Slashdot Mirror
iPad Fever Is Officially Cooling
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Christina Bonnington reports that the public is not gobbling up iPads like they used to. Analysts had projected iPad sales would reach 19.7 million but Apple sold 16.35 million iPads, a drop of roughly 16.4 percent since last year. 'For many, the iPad they have is good enough–unlike a phone, with significant new features like Touch ID, or a better camera, the iPad's improvements over the past few years have been more subtle,' writes Bonnington. 'The latest iterations feature a better Retina display, a slimmer design, and faster processing. Improvements, yes, but enough to justify a near thousand dollar purchase? Others seem to be finding that their smartphone can do the job that their tablet used to do just as well, especially on those larger screened phablets.'
While the continued success of the iPad may be up in the air, another formerly popular member of Apple's product line is definitely on its way to the grave. The iPod, once Apple's crown jewel, posted a sales drop of 51 percent since last year. Only 2.76 million units were sold, a far cry from its heyday of almost 23 million back in 2008. 'Apple's past growth has been driven mostly by entering entirely new product categories, like it did when it introduced the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010,' says Andrew Cunningham. 'The most persistent rumors involve TV (whether a new Apple TV set-top box or an entire television set) and wearable computing devices (the perennially imminent "iWatch"), but calls for larger and cheaper iPhones also continue.'"
While the continued success of the iPad may be up in the air, another formerly popular member of Apple's product line is definitely on its way to the grave. The iPod, once Apple's crown jewel, posted a sales drop of 51 percent since last year. Only 2.76 million units were sold, a far cry from its heyday of almost 23 million back in 2008. 'Apple's past growth has been driven mostly by entering entirely new product categories, like it did when it introduced the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010,' says Andrew Cunningham. 'The most persistent rumors involve TV (whether a new Apple TV set-top box or an entire television set) and wearable computing devices (the perennially imminent "iWatch"), but calls for larger and cheaper iPhones also continue.'"
Larger pocket assistants that just so happen to have cell phone capabilities.
load "linux",8,1
I think he was talking about the non-removable battery and performance-crippling OS updates.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Calling a modern mobile device a "cell phone" is like calling your car "a horse".
I suspect that attrition is markedly higher on phones, given how much more time they spend being incautiously handled while out and about, that has to help. The cell-contract-upgrade churn probably doesn't hurt either.
That's a bit harsh. There are still nice games out there that are free (with or without ads) or cost a modest sum up front, with no in app purchases except perhaps a level pack. I'm fine with that. And as a (hobby-ish) developer, I know how hard it used to be to sell apps world wide and collect money for it. Today, anyone in the world can buy my app with a few clicks, and Apple dutifully dumps money into my bank account at the end of every month.
I wouldn't call the app concept failed, in fact I think it's a huge success. The one thing missing from the app store in my opinion is a refund feature. You should be able to try out an app for a day at no charge,
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Hmm. iPad sales:
Q2 2014 - 16.35 million.
Q2 2013 - 19.5 million.
Yes, that's a drop in sales.
But, it's after the following:
Q1 2014 (includes holiday shopping) - 26.0 million.
That's the all-time high sales volume for iPads in a quarter. 2nd best is Q1 2013 at 22.9, significantly less.
In my mind, the way to interpret these recent iPad sales numbers is that there was a huge buying spree for the holidays that somewhat satiated demand. (Only somewhat - Q2 2014 is still the 4th best quarter for sales.) These numbers don't suggest to me that the "fever is officially cooling." Maybe it is, but more than just one quarter of numbers is needed to show that.
Oh, I have no interest in defending Apple's status as good value for money(sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't, if your desires don't match their preferred configurations, they are very unlikely to be). Aside from that being a tedious argument (and my being one of the people who Apple isn't interested in serving), it's orthogonal to my intended observation:
In the PC hardware market, and now in the 'app store', it is very easy to buy less product than you actually need/want, especially if you don't have a clear idea of what that is, or you want something that happens to be early on the chopping block when it's cost-cutting time. This makes people who aren't clear on what they want, or who suffer from excessive time discounting and fall for low introductory pricing (see also, 'No money down!' and 'free with 2 year contract!'), unhappy. If it gets especially severe, even people who are clear on what they want can suffer, because the features they want suffer a vicious cycle of reduced marketshare, increased prices because of lower economies of scale, and further reduced marketshare (seen many 16:10 monitors recently?).
It's interesting to see this happen in Apple's precious little 'App Store', since they have very tight control over its terms(they could, say, have refused to add in-app purchases) and only jailbroken devices and developers can even execute software they don't approve, so there are no commercially relevant 3rd party channels. Even in the face of substantial pressure, they've always been aggressively against it in hardware, and yet they sit and watch it happen under their very noses in their own walled garden on the software side.
It's also somewhat interesting in comparison with their handling of books, music, and video. Set up an illegal cartel with all major book publishers in order to fix a higher sale price; but voluntarily set the minimum price for software at free or 99 cents, rather than higher? It's a curious difference.
Holy hell, how did you get a "+5, Insightful" for getting it exactly backwards? Apple's strength is doing things WELL, not doing things FIRST.
1998 - iMac - first all-in-one? No.
2001 - iPod - first digital music player? No.
2003 - iTunes Store - first place to buy digital content online? No.
2007 - iPhone - first touchscreen smartphone? No.
2010 - iPad - first tablet computer? No.
> Apple's entire business is based on breaking new
> ground with an innovative new product
Their innovation is making you say "wow, a cool tech product that isn't a giant piece of shit! This is what I wanted when people first started talking about _______!" They do this by innovating key refinements, usually with the goal of "ease of use."*
And given that there are plenty of shitty, underserved markets out there, I think they'll continue to do OK.
* I.e., they didn't make the iPhone with a capacitive touchscreen and hardware-accelerated GUI just because those specs look cool when listed on the side of the box -- they did it because it made the (properly-designed) interface extremely responsive, natural, realistic, and therefore easy to use.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.