be honest, I think that'd be useful for any monitor that could lay flat on a desk. A mouse really isn't the best way to do that type of stuff and I'd think even a Wacom is less ergonomic than doing it directly on the screen. I use lightroom and some photoshop, but I don't use a Wacom. I'd be more inclined if they had 27" monitors that sat flat on the desk.
 
Most of everything I do is done on a desktop, unless I wanna lay down then it's a laptop. My HTPC holds all my media and streams it to any device including live TV, using MediaPortal. My cell phone is what i use when I'm not home, cause I don't feel like carrying a laptop or tablet with me.

The tablet? Gave that to my mom to play games and music. I think people try to hard to fit tablets into their life. I couldn't see myself using it comfortably. How do you hold a tablet up comfortably? You don't. You get a stand and make it into a wannabe laptop. Or use one hand to see how long until your hand gets tired of holding it.

I don't poop at my Desktop. Yet :)
 
There is a generational aspect to this. Kids are surrounded by gadgets everywhere now, unlike old farts like me. Phones and tablets are just a natural part of their environment and they aren't constantly debating the efficacy of tablets versus laptops, they just use them.

For all of the conniptions over Windows 8 and the desktop I've been amazed at how easy kids that no nothing of the Start Menu or desktop just pick up a Windows 8 tablet and go. I let some of the in-laws kids use my Surface Pro 3 over Thanksgiving. None of them bothered with the Type Cover but one of them did want to draw with the pen.
I've bought a couple of tablets, but as gifts to nieces and nephews. And cause I know a lot of installing custom roms on Android, I get ultra Chinese cheap tablets. Do they love these devices? Yes, they will bite your arm off if you take it away from them. But the reason I get them that instead of a laptop is because they're cheap. Like $75 AllWinner tablet with 10inch screen and Android 4.4 1GB Ram, 8GB storage. But unfortunately for Google no credit card info ever enters devices, cause these kids would buy up everything they see. And they quickly fill the device with every game they find on the app store.

But these are 5-7 year old kids. I know 12 year olds that want gaming laptops to play World of Warcraft and Minecraft. They need to be able to print and do school work. They're not using a Surface Pro 3. They're getting a regular plain old laptop.
I still have my iPad2 after all these years, which is longer than any computer in my home now.
I tend to give away old computers to family members, and collect parts of computers that were considered dead. My old Asus A7N8X Deluxe system was given to my Aunt. She had recently bought a AMD A6 laptop for herself and gave me back my 2002 computer. I took it apart and cleaned it up, like literally washed the motherboard with water. Threw in a new battery for the motherboard, cause it was bellow 1v. Installed Ubuntu 14.04 and the thing is up and running again with it's Radeon 9500 modded into a 9700 Pro.

I also have another computer with a Athlon XP 2100 with only two USB ports, no sound, no Ethernet adapter. But compared to a tablet that's two more USB ports than most tablets get. But that machine was made in 1999. Still works. Got a Pentium 4 from 2006 that still works. Dell XPS laptop from 2006 that still works. A Clevo 5600p from 2002 that still works. All running Mint or Ubuntu cause Windows XP is just no good.
 
For those that use the pen on the Surface Pro 3 the tablet form factor is worth it.

Or if you fingerpaint. Unless you're doing art, how is a pen any different form a finger for productivity? And if you're doing art, It may be important to you, but to the majority, its niche.
 
how is a pen any different form a finger for productivity? .


Ask that to the 65 doctors at my last IT position. All were issued surface 2-3 pro's.

Some asked for ipads, those were returned when pinch to zoom didn't work as well as they expected within the Electronic Health Records software.

The only downside to the Surface that was a general conclusion is that due to most of their eye sight they could not see native resolution. So we had to give them 1280x720 which still looks great on a Pro 3

They all used their Surface pen.


Think outside of your box and you will start to understand that just because it doesn't work in your mind/world, doesn't mean it wont be fantastic in someone else s.
 
I recently got an iPad Mini 2 from T-Mo, just to see if I'd like it. I do... for my limited uses which are media consumption and general internet. I certainly can't foresee myself doing any serious writing work on it. I could get by just fine without this iPad, but since it's only costing me $20/month over the next 21 months, I'm probably going to keep it.

So you're paying "only" $420 dollars for a device that goes for $299 new, $199 used.

You may want to re-think that.
 
But these are 5-7 year old kids. I know 12 year olds that want gaming laptops to play World of Warcraft and Minecraft. They need to be able to print and do school work. They're not using a Surface Pro 3. They're getting a regular plain old laptop.

I think the average 12 year old would be pretty happy with a Surface Pro 3.
 
Considering a Surface Pro 3 i3 can be had for nearly the price of an iPad but it's much better at preparing students for the real corporate world that's Windows dominant, is significantly more future proof as it can be used up to university level and beyond and paperless pen note taking/syncing ability saves time and money for both student and school. Los Angeles and other school districts already realized that and dumped iPads in the trash in favor of Windows hybrids.
 
Is that mostly for photoshop/illustrator type stuff? I could definitely see how that'd be useful. To be honest, I think that'd be useful for any monitor that could lay flat on a desk. A mouse really isn't the best way to do that type of stuff and I'd think even a Wacom is less ergonomic than doing it directly on the screen. I use lightroom and some photoshop, but I don't use a Wacom. I'd be more inclined if they had 27" monitors that sat flat on the desk.

Or if you fingerpaint. Unless you're doing art, how is a pen any different form a finger for productivity? And if you're doing art, It may be important to you, but to the majority, its niche.

I'm not a digital artitist but do a lot of handwriting, note taking, sketching out ideas, annotating documents.

Keyboards, mice and track pads, touch and pens are all different ways to interact with a computing device and aren't mutually exclusive. Pen input simply allows for a way to do things that aren't easy or possible with the other input methods. Most may never have need for a pen but when dealing with art, math, science or freeform input it's a powerful tool.
 
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