Interesting how defensive people are getting in the comments. I think the headline says it all- tablets have been around for over a decade and never caught on. In fact they still haven't caught on, just the iPad has caught on.
I've long argued that the reason we haven't seen tablets take off in general is because while nobody really wants to admit it, nobody actually likes tablets. They just like Apple products.
I'm surprised that they sold half as many iPads as iPhones. I've read several predictions that the tablet thing would turn out to be a fad but it seems to have legs.
A more interesting thing I see on those stats is Android looks likely to beat iOS in tablets in the next couple of years. I don't know anyone at all with an Android tablet. I thought Apple had the tablet market pretty much conquered.
I think the problem is that people still don't care about or want tablet computers; they care about and want iPads. All the companies jumping on the tablet bandwagon forgot what happened to 95% of the mp3 players that sprang up to compete with the iPod.
I continue to believe this isn't the right way of looking at the problem. There isn't a "tablet" market yet. The iPad sells to iPhone users only. It's an attractive upgrade/enhancement, and a fun device. But it hasn't creates a new market yet, in the sense that no one decides to buy a "tablet" and then researches alternatives. Instead, people fall in love with the iPad specifically and buy that.
So manufacturers chasing "tablet" sales are fooling themselves. Maybe tablets will come of age, or maybe they're a fad. But right now the only way to displace the iPad is to displace the iPhone first.
I got in a lot of fights with Apple fans over this last year. :) My point is that tablets have never ever taken off---even though various companies have been trying for decades.
Of course the argument that the iPad is different from every other device in history due to ubiquitous internet access and multi-touch. And I admit that I couldn't even convince myself entirely that those weren't game changers, but a year later it seems that the verdict is in: they're not.
PS: One of my Apple friends just bought a Macbook Air and was trying to sell his iPad to me last week. :)
I'm going to -4 on this, but: it absolutely still remains to be seen whether or not tablets are worth a damn.
Seriously, people play shitty games on them, and I guess read ebooks (though I see vastly more Kindles on the subway, than iPads). I do not, at all see a compelling product yet, I see a trendy gadget that early adopters and trend followers have purchased. Sure there's great lip service to how revolutionary this concept is, but that's just talk.
I'm not saying that the iPad isn't the second coming of Christ. I am saying that it's not proven itself to be that just quite yet. I don't think the PC is (even close) to dead.
Tablets have been out for forever, and some of them have even been well made only to be ABANDONED by the makers.
It's been blisteringly obvious for a decade that tablets are the future of mobile computing.
The real lesson here is that marketing and sales matter. Apple, as a company, rarely invents new things. Rather it executes on old ideas that other companies failed to execute on.
Apple connects the market to the innovative technology and that is what really pays. Inventing stuff is useless if the public doesn't understand.
Moral: Steal a good idea, make it really easy to use, and don't skimp on your sales pitch.
Interestingly, in the poll at the bottom of the article, 40% of 3800 people said they don't think tablets are here to stay. A lot higher than you would expect.
Personally I think they are here to stay, although I think their value is a bit exagerated. I used an iPad for a few weeks and I really liked it, but I didn't do anything I don't usually do on my smartphone. Doesn't mean I wouldn't buy one though...
I completely agree with this article and feel completely justified by it. When tablets/iPad first came out all my friends were buying them. However I rejected them completely. I thought why would you pay that much for what you are getting in terms of hard drive space, ram, and processor speed? For the ability to look cool with a futuristic device? To use your finger to control it? For the lightweight, compactness, and convenience? Tablets/ipads are purely consumption devices, but laptops and smart phones are productive devices that can also behave as consumption devices. I just didn't get it. In fact I finally broke down and bought a tablet, and guess what, it has become my children’s toy/entertainment device, and my wife and I rarely have a desire to use it. I guess they finally got my money.
I'm not hostile to iPads per se, but I think at this point we have to acknowledge that the supposed revolution where people would never buy PCs anymore because of tablets never materialized. It's another category with a somewhat narrower niche and it works great for some tasks, but not for others.
Also, phablets have eaten into some of the demand for them.
I was really hoping that Apple would come up with a compelling need for the tablet, but the demos they showed were, in my opinion, unimaginative. Tablets have been around forever as solutions looking for a problem; the iPad does not rectify that situation.
The iPhone has been successful to a great extent because, well, people need cell phones anyway, so why not get a cool one? People don't need a tablet computer. People aren't looking to replace their existing tablet computers.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that somebody figures out a really good reason for having a tablet computer. But I've owned a tablet in the past (Motion M1400), and I don't see it happening.
I'm still pretty shocked at how everyone and their grandma is trying to elbow their way into the tablet market. They don't understand that there is no tablet market. There's only an iPad market.
The iPad wins because Apple is able to pull off a truly beautiful interface (and I mean truly beautiful, not beautiful in "marketing term of the week" sense that it's being used in these days) that's consistent with the iPhone, a sexy display and overall presentation, and the very high quality of apps in the marketplace. The magical Apple brand lust doesn't hurt either.
Generic tablets won't win because nobody ever thought to themselves, "Even though I have a powerful smartphone in my pocket and a powerful laptop at my desk, I feel the indescribable urge to have a third device that's very expensive, isn't as good as either one, and that I can't fit in my pocket."
I never bought a tablet because after toying with an iPad and some random Android tablet I realized I would never use it in real life. All of my friends who have iPads or Android tablets say the same; they play with them once or twice a week, but otherwise they gather dust at the expense of smartphones and laptops.
Everyone wants to copy Apple and make billions, but they just don't get it that people don't care about tablets. They only care about iPads, and that kind of brand loyalty isn't something you can copy.
Companies seem to give in too quickly, though. The tablet thing has only just started. Most non-ipad tablets simply sucked. Instead of giving in, they should create better tablets.
Was there even a tablet war? Was anyone even close to iPad? I've had several Android based tablets and each one had its own quirks. With iPad you exactly know what you are getting into.
edit: Care to explain the down votes? It's too early to make such proclamations. It took a while for the cellphone market to catch up with Apple, why should we expect the tablet market to be any different?
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