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."

Comments

I prefer a tablet for some things to a smart phone

[cruff]

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.

Juuust Right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I prefer a tablet for some things to a smart ph

[BreakBad]

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!

iPad is a luxury?

[OzPeter]

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

Re:And it's ok to admit Jobs was wrong, too....

[smash]

For many casual computer users, the iPad is enough - they do not need a computer. It does video calls, it does email, it does internet banking. With home kit, it will be able to control things in your house. It can do minor photo cropping and effects, basic shopping lists, inventory, and with a keyboard be used for basic documents.

For many people (Not tech nerds), this is all they want a personal computer for. Thus, the iPad (or any other tablet type device) can replace it. A smartphone is simply too small to be convenient for a lot of those things.

The flip-side to the things it can not do is the lack of malware, great battery life and silent operation.