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The iPad Is 5 Years Old This Week, But You Still Don't Need One
HughPickens.com writes: Five years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad and insisted that it would do many things better than either a laptop or a smartphone. Will Oremus writes at Future Tense that by most standards, the iPad has been a success, and the tablet has indeed emerged as a third category of computing device. But there's another way of looking at the iPad. According to Oremus, Jobs was right to leave out the productivity features and go big on the simple tactile pleasure of holding the Internet in your hands.
But for all its popularity and appeal, the iPad never has quite cleared the bar Jobs set for it, which was to be "far better" at some key tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. The iPad may have been "far better" when it was first released, but smartphones have come a long way. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and their Android equivalents are now convenient enough for most mobile computing tasks that there's no need to carry around a tablet as well. That helps explain why iPad sales have plateaued, rather than continuing to ascend to the stratospheric levels of the iPhone. "The iPad remains an impressive machine. But it also remains a luxury item rather than a necessity," concludes Oremus. "Again, by most standards, it is a major success. Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
But for all its popularity and appeal, the iPad never has quite cleared the bar Jobs set for it, which was to be "far better" at some key tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. The iPad may have been "far better" when it was first released, but smartphones have come a long way. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and their Android equivalents are now convenient enough for most mobile computing tasks that there's no need to carry around a tablet as well. That helps explain why iPad sales have plateaued, rather than continuing to ascend to the stratospheric levels of the iPhone. "The iPad remains an impressive machine. But it also remains a luxury item rather than a necessity," concludes Oremus. "Again, by most standards, it is a major success. Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
Playing Angry Birds is much nicer on a larger screen, and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen. With tablets being cheaper than smart phones, it is often a no brainer to just have one also.
Because I want to watch videos, view maps, view pictures, read stories, etc. on an itty bitty screen.
Tablets are perfect for quick, portable interaction with the internet...email, web, apps like weather, video, etc.
Phones work, too, but only in a pinch.
Tablets aren't to big. They aren't too small. They are juuust right.
"Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
Jobs is dead, and Apple just announced the highest profit for a quarter for any company ever.
They're crying all the way to the bank. =p
The portability is nice in the working environment in many situations. Running around 'the factory floor' with a laptop is too clumsy, and fab phones are still to small to view complicated interfaces. I'd like to see kiosks in more coffee shops and fast food places utilize tablets. Also when an intruder breaks into my home I find slugging them with a tablet would be far more effective than hurling a phone at them. I've used it as a snow shovel as well, imagine shoveling snow with a laptop or phone!
How come an iPad is a luxury, but a $700 smart phone isn't?
I make perfectly fine phone calls on my old RAZR 3
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people replace phones every two years. you can keep an ipad at least twice as long. I have an ipad 2 i bought on launch day with a cracked screen that i plan to use for at least another two years if nothing else as a cheap ereader to carry tech books around.
i will probably buy a refurb ipad air 2 this year when the new version comes out and keep it another 4-5 years as well
A client in the construction/demolition industry tells me that tablets are popular with those guys.
-kgj
I happen to be one of the people who admires many of Jobs' business decisions and ideas. But he was also known to "overshoot" reality at times, with expectations that went beyond what was reasonable.
I think he was desperately looking for solutions for a "post PC" world, where people would give up traditional computers, in exchange for a superior device. (After all, in the sci-fi "Star Trek" universe, nobody was carrying around a laptop computer, right? The computer was just built in to the environment so you could speak commands to it.)
I really like my iPad, especially since I started taking the train to and from work each day in a 1 hour long commute. It's the ideal device to read the news on, check email, waste time on Facebook, play a casual game or two on, etc. But it's really just a convenience item in the modern world. It's never been anything much more than a big version of Apple's smartphone, without the cellular voice call features.
occupy was protesting.... well everything. there was no one thing that was the focus. You had groups wanting the government to wipe out all student loan debt. you had groups who wanted wall street people hung in the streets, and you had dirty hippies having a giant party.
I spent a number of days there, and frankly it was a disaster by any measure possible
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I myself had a few laptops. IBM thinkpad, that super thin light Dell of the mid 2000's, then I got an iPad. Instantly I was like, "no need for a laptop anymore," (I still had a desktop for power using and torrents) they're great. The iPad even got my mom into computers more than she ever was, internet shopping, email, imgur, etc. is all because of my first iPad. They're great devices, relatively affordable and pretty affordable on the used market. Enough people buy one every year and put them in cases that you can find super clean ones in great condition. I just think that iPads have done a lot more for kids and older parents and grandparents than any other computing device has done in the last 5 years.
Is that they don't become obsolete as fast? My mother still uses a iPad 2. I sold my iPad 4th generation to my wife's cousin, and she and I now both have an iPad Air 2. And to be honest, I just sold mine because I could, not because I needed to upgrade to the Air 2. I think the iPad 4th gen I sold will be OK for at least 2 more years. And it wouldn't surprise me if it will get an iOS 9 update. Moreover, it wouldn't surprise me if it will get an iOS 10 update as well.
Perl Programmer for hire
I have an Android tablet (which I'm using right now to enter this post) and an iPad. I've had both for years and I've done some development for them.
People DO use these things to be productive, but they are the exception rather than the norm. Part of the challenge is that even five years in our whole thinking about what an application should be has been shaped by thirty years of desktop and laptop devices. Anything that truly needs a keyboard (like writing this post) becomes cumbersome, even with something like Swype or SwiftKey. Pens suck, unless you're using a tablet with proper pen support (Note devices are great for this) but even then, most people don't currently need a pen.
It's not just the touch thing, though. It's really, really hard to build a good UI for a powerful app, even on a LARGE screen. To do so on a small screen without eliminating "power" features is almost impossible. And those power features are what people really need for productive work. They might only need 10% of them, but if the one they need is missing, that work has to wait until they can get to a larger device.
I don't think this is incurable, but it's hard to argue that writing a long essay on a 10" touch screen with no hardware keyboard is fun. I know people who use an 11" MacBook Air as their primary coding platform, but I know that I'm far more productive sitting at a desk with a properly-sized monitor and keyboard. (My MacBook Pro plugs in to those things if I have to use it for any extended period.)
Productivity is all about removing obstacles to task completion. From that perspective, tablets satisfy a very narrow slice of uses and fail miserably at the rest.
For non-productive tasks, though... I can sit on the couch and look up stuff while watching TV (for those few things I still watch on TV) and the tablet is far more portable for movie-watching, news reading, and light emailing than a laptop, without being as constricting as even the biggest phones are. I don't carry one everywhere but it's definitely one of the things I think of as I'm walking out the door. My kids love tablets (so I regulate their time on them) and being able to video chat with family is a slam dunk.
You don't NEED a tablet but they are useful. They make excellent primary computing devices for people who ONLY have light computing needs. My late 87-year-old grandmother-in-law couldn't use a computer all that well but she rocked on her iPad.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
I'd say many if not most people who have smartphones don't *need* them either. If you have a job that has you on the road constantly, working offsite, etc., then you may need one, but a dumbphone is perfectly sufficient for the average person. We've let companies with slick marketing campaigns convince us that we need a LOT of stuff we actually don't need.
I need my iPad. For me, it is excelling in a critical role that neither phones nor laptops can fill. As a performing musician, I post the iPad up on my mic stand, and the access to music and lyrics triples (or more) the range of songs I can play. Granted, my use case isn't the most common. But there are actually tons of musical performers, and IME they're increasingly turning to tablets to replace sheet music and chord charts.
Nothing posted to
Indeed.
Steve Jobs didn't envision in a "Post PC" world that the PC would be dead - he noted there will always be a PC, just that they would do things more suited to a PC than trying to clunkily adapt when forced into situations they were not designed for.
You have a smartphone, you have a tablet, and you have the PC. The deal is that each does stuff better than the others. What we used to do clumsily on PCs we did better with tablets and smartphones.
I mean, people like to watch TV away from the TV - pre-iPad, that meant having to watch on a laptop or a phone. The phone was too small, the laptop too big and heavy and uncomfortable.
Or read a book - you could use a Kindle which works, except when you need color Read it on your phone or laptop is not very appealing.
There is not one device that's perfect for all tasks. There are things a smartphone will do better than either a tablet or laptop. There are things a tablet will do better than a smartphone or laptop. And there are plenty of things a laptop will do better than a tablet or smartphone. Sure you can substitute one for the other, but the end result is often sub-par.
Jobs even did the mandatory car analogy - the PC is a truck - a very versatile vehicle that can do tons of things, but to be honest, there are times when a car is far better. And it's why we have a variety of vehicles out on the roads - each has their own place. Sure they could all be replaced with trucks, but the truck can be quite subpar in some respects over a car. Doesn't mean in a "post-truck" world you get rid of all trucks - no, that's stupid. It just means you now have vehicles more suited to different activities.
My wife loves her iPad. She doesn't get on her laptop now unless she needs Firefox to access her work's website. For everything else, she uses the iPad. Shopping, watching movies, trip planning, and so on.
My parents can only use their iPads because they've never use a computer in their life. My mother will try to pinch and zoom on my computer monitor to make pictures bigger.
Do they need the latest iPad every time Apple comes out with a new one? Hell no. My father is perfectly happy on his iPad 3, he gets his news, Netflix, and DirecTV app. My mother is happy on her iPad 4 because she can watch Youtube, music, and looking up new recipes. My wife is fine with her iPad Air, and she's not getting a new one because I just bought that last year.
Only person without an iPad is me. I have no need for them, I get things done on my laptop or desktop. I don't need trimmed down apps, I do need full applications and a real keyboard.