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Report Claims Microsoft Beat Apple in Online Tablet Sales for October (winbeta.org)
Eloking writes: Apple's iPad tablet ushered in the modern tablet era when it was introduced in 2010, and it's dominated tablet sales ever since. iPad sales have stagnated recently, but nevertheless Apple has maintained its lead in overall tablet market share. WinBeta received an early version of an upcoming report, '1010data Facts for Ecom Insights, January 2014 – October 2015' by the 101data Ecom Insights Panel, however, that indicates all of that might be changing as Microsoft assumes the mantle of best-selling tablet maker in terms of online sales in October.
At one point, everyone who wanted an iPad and is able to afford one will already have done so. After that, these people will only buy a new one to upgrade once in a while.
Of course on slashdot it is a failure and no one is buying them. But in the real world they ate the number 2 generator of revenue for Microsoft and can run office and be managed via active directory for IT departments making them popular. The screen is Apple quality hardware
http://saveie6.com/
"In terms of online sales [in the month of October]" hardly is MS beating Apple, even if true.
Also, MS has a totally fresh tablet lineup. Most products have an uptick of sales when they refresh their lines.
Oh, also, did I mention it's an early version of the report?
A lot of reading between the lines here.
I recall reading about when Pepsi overtook Coke. Everyone rejoiced. However, in actual fact, Coke still outsold Pepsi by a wide margin; the overtaking was in grocery store sales which they had managed to do by making the six-pack into an 8-pack for the same price and then measuring by total volume.
And here we have a report that says MS outsold Apple in *online sales*. Hmmm. I suspect that Apple sells the majority, if not the vast majority, of their sales through retail chains. So when I read:
"The report did not take in account customers who purchased their tablets in brick-and-mortar stores, such as Apple’s retail stores or Best Buy."
Then basically I think this is even less of a mini-victory than Fortune posits. Pepsi anyone?
Simple explanation for increase Surface sales is that most IT departments are forcing them to users instead of a traditional Windows laptop. Most users don't care for them (over traditional laptop) but most also have no choice. These are typically shops who have no iPad deployed and feel the Surface means they are have addressed their mobile transition. These are also shops who have typically avoided iPhones also. So Surface sales cannibalizing Lenovo and HP laptop sales sure. Surface taking iPad share, not really. The iPad drives consumer tablet sales and those of more mature/larger enterprises who have deployed iOS devices for years as their standard solution.
I have a Surface pro... and I can not get myself to buy another. The huge problems with the Surface pro and how microsoft has told me "sucks to be you, reinstall the OS" means I have zero interest in walking down their road again. Not as long as they use low grade dog food chips like Marvell for their wireless networking.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The summary says "online sales" which means that we are probably NOT talking about "shipped" rather than "sold" numbers. However, these are numbers for October, which is all before the new iPads shipped (including the iPad Pro) so we are probably seeing some depression of iPad sales that will catch up in the November numbers (or not: if MS can maintain these sales numbers in November and December, then this would be quite interesting).
just a ghost in the machine.
that doesn't say much about tablet sales. I haven't seen a tablet in the hands of a human in months.
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that.
Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question. Yes, larger phones are intruding on the form factor, but more importantly the general tablet hype has faded away and people have realized that a tablet is not a replacement for a laptop. Vendors love tablets because they're essentially a reset button for software ecosystems: where they couldn't have a walled garden before, now they can.
Touch is a regression in human interface design, and deep down every engineer knows it. To correct that, now we have tablets with keyboards and/or stylii. Jobs swore both of those things would never happen. But I think the reason why iOS gained cut+paste so late was because the only workable soluitons weren't as elegant as he wanted, and he was forced to relent and give the users a necessarily shitty workflow.
Tablets occupy a very narrow market segment that, outside of vertical solutions for business, was doomed from the beginning. Either they'll get replaced by phablets or they'll evolve into netbooks.
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that.
Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question.
Tablets aren't dying. Tablet sales are falling off because the people willing to buy one now have one. Tablets will stick around for the foreseeable future.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Rerun of the movie first shown in 1977 can be seen at 11.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Pretty much all devices can do everything. The question is really how good can one device be at one thing. Tablets are good for reading and that's pretty much it. I mostly use mine to read scientific article and annotate them. This is my killer usage of tablet. And I got the one with the most usable "pencil" in the market at the time. Samsung's note tablets were are the best at the time.
I haven't tried Apple's version. But MS shot at it with the surface pro was a pretty good shot at it I found.
I'd say that today, the best tablet with pencil is probably Microsoft's. Many usable "tablet style" software and once you plug their keyboard on it; it is also a reasonable replacement for a laptop.
I am not surprised they are gaining market shares. They made the laptop/tablet hybrid many people wanted.
The Microsoft Surface is the official tablet of the NFL. You can see it used by officials and coaches in every televised game.... Yet the announcers don't know any better and call them "iPads".
Most people don't buy a new TV every 2-3 years yet .
http://www.apple.com/shop/prod...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Online sales are direct to consumer. There's no warehouse middleman artificially inflating the numbers.
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that. Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question.
Tablets aren't dying. Tablet sales are falling off because the people willing to buy one now have one. Tablets will stick around for the foreseeable future.
It's 1995 all over again. Apple target home users, who have a taste for new shiney and lead the sales curve, but don't have the appetite to continually upgrade or replace. Microsft target business users who are slower off the mark, but throw a lot more money around and do it on a regular cycle, for a lot longer periods.
I'm not saying that's not happening, but what I am observing is that businesses are jumping on the Surface bandwagon. And Business buy in bulk, and do it on a regular cycle. Apple really dropped the ball by not tagetting business users.
I also notice at the airport security check, more and more other people are pulling out Surface Pros, so I believe they are making ground.
I recall when the Macbook went Intel and everyone wanted one. We did evaluations at the time fro our next fleet replacement but Apple just wouldn't come to the party with any kind of enterprise support. So they lost our business, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones. That was about 7 or 8 years ago and from what I've seen they haven't changed their stance since. So they sat by and let MS eat their lunch.
I just picked up a Surface Book in store recently after calling for about 2 weeks before they had any stock available, so I think they've had reasonably good sales or at least they don't have stock piling up in a warehouse somewhere. Of course that could also mean they didn't make enough units to keep up with the demand, so it's hard to say.
Personally, I tend to lean towards the sales actually being good. Microsoft has finally managed to design a compelling product and get people interested in it. Beyond general market interest, I suspect that there have been a lot of Microsoft/Windows fans who have been waiting for this kind of moment and so they're getting a sales bump from that as well.
I'll admit I jumped in mostly out of tech lust. The idea of a larger format tablet was interesting, but I already have an iPad so I wasn't keen on getting a Pro. The notebook/tablet hybrid concept was also a bit of a draw as I've never liked the cover style keyboards for tablets. It's by no means a perfect device and there is plenty of room for refinement, but Microsoft has done a good job executing for a change, so I'm hardly surprised that they're seeing some success as a result. Nadella is proving to be a good CEO for the company.
MS surface is a hot seller. Slashdotter remember 2012 with the 1st genration tablets with an ARM chip.
Today the low end uses an ATOM and people are used to metro now. Yes Windows 8.1 is a joy to use on a touch screen. Not trolling but I speak as a user who loves the light portability and uses it for wiresharkING network connections at work.
All my coworkers have bought them after 1st mocking them. Seriously the screen and corporate integration are tops. I won't buy a regular laptop again as a result of the build quality and portability. Things are changing and MS now longer has them sitting in whare houses now since their hardware is their 2nd biggest revenue generator.
http://saveie6.com/
This is first-world "news".
We live in a first world country so what did you expect?
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that.
Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question.
Tablets aren't dying. Tablet sales are falling off because the people willing to buy one now have one. Tablets will stick around for the foreseeable future.
Agreed. Much like PC's / Laptops, Tablets (and smartphones) are starting to reach a mature, saturation point. A 3 year old model is still plenty useful. For some reason the tech industry feels that double digit growth is sustainable, and the only indication of success. That means if you sold 1 million units last year, you are a failure for selling 1.05 million this year, you need at least 1.1 million.
For real, genuine work, it's hard to beat a PC (any OS) with dual screens, and a keyboard and mouse. However a tablet is hard to beat to leave on the coffee table and open up for a quick web search, or to watch downloaded movies on a flight (though I usually download the movies on a PC). More and more when I travel I leave my laptop at home, and rely on my tablet.
A phone can run the same applications as the tablet, but on a more compact screen. Great to have always on you web access, mapping access, email access, mediocre camera, the ability to fireup Netflix for Chromecast, or even slightly more sophisticated apps, like having a graphing calculator on you at all times.
At one time there were "home computers". These were basically appliances. You inserted the cartridge or diskette for the program you wanted, turned it on, and you were ready to go. Android and iOS better recreate this experience for home users than full blown OS's (Windows, Desktop Linux like Ubuntu or RedHat, and even OS X). For grandma, you really are better off giving her an iPad than a Desktop, but at an office, not so much.
One month does not make a trend. If Microsoft can string multiple sequential months together, than this will be news. Until then, it only means that in this particular month, more Microsoft tablets were sold. Interesting, but nothing more than that.
Go somewhere you can compare the Apple pen to Samsung's pen. The Samsung one is far, far ahead in terms of latency and accuracy.
Did you mean the Microsoft stylus? Because everywhere I've read a review comparing the Apple Pencil to other current styluses, the Pencil was said to be far better... even over the Samsung.
I'll get the Pencil in a few days so I'll be able to see for myself, but everyone I've talked to who has used one said zero lag (latency) and pretty much perfect accuracy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For real, genuine work, it's hard to beat a PC (any OS) with dual screens, and a keyboard and mouse. However a tablet is hard to beat to leave on the coffee table and open up for a quick web search, or to watch downloaded movies on a flight (though I usually download the movies on a PC). More and more when I travel I leave my laptop at home, and rely on my tablet.
I bought a used TF201 and a new old stock keyboard dock on deep deep discount, it didn't want to charge for about half a day but since then it's played ball. Aside from the low low resolution, it's the best of both worlds. I can open a SPICE, VNC, or RDP session to someplace relevant and use it very much like a real computer. But it also has great battery life, weighs nothing, takes up no space worth mentioning, and has totally passive cooling.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Once bitten twice shy. Now a days most IT shops want to use only the set of Microsoft products that inter-operate with other systems, even if the walled garden built by Microsoft is quite good and cost effective.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I can open a SPICE, VNC, or RDP session to someplace relevant and use it very much like a real computer.
Eg: The real computers at the other end of the line are still important.
Why, are IT departments suddenly slush w/ cash? The Surfaces are several times more expensive than equivalent lesser brand laptops, including the likes of Dell and HP. And for most office uses, touch is irrelevant. Avoiding iPhones makes sense - there ain't much the iPhones bring to work environments - both Androids and Windows Phones make more sense.
But I agree that Surfaces ain't stealing any marketshare from Apple. Just like in the 90s, when PowerMac sales didn't make any dent on Wintel - all it did was cannibalize Motorola's 68k sales. Similarly, people are sometimes going for Surfaces b'cos the hybrid aspect is particularly handy on planes.
One thing about this though - the Surfaces - when capable of cellular connections on the go - currently accept only GSMs - Verizon or Sprint doesn't work w/ them. So people who are on either of the last 2 would gain nothing by getting a Surface
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that. Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question.
Tablets aren't dying. Tablet sales are falling off because the people willing to buy one now have one. Tablets will stick around for the foreseeable future.
Not just that, people sometimes get free or subsidized tablets from their cellular carrier - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile et al
And Microsoft will continue to dominate through the Christmas holiday. How do I know? I went into the Apple Store to buy an iPad Pro. ::Pulls out wallet:: "Please add a Pencil to the order." ::Puts wallet away:: ::Leaves store:: ::Typing this on my Surface Pro 4 and loving it!::
Sales person: "Yes sir! We have them in stock!"
Me:
Genius: "We'll ship a Pencil to you in 5-6 weeks"
Me:
(Sometime later)
Me:
Yeah, about lambasting things that its competitors are doing, there was a pretty crazy instance.
It was during the switch to Intel CPUs. They were selling for a while both their older Power PC based line and their new Intel inside line, so they had, at the same time on their website for several months, both pages dedicated to proving how much faster the Power PCs were compared to the Pentium, and another set of pages at a different part of the site showing how much FASTER the Pentium was compared to the Power PC. They were even using the same benchmarks sometimes (with some fudging about of course, like enabling/disabling AltiVec to suit the desired result etc).
It was so ridiculous, but it was even more ridiculous that nobody was really calling them on it. They claimed both sides of the coin with a straight face and it seems that most were drinking the kool-aid.
To top it off, at that time (before the Intel Core 2), it is most likely that AMD had the fastest CPU, so both campaigns were BS...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
People shouldn't have to use tools in new and imaginative ways. They should have tools that were made to do exactly what they want to do and use them. Those tools have mostly already been made.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
(and none of them are tablets)
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
..enter 'smart TVs'
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Surface devices have sold extremely well since the 2nd gen. As this are digital sales direct to consumer I would say precisely ZERO devices sold are sitting in a warehouse somewhere (unless someone working in a warehouse bought one).
Tablets are already dying off, the iPad sales plateau is proof of that.
Why tablets are dying is a more interesting question.
Tablets aren't dying. Tablet sales are falling off because the people willing to buy one now have one. Tablets will stick around for the foreseeable future.
Agreed. Much like PC's / Laptops.
But it seems like manufacturers didn't repeat the same "mistakes".
Desktop PCs are fully upgradable and repairable. A bit less for laptops but that's still better than most tablets. Additionally, the software and hardware are independent provided you have the right drivers. As a result, you only need to change your PC when your hardware really is outdated. Something that doesn't happen much nowadays. With tablets they do everything in their power to make you change it every two years : sealed batteries, discontinued software updates, locked system...
This. Plus, corporates often *lease* their computers so they get a hardware refresh every two years, service plans baked into the lease cost, etc etc. Leases wouldn't show up as sales. I'd be pretty astonished if you could point me to a Fortune 100 (hell, even a Fortune 500) that has standardized on Surface as their mobile computer of choice.
Absolutely - and, since this belief is never true because it would also require a double digit growth in personal disposable income, the tech industry is constantly under pressure to create new product categories of things people don't want, so that this new category can have a temporary growth spurt. 3D TV and smartwatches are two recent examples.
At one time there were "home computers". These were basically appliances. You inserted the cartridge or diskette for the program you wanted
Eh, not many people would agree with that characterization of "home computers" (in the sense that it was meant in the 1980s, which your mention of cartridges implies). Most people who owned a home computer in that era learned at least a little BASIC, and pretty much all of them learned at least some "command line" skills (even if the "command line" in question was using the BASIC interpreter in direct mode).
Smart TVs are this whole argument all over again. They UNIVERSALLY suck compared to using a third party set top box, or using a content thrower/receiver like Chromecast and having a real, non-adware-infested, regularly-updated app on your smartphone or tablet. A good TV is a dumb screen that shows nice pictures and makes nice sound. The market for good TVs is saturated and prices have been driven down because there's not much difference between a $300 TV and a $600 TV of the same nominal specs, so TV manufacturers are trying to slice off a wedge of the set-top-box profits by essentially integrating a (really, really shitty) set-top box into their TVs.
Mamas don't let your iPads grow up to be laptops...
Next year: Amazon confirms - Nobody buys Apple TVs or Google Chromecasts!
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
eh?
Android 6 tablets look like they will be awesome.
I think a lot of people are just holding off until we get something that isn't shit.
who'd of thought it.
You used "e.g." = exempli gratia = "for example".
I think you actually want "i.e." = id est = "that is".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It's not got so much to do with cash as it does have to do with the upper management at a corporation. I've seen this play out a LOT of times recently.
First, the CEO gets a Surface Pro because he thinks he needs it. No, his use case doesn't really support it, but the IT department buys it because the CEO says he wants it. The CIO, CFO and COO all see the CEO carrying a Surface Pro and then they decide they need one too because they want to be just like him. Granted in some cases they actually do use them (the COO is often one I see properly using a Surface Pro in a meeting... ironically it's rarely the CIO). Then the managers below them decide they want them and IT is forced to buy them and so on.
Now, the average user gets forced into a Surface Pro because IT wants to standardize. It makes deployment, repair and imaging a lot easier if you have lots and lots of the same computer. Updates pushed out to their users become simpler as well and so on... it's a trickle down effect but yes to the average user in a company it DOES tend to look like IT is forcing it because they want to.
On a side note, it's worth noting that IT departments aren't necessarily flush with cash but aren't really all that poor either. Yes, most consumer grade laptops are cheap, but a company with its head screwed on straight never bought these anyway. I've rarely seen corporations spend less than $1500 on a laptop for any users because they go with larger memory, faster CPUs (mostly because of all the security software they need to install to be compliant with the corporation), then they buy 3 or 5 years of support instead of the 1 year that your sub-$1K laptops come with. Consumer grade laptops do NOT last very long in the hands of salesmen for example... trust me I've seen plenty of examples of companies who end up spending more on their consumer-grade replacements over 3 years than they would've spent on a good business-grade laptop in the first place.
Surfaces are really well made and reliable. They are business-grade and are priced as such.
People shouldn't have to use tools in new and imaginative ways. They should have tools that were made to do exactly what they want to do and use them. Those tools have mostly already been made.
That would require omnipotence from every manufacturer in that they can design tools that everyone needs before anyone knows they need them. Sometimes the unexpected usage can lead to new tools and features. Take for example the common towel which jokingly is mentioned as being vital in The Hitchiker's Guide books. It has many other uses other than drying if you were in a survival situation.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But that's just it.... Manufacturers aren't even trying. They're all following Apple, and apple seems to want to remove as many 'impediments and distractions' to the user, but in doing so they end up focusing on only common uses... Macs are best for browsing and email. Windows was the last commercial OS that was successful being the ideal tool for all people IMHO. Some modern linux variants are getting pretty good. Some are even better than windows in some ways because customizing your system with your apps is usually a matter of one package manager command.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They're all following Apple, and apple seems to want to remove as many 'impediments and distractions' to the user, but in doing so they end up focusing on only common uses.
I see the main problem is that the UI is still somewhat limited. Touch does things that a keyboard and mouse cannot do well and vice versa. But at the moment, it is not precise enough for some work. Will using a pen help? In some aspects, yes and others no. Right now the approach seems to augment touch with voice. Direct neural controls may be the only way to get around the problem but I see that as more sci-fi.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Like skin tight jeans, beards and huge cover-half-your-face glasses, the iPads dominance in tablets will pass.
With it's atrocious interface and sky high price, the iPad is akin to the early days of paying for a bottle of water...
Let the real tablets take their place at the table: Google, Samsung and Microsoft
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
So, now we have some duelling Projections.
This report says that iPad Pro will sell more in the first 3 months than all of the Surface sales combined.
So now what?
Unless I'm mistaken, isn't the Surface more comparable to an actual computer (in that it's able to install actual Windows software), whereas the iPad is more comparable to an oversized smart phone (in that you're restricted only to software in the app store)?
Microsoft got a huge boost in October from the launch of the Surface Pro 4. Meanwhile, Apple fans looking for the next new thing had to wait until November for the iPad Pro launch. Expect the November numbers to show a big lead for Apple, even with the Surface 3 getting an assist from the Black Friday sale price, the first time any significant discount was offered on that tablet.
The real question is what things will look like going forward. Will the Surface line be sufficiently popular to take a noticeable bite out of Apple? And on the sheer volume side, will Amazon's $50 tablet (discounted to $35 for Black Friday) run up big sales numbers?
I don't think tablets will die. But they will become a niche product, just as desktop computers as we knew them are becoming. None of our current computing devices will be the One Thing any more. People will choose between desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, and wearables depending on need and budget. At some future time we might see a One Thing again - perhaps a voice plus air-keyboard controlled HoloLens or a direct brain interface - or we may continue to have a multi-device ecosystem for the foreseeable future.
Some tablet markets that will continue: tablets embedded as UI (like the Square Stand retail register), tablet-controlled audio and light mixers, digital drawing tools for artists, and cheap tablets that are used as e-readers and movie watching devices.
Amazon's new Fire tablet (the $50 model) is leading the way in the last category, and encouraging it with the six pack deal they offered at launch. The digitally controlled home of the future might have a tablet that lives in each room, which would serve to control the lights and the entertainment hardware as well as being a media device in its own right. You would simply pick up the closest tablet when you want one rather than carrying a device.
Still no need to buy a new TV. I expect a TV to have a service life of at least 10 years, and perhaps 20 or more though some of that will be as a secondary set. In other words, you upgrade the set in the main home theater setup and move that one to a lesser location, continuing that process down the food chain until you run out of places to put additional displays. After that the lowest one on the chain falls off the edge and is discarded after each upgrade.
Once the smart features in the TV become outdated as they inevitably will (they rarely get significant updates), you unplug them from the network, stop using the smart features, and buy a new Roku or Chromecast or Fire TV or Apple TV. A few years after that you buy another one.
These days nearly every TV on the market (except for some very low end sets) has some smart features, so you can't completely avoid them. My advice is to ignore them when buying, and figure you're going to buy a set-top box either immediately or a year down the road.
Very few TVs make nice sound; the built in speakers are mostly terrible. If you care about sound, plan to hook up something better: a surround system if you have the space, or at the very least a soundbar.
and you think the average consumer will hold onto the TV years after they start getting 'UNKNOWN SERVICE' and 'HTML 404' errors all over the place, in multiple cells per screen. I don't know about that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I recall when the Macbook went Intel and everyone wanted one. We did evaluations at the time fro our next fleet replacement but Apple just wouldn't come to the party with any kind of enterprise support. So they lost our business, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones. That was about 7 or 8 years ago and from what I've seen they haven't changed their stance since. So they sat by and let MS eat their lunch.
First, I wouldn't say that MS has been eating Apple's lunch...
Second, have you ever stopped to consider the number of people versus the number of "businesses"? I think Apple knows EXACTLY what it is doing.
I know quite a few people who don't need a laptop. They'd be just as well off with an iPad, considering what they do with their computers. Better off, actually, as the iPad is safer from malware than laptops.
There's far more non-geeks out there than there are geeks in here.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I also find "online sales" questionable. If you add non-online sales, what happens to the numbers?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Second, have you ever stopped to consider the number of people versus the number of "businesses"? I think Apple knows EXACTLY what it is doing.
Yes, Have you considered how many people work for a business of some kind? And how often a business replaces their device compared to an individual?
Using my own case as an example, I still use the laptop at home I bought in 2008. In those 7 years I've had 5 different laptops from work.
It runs Netflix today. A year from now when Netflix has some new encryption protocol or codec, good luck finding a firmware update from the TV manufacturer.
Mmm, actually I'd go one stronger than that and suggest you never, ever enable any of the network connectivity features - don't attach it to your WiFi network, don't plug an Ethernet cable into it. The OSes and apps on those things are completely security unverified, and several of them have been proven to send very nasty quantities of information gleaned from your local network activities back to home base (besides serving you up advertising).
Won't always work. There have been cases where the original firmware is seriously flawed, and not just in ways that affect the smart features. In that case it would be necessary to connect the TV long enough to get the firmware update.