{"id":11961,"date":"2015-08-15T21:26:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-16T01:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=11961"},"modified":"2015-08-31T12:34:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T16:34:40","slug":"finding-ipads-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/15\/finding-ipads-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding iPad’s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neil Cybart<\/a> (via John Gruber<\/a>):<\/p>\n

A product that carries so much brand relevancy that it still represents the entire tablet market now finds itself the leader of a category that has lost all momentum as other product categories marginalize the tablet form factor. Although Apple is still selling more than 10 million iPads per quarter, there is something about the iPad that just doesn’t sit right with me. We have gotten to the point that the status quo will likely lead to the iPad and the modern-day tablet becoming irrelevant over time. A new direction for iPad is needed based on a fundamental rethink of tablet computing.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

A quick look at iPad and tablet shipment data would show that things have gotten bad in recent quarters. However, in reality, things are much worse than quarterly shipment data would suggest. The seasonality found in the tablet segment makes it difficult to see these long-term problems. A much better way at understanding what has been taking place is to look at the year-over-year change in shipments on a trailing 12-month (TTM) basis, highlighted in Exhibit 1. This smoothing effect highlights that the iPad and tablet have been on the decline for years and things continue to worsen with the overall tablet market hitting negative territory for the first time. All momentum has been lost.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Many didn’t see it, but tablets were quickly turning into content consumption devices where price was a leading purchase decision.<\/p>\n

We now find ourselves with a tablet market where Apple and Samsung are losing share to \"Others,\" which is represented by dozens of firms selling mostly generic tablets used to consume media, depicted in Exhibit 2.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The iPad market is in trouble and if there are no changes made to the lineup, Peak iPad is on the table. Peak iPad is a simple concept driven by the belief that underlining structural changes to the tablet market would result in the iPad losing most of its value propositions, leading to a permeant decline in sales. For example, Peak iPod is alive and well as even though Apple is still selling iPods, the product category will never reach record quarterly sales. Meanwhile, while some argued that we had seen Peak Mac, we instead were just in a sales slump that quickly reversed itself with a revamped product line. The Mac’s value propositions were still alive and well. In a world where smartphones are getting larger and laptops are getting smaller, the Peak iPad theory is starting to look more likely as time goes on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lukas Mathis<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The PC market relies on upgrade sales. The plastic spoon market relies on upgrade sales. The pants market relies on upgrade sales. But a device as young as the iPad should not be relying on upgrade sales to this degree. If Apple thinks that the iPad’s sales are falling because of a long upgrade cycle, the implication is that the iPad has already reached a large portion of all people it’s ever going to reach.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Better hardware would help, but I think it’s very important to acknowledge that the thing standing in the way of productive work on the iPad is not its hardware. It’s iOS.<\/p>\n

iOS is a cumbersome system for even reasonably complex productive tasks.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Fixing this problem does not<\/em> mean «giving access to the file system.» When I say that Apple needs to fix document management, people sometimes assume that I’m saying that they should bring something like the Finder to iOS. I’m not. The Finder approach to file management is broken. It was designed for a time when people had a tiny number of apps, and almost no storage space. That time doesn’t exist anymore, and neither should the Finder.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think this last part is wrong. When the iPad was released, the jury was still out<\/a>. After eight years of iOS, we’ve seen that no one has figured out a good alternative to the filesystem. iCloud and iOS seem to be converging on a design that is less capable and possibly more<\/em> complicated for non-basic uses. Meanwhile, the Mac has gained iCloud Drive, sandboxing, and rootless<\/a>, which offer many of iOS’s simplicity and safety advantages without (in theory) compromising functionality.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Finder does<\/em> have problems. But something like the Finder—as an icon on the home screen, rather than the home screen itself, like on the Mac—would straightforwardly solve a lot of iOS’s current document management problems. And, tucked away as an icon that many people wouldn’t need, it wouldn’t cause much trouble.<\/p>\n

Update (2015-08-20): Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I think we’re all down on the iPad because we got too excited about it to begin with, and the hangover hasn’t faded yet.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I suspect the iPad’s initial sales were so good that Apple was fooled into thinking it didn’t need to improve the iPad—which is a mistake that the company may be paying for now. But Apple sure seems to be paying attention to it now!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update (2015-08-31): See also Accidental Tech Podcast #132<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Cybart (via John Gruber): A product that carries so much brand relevancy that it still represents the entire tablet market now finds itself the leader of a category that has lost all momentum as other product categories marginalize the tablet form factor. Although Apple is still selling more than 10 million iPads per quarter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101,458,913,31,904,1137,145,30,53],"class_list":["post-11961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-business","tag-finder","tag-icloud-drive","tag-ios","tag-ios-8","tag-ios-9","tag-ipad","tag-mac","tag-sandboxing"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11961"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12130,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions\/12130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}