9.7-Inch iPad Pro Is Apple's Last Chance To Save the iPad Line (bgr.com)

An anonymous reader writes from an article written by Yoni Heisler on BGR: The iPad occupies a unique place in the annals of tech history. Upon its release in 2010, Apple's first stab at a tablet quickly set sales records. Not only did early iPad sales outpace early iPhone sales, but the iPad quickly became one of the fastest selling consumer electronics products of all time. The iPad's once-auspicious journey, however, would eventually take an unexpected detour. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, soaring sales began to taper off, even as Apple began to introduce newer and more advanced models. Today, iPad sales are still slumping. During Apple's most recent earnings report, the company revealed that year over year iPad sales fell by 25% while iPad related revenue dropped by 20%. Hardly an aberration, iPad sales have been dropping for well over two years at this point. And whereas Tim Cook once took to earnings conference calls to praise the iPad, he now finds himself forced to defend the iPad against a barrage of analyst questions. Yesterday, Apple released a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro and it stands to reason that this is Apple's last chance to truly inject a bit of life into a faltering product line.

Comments

Planned Obsolesence

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way I'm buying a new iPad is if my current iPad breaks. But my current iPad works just fine and has so for 5 years, so why would I buy a new one?

Re:Planned Obsolesence

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Same. We have a "New" iPad, a.k.a. iPad 3. Still chugging. I'd like it a little lighter, but there's no feature of any newer iPad that would make me buy a new one now while this one works.

Phones need better cameras. You add more and more junk to it. You need a newer phone. with the iPad, our usage has been pretty much web browsing and the occasional game. Nothing too taxing.

I remember buying the first iPad

[OpenSourced]

I'm not much into Apple stuff, closed systems and all that. But I made an exception with the iPad when it debuted. The reason being that there were no alternatives. The iPad was a product without competition, a new thing in the computer ecosystem, but with the background of thousands of iPhone apps.

What really took me by surprise was the time that it took for other companies to duplicate the tablet concept. Even if they were already making smartphones. I mean, you may need genius to have the idea and believe in it and make the first table. But once somebody had success with it, you just have to make a bigger phone, by Jove! My memory may fail me, but I think it was at least two years between the first iPad and the first solid competition, I think a Samsung with a stylus.

Just saying that, up to now, Apple has had a visionary at its helm, that could discover, or create, new markets. Also it had really sloppy competition, at least from the point of view of a customer. I think both things are gone now, so it's not a wonder that sales are winding down. Don't expect things to change in the near term. A bigger screen is certainly not going to cut it.

Re:Maybe increase the product longevity

[dgatwood]

The thing is, build quality has always been part of what made Apple great. They build products that last. That's a big part of why people are willing to pay a premium for them. Sure, Apple could start building junk that doesn't last, but the moment they do, they stop being Apple, and all that's left is a race to the bottom.

The real problem is that nothing has really changed since the first model other than CPU speed and RAM. What would make me consider upgrading an iPad? Make it just a little thicker and double the battery life. Give it front-facing stereo speakers. Beyond those missing features, until the CPU requirements of apps exceeds the hardware's capabilities, a tablet is like a TV set. It is going to get many years of use, and unless you drop and break it, upgrades are unlikely.

So if Apple really wants to drive people to upgrade hardware, they have to provide a reason for developers to build serious, CPU-hungry apps for the devices. That means they need more storage to accommodate such apps. They need better ability to import and/or acquire media. And so on. And realistically, the sorts of apps that demand this don't lend themselves to tablets very well, so they'll probably need to add a full-size slide-around keyboard, too. By the time you get to that point, you basically have a laptop. In other words, an iPad is unlikely to ever truly be "pro" by the traditional definition. The very core of its design is contrary to things like video editing, RAW photo editing and photo library management, etc.

In other words, I don't think there's anything Apple can do about this. The nature of markets is that they eventually mature into a zero-sum game, and this market is there already. The best thing Apple can do is come up with new product categories, whether we're talking about accessories, cases, thermostats, lighting control systems... things that integrate well with iPad, and use those both as additional sources of revenue and as ways of selling more iPads.