7 years ago, speaking at a press conference in San Francisco, Apple founder Steve jobs said from the stage: “we All now use laptops and smartphones. But recently the question arose, is there a place between them to some third device.” The answer to that question was the presentation of the iPad, which is given above it is just preceded. Only here whether the answer is correct, still it’s hard to say.
Some time iPad was second in sales among gadgets Apple products after the iPhone. But even during the peak of their popularity, they brought the company two times less profit than smartphones. But over the last few quarters iPad and is shifted to the fourth place in terms of revenue, losing computer business and services.
But finances are finances, and there is also a quantitative indicator. Even today, Apple ships more iPads than Macs, and there’s a logical explanation — the iPad is cheaper than a Mac. However, the demand for Mac all these years consistently held approximately at the same level, while shipments of iPad at first grew rapidly, but after a certain point went down, and now continue to fall.
But nothing to wonder the reason why iPad sales are declining, was named at a press conference on 27 January 2010, i.e. even before they are released to the market. Then Steve jobs said that the new gadget will be able to become successful only if it is to cope with certain tasks better than laptops and smartphones.
But what a really good iPad now? In fact, the same as seven years ago: browsing the Internet, communicating in social networks or viewing of the next episode of your favorite series. As for more serious problems, they still want to have more performance, convenient data input and a large screen — that is, at least, a laptop. And listed at the beginning of this paragraph scenarios it is possible to do iPhone and that over the years the iPad not only bigger, but also got the large displays (in the era of the first iPad, the iPhone screen had a diagonal of just 3.5 inches and really was not always fit for active web surfing or video viewing, and on what is based the superiority of the tablet).
Of course, Apple is trying to convince the market that the iPad can be useful to professionals using the gadget not only for entertainment but also for business purposes. This was released iPad Pro, which has a stylus and case with keyboard and the most powerful of all iOS devices, the hardware “stuffing”, which included an impressive display. But no matter how comfortable on the background of the “simple” iPad might be the model with the prefix Pro, many are still accustomed to typing on a full-size keyboard of a laptop or desktop, interacting with using the mouse.
However, Apple also understand that the hype around tablets was asleep, and that’s why we never saw the iPad Air 3, which would change announced in 2014, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini are “stuck” in 2015 after the release of its fourth generation.
Note that all the above is true not only for the iOS ecosystem, but for the market as a whole, including Android devices. According to market research company TrendForce, in 2016 tablets were shipped 8.3 percent less than the previous year, and in 2017, this trend will continue.
The reason, as in the case of the iPad, is that there is no application for Android tablets, which can’t handle modern smartphones on the same operating system. The latter has one significant advantage — they are easier and fit into just about any pocket. Especially smartphones “put pressure” on the 7-8 inch segment solutions. Consumer logic is simple: buying a 5.5 to 5.7-inch device, they just slightly lose in the area of the screen, but get more flexibility.
How significant redistribution of roles has occurred over the past years in mobile electronics, is evidenced by the fact that 7 years ago, some of the plates had the same display sizes as the current budgetary smartphones. Recall, for example, Dell’s Streak 5 (aka Dell Mini 5) in 2010, which had a TFT-matrix with a diagonal of just 5 inch (800 × 480 pixels), but belong to the category of phablets, there are tablets with phone function.
However, “bury” iPad together with the rest of the market for such gadgets earlier rumors claim that in March we are waiting for three new products from Apple, and some optimistic experts predict growth of sales in this segment after 2018. However, producers likely will have to revise the idea of the tablet after release of a new model, just improving their performance, is not enough.
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