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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.
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Cook cited one reason for the decline: He said that last year the company started the second quarter with a backlog of iPad mini orders; fulfilling those goosed the quarter's sales. This year, he said, the company has been able to keep supply and demand in better balance.
http://www.macworld.com/articl...
Overall sales were excellent though.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
So why would I want to use a new one yet? Apple has set a new standard in lifespan & reliability.
Apps are becoming progressively worse, not better, over time. In the early days there were a lot of cool apps written by people who just wanted to write cool apps for a cool new tool.
Now with the preverse incentives of the app market, the app store is saturated by apps trying to squeeze a maximum amount of money for a dwindling amount of useful application.
In app purchases, in particular, are well on their way to completely destroying gaming at all levels.
Every free app you download any more is ususally worthless until you shell out significant amounts of money in IAP to make it usable, and then its still usually still not good
I'm all for paying software and content developers for their efforts but the methodologies for achieving this in app stores and on the Internet in general has completely failed.
Increasingly the only thing I use my tablets for is an ereader. They excel at that, but for just about everything else the app comcept has failed.
@de_machina
Once technology becomes "good enough" for a substantial chunk of the market and a substantial chunk of the market already owns such a "good enough" device, people are no longer so eager to spend globs of cash on incrementally better devices. The threshold for "good enough" is now starting to move down the price point ladder so interest in premium-priced models will likely fade in the near-future - it becomes difficult to justify spending over $500 on a tablet when you can get most of the same features on $150-250 models.
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.
I'd so wish to see the tank of my car filled up after leaving it parked all day in the field.
I'd so wish to see the tank of my car filled up after leaving it parked all day in the field.
I'd settle for being able to shoot it and eat it if it gave me trouble.
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.
Agreed. I have an iPad and an Android smartphone, and I am thinking of dumping the smartphone for the dumbest of dumb phones, which can only make phone calls and send SMS - and only needs to be charged once a week
As we know, it never succeeded, but this was the design with the BlackBerry PlayBook. The PlayBook tablet was wirelessly 'twinned' with a much smaller phone. It was pretty cool when it was all working.
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.
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