Six years ago today Steve Jobs introduced the iPad on stage in what was arguably one of the best product demos from Apple or any other tech company for that matter. The hype was tremendous but the demo was low key.
Jobs plainly explained why the iPad needed to exist and where Apple believed it fit between iPhones and Macs, then offered an almost hypnotizing demonstration of what using an iPad was like. Highlighting the intimacy of the tablet, Jobs demoed the iPad on stage while comfortably seated for a full 12 minutes. If you’ve never watched the demo or haven’t seen it lately, queue it up and see for yourself how much it stands out from nearly every other product introduction.
Six years in, the iPad has matured from a single product to a whole product line with multiple screen sizes, price points, and even accessories specific to the tablet. iPad sales peaked two years ago, though, and that peak’s clearly not temporary like many believe it is with the iPhone. Even with a whole new display size with the iPad Pro, Apple saw year-over-year declines with iPad sales last quarter.
So how exactly have iPad sales been changing over the years, what has Apple done to address the product category, and what opportunities remain for the tablet family?
Let’s take a look at just how many iPads Apple sold during the holiday quarter: 16.1 million. That’s three times as many Macs sold during the same quarter, but iPads have outsold Macs since their second quarter on the market. Looking at the same holiday quarter one year ago, Apple sold 21.4 million iPads. The holiday quarter before that? Peak iPad at 26 million.
Looking at iPad sales annually, the recent and steady decline is even clearer. 74.2 million iPads sold in 2013, 63.2 million iPads sold across 2014, and 49.4 million iPads sold last year during 2015.
CNBC’s Jon Fortt shared this chart which visualizes iPad sales per quarter since Apple began selling the tablet.
The iPad has effectively spent the last third of its life as a product category on the decline no matter how you slice it. So what has Apple been dying to combat that?
In 2012, before we actually reached peak iPad, Apple debuted the smaller and more affordable iPad mini. The 7.9-inch tablet was better priced to take on mid-tier competition from Google and Amazon, but even smaller iPads are still premium so Apple has thus far relied on older generation hardware to meet even lower price points.
Then this past November, Apple released the larger iPad Pro with a 12.9-inch display that mammoths the now mid-size 9.7-inch iPad. As we saw in yesterday’s earnings report, iPad sales dropped dramatically year over year despite a significantly different iPad being introduced in the middle of the quarter.
For competitive reasons, Apple doesn’t break out how many of which model of iPad it sold, so it’s possible the iPad Pro sold in high numbers but not enough to offset decline with the other iPads. It’s also worth pointing out that Apple didn’t introduce an updated 9.7-inch iPad, which is widely considered to be the default model, and instead focused on updating the iPad mini and introducing the iPad Pro. It sounds like there’s a new iPad Air 3 not too far off to balance this out.
Apple is also targeting both the enterprise and education markets as major potential iPad customers.
For enterprise customers, Apple has grown its IBM partnership first established in mid-2014, which has resulted in over 100 MobileFirst apps for iOS, watchOS, and OS X. Apple sees businesses replacing outdated PCs as an opportunity to push iPads in mass, and it’s using IBM to serve as its enterprise wing for software development and distribution.
In education, the iPad has been getting schooled by cheaper and more laptop-like Chromebooks. As we’ve seen with iOS 9.3, Apple is shifting its 1:1 approach in education to allow iPads to be shared between classrooms when one iPad per student isn’t possible. Apple’s also making progress in education with its upcoming Classroom application for teachers and managed Apple IDs that can be assigned by schools.
And on a broader level, we saw Apple demonstrate a renewed focus on the iPad with iOS 9, which introduced new multitasking features like Split View, Slide Over, and Picture in Picture. Many of these features require newer iPads to work, marking one of the first instances where Apple has necessarily used software as a reason to promote iPad hardware upgrades.
Lengthy upgrade cycles have certainly been a factor in declining iPad sales, and Apple readily admits that larger iPhones risk cannibalizing iPad sales. The idea is that it’s better for Apple to do the cannibalization and not a competing company.
Revisiting Steve Jobs’ original description for why the iPad should exist, I think the whole table has flipped and it’s way more complicated than six years back. Jobs described that iPad’s goal as being better than an iPhone and MacBook at web browsing, emailing, viewing photos, watching video, playing music and games, and reading ebooks.
In the age of the iPhone 6s Plus and 12-inch MacBook, it’s increasingly difficult to assign any one of those tasks solely to the iPad. But iPads are totally replacing laptops for loads of people (and Mac sales aren’t climbing either), the software is getting increasingly capable, and the form factor has made leaps in just six short years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj6q_z2Ni9M
While it’s true that I personally can’t fully replace my workflow on my Mac with one on the iPad, it’s easy to think that the last few holes in this will be filled over the next six years of iPad.
For some perspective, read Seth’s day one impression of the original iPad six years ago when he wrote that “the iPad will be a success” while the masses were dismissing it as just a big iPod touch. Think about how far the iPad has come since then.
Despite that downward sales trend, I’m happy to see Apple move the iPad forward every year technologically and hope to see iOS 10 continue what iOS 9 started by dramatically expanding the software capabilities.
Six years is an eternity in the technology world, but it’s just a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. With that in mind, iPad seems to be a long play for Apple — not to mention Tim Cook genuinely seems to prefer the iPad to the Mac, which doesn’t hurt the iPad’s long term outlook as long as he’s in charge of the company.
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Until iPad runs some version, some kind, something remotely comparable OSX this trend will continue thanks to the iPhone Plus line…..
I said the same thing but Apple won’t hear none of that. Basically the iPad will die a very slow death until its irrelevant to regular customers. Education has a chance but that was screwed up big time.
All Apple has to do is put OS X el capitan on iPads just iPads don’t converge iOS and OS X but just give iPad users OS X and its will sell like candy. Want a reason just look at Microsoft Surface.
Running OS X on an ARM is not so simple. Remember, OS X is CISC based, along with all of the OS X apps. Apple already went through moving from PowerPC to Intel and I doubt there is enough compelling reasons to shift to ARM, when ARM processors aren’t as powerful across the entire iOS line up, plus they wouldn’t be able to run Windows as Microsoft would have to get Windows to run on Apple ARM chips and then all of the 3rd party app developers for OS X and Windows would also have to switch over. I just don’t see it.
iPads currently sell more units than the Surface Pro. The thing is, the biggest selling Surface Pros aren’t the high end i7 models, they are the lower end models. Last year, the average price that Microsoft was actually selling was around $800, the high end Surface Pros with i7’s are more like $2000 and they simply aren’t selling all that many of them.
Plus, the Surface Pros are thicker, heavier and require a lot more support/administration and people/companies don’t like that aspect. Heck, have you not seen the Microsoft apology for the Surface Pro problems they are having? Maybe you need a reminder….
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-says-sorry-surface-pro-4-surface-book-issues/
The thing is that Apple is going to release new MacBookPros with SkyLake processors and they’ll be putting things in their higher end models like Thunderbolt (most likely the 3rd release) which is being adopted by the Audio/Video production crowd because it kicks the snot out of USB.
In addition, OS X wasn’t designed to use as a touch screen based OS.
The IPad Pro is probably the only model that could possibly run OS X, but it still doesn’t have hyper threading, which I would like to see Apple adopt for their ARM processors and I just don’t think OS X on an iPad would be that compelling for MOST people.
The surface is clunky. I use it for work, because I have to, but my fav is the iPad Air 2. If you know how to use the cloud, the new iOS 9.3 handles file Mgmt really well. It has definitely replaced my Mac. I now have a Logitech type+ keyboard and it’s great. The surface gets stuck on which to be…a computer or tablet, and it’s true, it doesn’t do either that great. The surface is best when it’s in the desk dock with an external monitor. As a table with the stylus it’s just not very good.
@Chris Lopez
I have iPad pro and surface pro 4 and I don’t understand you claims. The only advantage the iPad has is the apps. The apple pencil still has a thick tip and incomparable to the surface pen. What reasonable reasoning you would give to validate that the surface is not great at both. Sorry but I am a little sensitive when ppl copy marketing guy’s (Tim Cock) statements.
Yes the surface is not great as a tablet but it is a wonderful pc by its own. It is better than sketching and not taking (have you tried the changeable fabulous pen tips?!), its better for browsing and all major work. IPad is better for its apps, reading books, and watching movies.
Rich: OS X on ARM is a doddle.I am certain that Apple has been doing this all along. The challenge is twofold:-
– Apple’s apps will obviously be built as ARM-native but all the third-party ones will either have to be rebuilt, or Apple will have to provide some Rosetta-style solution. Not simple but certainly do-able
– the user interface for OS X and iOS is still rather different, so I don’t see a combo-system. But I don’t think that’s what you’re suggesting, which is pure OS X on ARM.
If Apple built an iPad Pro that would dual-boot iOS and OS X I would buy one in a heartbeat
I can think of plenty of reasons that a iPhone Plus won’t work and that an iPad is more suitable and that having OS X isn’t necessarily needed.
I think part of the problem is the acceptance of a different paradigm. I see some people simply not accepting a different paradigm in using new format computers.
I also think that the main aspects of OS X will be incorporated into future iOS versions.
What are the main things missing from iOS that OS X has?
1. Multi-User support I believe Apple is going to add this in iOS 10, at least that’s what I’ve read.
2. Windowing? I believe Apple is working on this for a future release of iOS, possibly iOS 10.
3. File Manager? there are 3rd party file managers right now, but I don’t know if Apple is going to add that in iOS 10 or possibly later.
4. Support for a mouse with a cursor? They kind of have a cursor, but that’s something they could add if enough people would complain about not having it.
What else is missing from iOS that OS X has that people actually need on a handheld tablet?
Remember, the full features apps is not a function of the OS necessarily as it’s more of a function of whether there is enough demand, processing power, storage, RAM, screen real estate. And the more fully featured apps generally cost quite a bit more money than the iOS version. Ever seen the price of Adobe Suite for iOS versus OS X or Windows? There’s always a price to pay for fully featured apps and it’s released to both hardware requirements and the cost of the app.
Just because Windows users use the excuse that the iPad doesn’t have a full blown OS isn’t necessarily preventing sales, just some sales.
Because Apple has to design IOS to work on all of their mobile devices, it will be a while until they add all of the features that OS X currently has. And OS X still doesn’t have Siri. So, what Apple seems to be doing is adding OS X functionality to IOS when they can, and then iOS features to OS X when they can, so there is an on going technology integration between both OS’s.
But here’s a suggestion. go to Apple’s Feedback site and submit your suggestions one what you would like to see in future releases of products. Maybe they’ll surprise you.
But what are the real features of OS X that’s not available on IOS that can be easily implemented? Chances are they’ll be on the next release.
when i got my iphone 6+ i didnt feel the need for an ipad anymore… all the games i played we fine on my phone…my phone also has the added benefits of being more portable, better camera, easier to check emails, always has internet and phone calling etc…
more or less i just my laptop at work and home with the internet…and my phone between work.
The only reason i would buy an ipad would be if it had the option to run os X – i would then use it at work instead of taking my laptop in…i dont really fancy buying an old and outdated macbook air, or pay for the expensive macbook 12″.
For the size of the ipad i expected more from it…but it is just a large phone without certain features
ipad was made to bridge the gap between iphones and macs — but phones have become faster, more powerful and bigger – and macs now have smaller slower options… plus the prices… you can get a macbook air for little bit more than an ipad air 2, and the phones are much cheaper on contracts…
in short, apple have made that gap so small that for most people the ipad isnt going to be a logical option – plus other companies have tablets that are better priced for the average person.
Totally agree.
No. This trend will continue because an iPad is similar to a MacBook, or iMac. Go check out their sales. No one wants to buy a new iPad yearly or bi-yearly, just as they don’t want to buy a new Mac. My MacBook Pro is a 2010 and while I’d much prefer having a new MacBook, this still does everything I want from a computer, it still works great.
Oh I dont disagree with this either, but I believe making the iPad an actual pro device would steam the tide at least temporarily.
I’ve always loved the iPad. But one thing I have always disagreed with is that the iPad is a productive tool. Beside the iPad Pro, there is and never has been a productive iPad.
The first iPad didn’t have multitasking, iPad 2 did but with 512mb of ram it was useless, only the iPad Air 2 has enough ram to do multitasking.
Then there are the apps. There are some awesome apps on the app store but every time I try to get productive with my iPad Air 2, some tool is missing in an app which forces me to get my Macbook Air out…
Like I said, I have always loved the iPad but all iPads I have ever owned were consumption devices. I have owned a 32GB cellular iPad 2, 64GB cellular iPad 4 and now a 64GB wi-fi iPad Air 2.
And I will say it again, an iPad with less than 2GB of ram is unusable. My iPad 4 which is in the kitchen now, is used for cooking. I usually open youtube and a safari tab to switch between the video showing me how to prepare the dish and the safari tab with all the ingredients. It often occurs that youtube reboots abd Safari too. This makes me go literally mad. I hope some day I drop it in boiling hot water or something.
I disagree with one aspect. I use my iPad Air to write and create a lot of graphics using Graphic. More RAM would be nice but it does what I need to do. That said though I have to admit that all of the stuff I write or draw on the iPad is finished on the Mac. The tools there are just better. But for content creation I use the iPad a lot, for the first draft.
3-4 GB of Ram will be needed for the iPad Air 3. I had to upgrade from iPad Air to Air 2, because of a larger amount of daily ram crashes, luckily I was on the AT&T next installment plans and could upgrade after a year at the time.I think the installment plan is a very good way to purchase iPads..They don’t have the resale value of an iPhone and combat the initial purchase price. Partly iswhy i think it would be smart for Apple to ditch wifi only models and drop the $130 premium for the LTE models.(keep wifi models for schools)
The iPad is still great consumption device for media and reading the internet.The iPad just has a long life cycle. It was made to combat netbooks and finally got tablets to be mainstream.
The problem for me is Apple has not really tooled IOS for the large screen yet, it still after 6 years remains a blown up version the IPhone. You have room for more UI tools, 3D Touch productivity is more ideal for iPad’s then iPhones, but Apple won’t enable 3D Touch via the Pencil until screen yield rates are high enough to put 3d Touch panels in the iPad’s.Apple needs to have padOS or at least have a yearly major update specially geared towards iPads. WWDC iOS versions are mostly iPhone specific features and general api’s We need a late Fall or Spring update geared to iPad’s.
I think iPad’s are the best product Apple makes. it just has a 4-6 year upgrade cycle for most people.Apple needs to work more with schools to increase sales and get schools to put all the text books need for each year of education at a school on it. I t would save the schools and government a lot of money.The new multiple user that in the 9.3 beta will help that.
investors seem to think people should be upgrading iPads every 2 years and have constant growth. Not having a new 9.7′ model hurt Apple q1 sales this year.One thing Apple should do is have every iPad support LTE and do away with the $130 premium for LTE models.
I’ve really tried, but I can’t do much of what I do with my MacBook Pro with my iPad Air 2. I really do try hard but text entry in iOS, integration between the various tools I use, and the lack of a mouse (for me) gets in my way rather than making things easier.
No doubt a piece of this is because I’ve been a Mac user since 1984, but it’s also the limitations of a multi-touch UI vs a mouse and a hardware keyboard as well.
My next iPad will be a MacBook.
All Apple has to do is put OS X el capitan on iPads just iPads don’t converge iOS and OS X but just give iPad users OS X and its will sell like candy. Want a reason just look at Microsoft Surface.
I felt the same way about my iPad Air and, in fact, I had pretty much stopped using it. But for, the iPad Pro has been a game changer. I now leave my MacBook Pro at work and only use the iPad Pro at home. It’s also the only thing I take when I travel, and the only thing I take to meetings, etc. I especially love it for taking handwritten notes with the Pencil. The larger size, detachable keyboard cover and Pencil have made the iPad Pro MUCH more functional for me.
Just look at Microsoft Surface for what?? The Surface will be lucky if they sold 4 million units in all of 2015. The iPad sells that many EVERY MONTH. I really don’t think Apple should looking at the Surface for inspiration.
And OS X on an iPad sounds like a horrible idea. It isn’t built for touch.
They have already made so many changes to how iOS works on iPads in iOS 9. All they need to do is open things up just a little bit more in iOS 10, and the iPad Pro will become the laptop replacement that some people want it to be. There is no need to graft a desktop OS onto a touch tablet the way Microsoft has. That’s not the solution.
‘My next iPad will be a Macbook’ xD
My next bike will be a spaceshuttle
I jumped on the iPad train pretty late (iPad Air 2) but I ultimately don’t use it a lot. It stays by my bedside and it never leaves the bedroom. Actually my Nexus 6 gets more love just because it’s more portable and I use it at the gym over my iPhone 6S due to the larger screen.
So it’s either I keep my existing iPad for another 3 plus years or I sale it and don’t replace it. If I go with a iPhone 7 plus there is no chance that I will keep the iPad after September. I just don’t see Apple doing enough to make me buy another unless they make it run full blown OS X at $500. I would line up right now if that happened.
“…nless they make it run full blown OS X at $500. I would line up right now if that happened.”
Not gonna happen. At best, to appease “power” users, I see Apple bringing in a lot of features of OSX to iOS, without iOS ever becoming OSX. Apple looks at iOS / OSX serving two different purposes.
In reality, its the iPhone’s success that is killing the iPad:
1) iPhones got bigger
2) virtually every site has either an iPhone app, robust mobile site, or responsive site- making the iPhone’s usefulness much greater. Showing a desktop site in 2010-2013 was wonderful since most websites’ mobile experience was awful.
3) most potential iPad buyers have an iPhone/smartphone now (goes back to #1 and #2)
Unless it can start doing something the iPhone can’t do (or, at least do something MUCH better than the iPhone), I think the trend will continue.
Giving it a pencil was a step in the right direction, but only a start.
All Apple has to do is put OS X el capitan on iPads just iPads don’t converge iOS and OS X but just give iPad users OS X and its will sell like candy. Want a reason just look at Microsoft Surface.
OS X isn’t designed to work on a touchscreen. Apple’s strategy is to bring features from OS X to iOS over time, while Microsoft’s is to both cram a desktop onto a tablet with non-touch-optimized controls and blow up a phone interface onto a desktop/tablet/laptop, neither of which is appreciated by the average user (not including the “pros” who buy Surfaces). Also, Surface is doing okay, but nowhere near the success that iPads have been.
Without a full fledged native file/folder system manageable by the user and enough horsepower to run full fledged applications rather than waterdown snippets, Ipad will never be a full pro productivity device !
I presently own a pro with pencil… Its awesome technology… But its no where near a pro content creation device like a mac would be.
And to me it comes down to ram , processor, native user manageable file system and full fleged software. I want -photoshop and fcpx and programs of that level on my Pro ipad.
Microsoft is trying to pull this off… Their system is not perfect either… Too cumbersome..
But i believe they are a step ahead in making tablets a full productivity device.
Apple better get off their stubborn butt and take ipads a bit more seriously .
Ps.. My ipad pro and pencil are nice … Dont get me wrong… But i still think the biggest bang from this ipad comes from watching movies on the gorgeous screen and the cool loud four speakers… The pencil is awesome too… But apps need to catchup….split windows good too.. But limited in its implementation, for example: you can not have two safari windows open… Or two of any app…… Why ? .
Why not allow multi windows … Up to four…? Screen is big enough to accomodate if one likes to have four live vews.
To me apples biggest problem is being stubborn and idiosyncratic…. My way or the highway… Even on super obvious issues where they are wrong.
IMHO.
Hopd next ipad will incorporate 3d touch, pencil and some serious ram for serious apps …. And visible , manageable native file sys …
Judging from the comments so far I think we can all agree that the iPad is lacking in one or more areas. Question is how does Apple fix it? Can it be fixed to get sales back up? Or do we really need this form factor when we have laptops and desktop computers? Even iPhone plus models make the iPad a tough sale.
I’m tired of the, iPad should run os x, people.
A touch layer for OS X would be extremely difficult, look at microsoft and tablet mode.
Besides, I don’t think apple wants to support another OS.
EXACTLY!! There is NOTHING wrong with the iPad. Annual upgrades on phones only came about because of two year contracts now that – that is gone phones will suffer the same fate. iPads last a long time. The upgrade cycle is longer. In the enterprise world there are tons of places that use them and consumers use them nearly everyone I know has one and uses them.
We need padOS or a iPad specific update every year. iOS besides multi tasking and the new picture in picture has never really been optimized for the larger screens.
Just wait for iOS 10.
All Apple has to do is put OS X el capitan on iPads just iPads don’t converge iOS and OS X but just give iPad users OS X and its will sell like candy. Want a reason just look at Microsoft Surface.
Nope, have you looked at the Mac app store? Its a fucking wasteland.
Whats the answer than genius? Because its not like you can’t download third party apps on OS X. Please provide a solution or your comment it utterly useless unless you like attacking people racist?
smoke a bong taopropheht 420 pothead with a wasteland of a brain.
The point is iOS users are used to a robust App store and the Mac Store is not. All this was discussed in posts about the lack of Pro apps for the iPad Pro and executive moves Apple made.
The iPad is a wonderful machine for me. I create on it all the time and it had changed my work flow. I like using the iPad for doing some things over my phone or Mac. My MBA sits unused doe weeks at a time. I will probably replace it with a 2nd generation iPad Pro.
They are not iPhones and don’t need to be replaced yearly or even every two years. I have learned to type on glass and dictate, making my iPad even more powerful to me. It’s not a Mac or a iPhone, it’s a nice device to do with what you wish. There are no absolutes so there is plenty of room for iPad to grow. I don’t want to see it run OS X, it doesn’t need to, iOS can be a great os for work. Is it a great device for everyone? No, but that doesn’t make it a device that no one can be productive with. If you want OS X, go buy a Mac. For me, Macs are for home, iOS is for on the road.
The iPad needs a significantly better cloud system (actually all of iOS needs this to be honest.), a better way to switch apps, drag and drop (the would be huge) between apps, the ability to run two of the same apps at once (like two safari’s at once) and switch them back a forth. However, it goes deeper than that in a lot of ways apple the software company has disappeared in the last few years and that has hurt it more then anything. Apple used to make the apps its hardware needed and it was something that other developers had to really compete with showing the standard of quality and possibility of the devices they created. They have really done that the last three years mostly updating whats already established.
Once you buy an iPad for $1,000, there’ s not much value in buying another one for years to come. iPad is a content consumption device. There are very few things that one can do on the iPad as well as on the Mac besides consuming content. Therefore, the upgrade cycles are much longer with iPads than with iPhones, which are used much more frequently and can be financed through various carrier programs.
To breath a new life into the iPad, Apple has to make it a two-purpose device: content consumption in the tablet mode and light content creation in the OS X mode with a paired keyboard and a pointing device. There must be a fusion of iPad Pro with MacBook to breath life into both lines. That will leave the MacBook Pro line to professional who need much more powerful but yet portable devices. The hybrid device should merge he functionalities of iPad, MacBook, and MacBook Air and come in two sizes. Perhaps the only iPad that should remain iOS-only device should be iPad Mini.
I continue to be frustrated that, while I can pair an Apple keyboard with my iPad Air 2, I can’t configure a pointing device (Magic Trackpad or Mouse).
That ability would make it a MUCH more useful device for what I do.
If anyone doesn’t understand why iPad sales declined and are still declining then they aren’t intelligent enough to. It’s not a difficult concept. I’m not going to even bother though.
What a helpful, superior-than-thou comment! Thanks for sharing, Mr. Enlightened!
The original vision for the iPad has not been realised: it remains a consumption device for many people and a useful replacement for a Mac or PC only if you have VERY simple requirements. I spend more hours on my iPad than I do on my Mac, but I don’t do ANY work on my iPad – for that I have two Macs.
The deficiencies of the iPad in a business environment are significant. Among the reasons I cannot use an iPad in lieu of my Macs are:
No Printing
Yes, you can buy little inkjets which the iPad can talk to, but I have a Xerox colour laser printer under my desk and that’s what I print everything on.
Mail
I have several accounts, managed by a long list of rules and with global inbox sorting by unread – there is no facility to manage mail on an iPad. Mind you, Apple Mail is VERY old and has lots of issues – like everything other Mac application it has been largely ignored since the iPhone phenomenon.
Editing
I do a LOT of typing. Its not just the inconvenience of having to connect a wireless keyboard – for me, the real issues is using my finger as a pointer. You don’t want to have to do this more than once or twice a day…
Multitasking
Right now I am watching a live training video (in a break as I type this), looking at various stock charts, checking my mail and typing this – all on a Mac Pro with two monitors.
Applications
Purpose built business apps seem to work very well – I often see salespeople or other customer service people with iPads which have special apps on them to make their lives easier. Airline pilots, nurses, doctors and other professionals can use them very successfully, but for general business, relying on the Appstore, the iPad has too many holes. I run Tradestation on parallels in Windows10 on my Mac Pro.
Backup
Apple is pretty hopeless about backup, at least from the point of view of a business professional. I use Retrospect on my Mac Pro, with a disk array and an LTO6 tape backup unit for permanent storage (which can be taken offsite). When you start running out of space with Time Machine stuff gets deleted. Too bad if you find yourself in a legal battle and then find your email history got deleted. Cloud backup can work, but not if it synchs: delete something in error and its gone from everywhere. You might find out in time and be able to retrieve from Time Machine (which, in itself, is often easier in theory than in practice – I have a few old TM bundles which can’t be opened – no idea what they contain either) – but often you only realise stuff has been deleted much later, when you need it.
Storage Management
In making things “easier” Apple often make things harder, or even impossible. Apparently (according to iTunes) I have 4 vides taking up 4.9Gb on my iPad. But I can’t find them. They don’t show up in iTunes when I synch via a cable and the iPad says I have no videos – there are none in Photos either. Most likely they are in oneDrive but I can’t search for them using the iPad’s search bar…
Cloud
I think in projects not in file types. I have everything for a project in the same place, but you can’t work like this in iCloud on either the Mac or the iPad. In fact, on the iPad, you can’t get any sense of what files you have for a particular project.
MS Office
I gave up on iWork when it was dumbed down to work with the cloud and iOS. Now I have Office365 on my Macs. I did look at Numbers on the iPad but the interface is so different and the functionality so limited that unless you are doing recipe quantities its a waste of time. I don’t have Office on my iPad – I hate typing on it…
Connectivity
So how do I format my camera SD cards on an iPad? How do I connect a disk array? Am I really going to be able to make production videos in FCP on an iPad? I know it has iMovie but I have 4TB of video for just one documentary series.
These are not insignificant issues and, unless Apple can resolve them, we will not see iPads replacing Macs.
And, if Apple don’t refocus on the Mac they might find some of us moving back to Windows. I haven’t used Windows since 2002 when I bought my first Mac. But WIndows 10 is very Mac-like. For trading and travelling i could buy a high end Macbook Pro with Parallels, or I could just buy a Windows notebook. And that realisation has come as a bit of a shock.
The IBM relationship may encourage Apple to refocus on the business end of the Mac – Wang Labs was very successful in the Pacific region because they actively courted major business applications. Apple could do this, but don’t. Most business apps for the Mac start life as Windows apps and get converted – so they are usually pretty clumsy (Retrospect is a good case in point). But right now IBM are focused on iPad. Don’t hold your breath for market-leading business apps for the Mac – its the poor relative these days. But even IBM can’t make a silk purse out of the iPad – it will never be a Mac replacement unless it becomes a Mac, with a keyboard, and a trackpad.
I know Tim Cook reckons he can run Apple from his iPad. He must delegate a heap of stuff to his underlings with Macs, and Office – heaven knows you can’t even paginate a bank statement in Numbers…
when the ipad came out it kind of rebranded what a tablet actually was…they moved away from basic screens, or from tablets trying to be a mini laptop, and away from the stylus… it was new and exciting and filled a gap that many struggled to fill.
I think part og of the reason for the recline is that people are not replacing older products as quickly, the pricing is still too high for many, and other companies are coming out with similar tablets of a similar use for a cheaper price…
Unfortunately for ipads, laptops are coming down in price and are becoming thinner and lighter…
I also feel the iOS is actually a little dated and restrictive… people are actually needing something with a similar price tag but with more connection with everyday life…it should simplify…not complicate
There’s one thing that is important to remember. The original concept of the iPad was NEVER to replace the Mac. Instead, Steve Jobs decides to carve out a niche for the iPad between the iPhone and the Mac. That task in and of itself was a little of a stretch as such a niche is very narrow. When introduced, iPad was a revolutionary device that finally made the concept of a tablet into a well functioning reality. However, as more affluent people bought iPads and less affluent people bought Android tablets, the majority have come to realize that the narrow niche that Steve Jobs decided to carve out is really so narrow that it is not essential to have a device that sits in that niche. Steve Jobs didn’t even want to have eBooks available on the iPad claiming that “no one reads book anymore’. Obviously, the iPad was not released with the purpose to become an eBook reader, and if one wants to read eBooks, Amazon Kindle is a much more convenient and less expensive alternative to the iPad. Facebook and other social media outlets can be accessed via a smart phone, and so the utility of the iPad has diminished with the introduction of iPhones with larger screens, much cheaper Android tablets that got much better, much faster and lighter Amazon Kindle models, etc.
It is true that the iPad is still the best tablet out there, but its limited utility and high price makes it an unnecessary device to have. Those who have iPad models that are several years old are not eager to drop another grand for a slightly improved iPad that cannot do any task very well or much better than an older model. Hence, the continuos decline in iPad sales is very logical. Apple should either create a fusion OS X / iOS (tablet / notebook) device, using the next generation A-Series chip that can complete with lower-end Intel Core M CPUs or continue to experience iPad revenue attrition. I, for one, see no reason to upgrade my iPad Air (1st generation) for years to come, but I would buy a hybrid OS X / iOS device in a heartbeat.
I wish Apple would not keep replacing and upgrading hardware every year. I now have this crazy thought should I wait and update next year as hardware will be faster and better or should I wait until the following year. It’s getting harder to on sell last years products as more people are owning iPad’s and iPhone’s. A lot of people are feed up with all the changes/update and just give up with these products as they just don’t want to have to keep learning.
It is getting over kill with all the new computer rubbish in cars now. People will just give up and stop buying.
OS X and iOS have the same underpinnings but very different user interaction. Apple has experimented with combining the two but found that they don’t fit, at least not with any user-interaction model that we now know.
I’d love to have an iPad Pro that would run (dual-boot, hopefully) OS X but to make it work I’ll need a keyboard (got one) and a precise-pointing-device, preferably a trackpad, but maybe a Pencil. But not a finger.
This device will come – I am quite sure of that. But the challenge is not the hardware, as Microsoft believes, but the user-interaction paradigm. Apple is right to keep OS X and iOS separate.
“Highlighting the intimacy of the tablet, Jobs demoed the iPad on stage while comfortably seated for a full 12 minutes. If you’ve never watched the demo or haven’t seen it lately, queue it up and see for yourself how much it stands out from nearly every other product introduction.”
Didn’t the biography ‘Becoming Steve Jobs’ talk about this being required due to his deteriorating health first and foremost. I think there was concerns over him standing for the presentation and I also think he subsequently took extended sick leave in the year following.
Anyway along with the iPhone factor, the iPads always shipped to a business model that more closely matches PCs. The big disadvantage the iPad has over an iPhone is there’s very little demand for an iPad to be purchased through a carrier on a contract. As a result, there’s no artificial upgrade cycle. If the talk about the iPhone sales flattening out and upgrade cycles slowing down prove to be true in the long run, I imagine much of that will also be due to the current shifts in how carriers bundle and subsidise phones on plans.
Without the contract incentive there’s much less need or urgency to upgrade an iPad, just as I imagine will apply to mobile phones that are purchased outright by the less tech interested users.
“Jobs described that iPad’s goal as being better than an iPhone and MacBook at web browsing, emailing, viewing photos, watching video, playing music and games, and reading ebooks.”
It still does all those well, and many arguably better than an iPhone. Another problem is though that other than the Retina display introduced in the third gen (around the time sales were leaking), none of those experiences have benefitted much from technological advancements with the exception of gaming. If you have an iPad 3, for the most part it’ll perform any of those listed tasks as well as a current iPad model. The only thing the newer ones may benefit from is more RAM which helps with Safari, but that alone won’t force most users to upgrade.
Otherwise the hardware a fairly similar all things considered apart from a smaller size, lower weight and Touch ID.
I would argue that major component to Apple success pre iPad has been iTunes + iPod, iPhoto + Mac, Google Maps + iPhone. These aren’t the only killer apps, but they were significant drivers of the value for me as a user.
For iPad, there hasn’t been a clear global standout to the degree of those previous software + hardware solutions. There has however been huge successes from the product. The big one, if I had to choose, is the modern, reimagined user interface of the iPad. The kinetic experience of the iPad resonates with a customer base of adult-aged lower-skilled users that made it a gateway to the benefits of technology and the Internet.
The Apple Watch and Apple TV are lackluster since they offer neither a software solution that moves a catagory forward and are not compelling in terms of an understandable benefit to people casually exposed to the product. This is unfortunate since both are awesome and I use them both a lot.
The challenge is what’s next. Where do you go without getting lost in a tropical rainforest of red tape and IP lawsuits? There are no easy answers, but I’ll be excited to see if the company can either create a software + hardware solution for these existing products or move into an all-new catagory.
I agree with this article, but in bittersweet, because I’m a Mac guy first, like Schiller, and I constantly think OSX is at peak level, if not also Macs themselves, and I desperately want to see it succeed rather than stagnate….
Apple can easily increase iPad sales. Just ditch iOS and replace it with OS X. Let me do what I do on my notebook on my iPad. iOS makes everything frustrating. Keeping double documents for multiple apps is a damn joke. That is as raw and real as one can get.
iPad sales are only down relative to Apple’s previous iPad sales. The iPad is still selling very well. I think Apple has the right idea with the iPad Pro. Make a premium model that appeals to market that will pay for features and extract more profit from fewer units sold.
Why is it every time there is a post about iPads, all the comments say “Put OS X on iPad or it will be DOOMED!”
That sounds like a bad idea. Just adapt iOS to the bigger screens a little better, maybe a couple new features from OS X, Magic Trackpad support, etc.
Apple still ignore the iPad … where all users need a serious improvements from iPhones rather than Screen size.
It has to run (OS X) or even a new software in between OS X & iOS capabilities, then we’ll see iPads “revived” again, with neither impact to iPhone+ size nor Macs sale numbers.