"The iPad 2 is still in use today," IDC Senior Analyst Jitesh Ubrani tells TechCrunch. “The [original] iPad Minis and Air are all still in use today. They were being supported by Apple until very recently. People have been hanging onto these devices and they’re finding that they work just as well as they did when they were released"
It's simply true. I have a iPad 2 and iPad Air 2, and both run fine. The former still on iOS6, so it is fast. Most people who upgraded iPad 2/3 to iOS7+ regretted doing so, and replaced their device.
It's Apple's fault, if they want more sales they shouldn't fragment and confuse the customer with the whole iPad Air 2 not updating for years, than two iPad Pro models with higher price, and now the 9.7 model.
People want faster hardware and new features with every model, otherwise there is no reason to switch and replace an otherwise good working device. It's the same for smartphones, tabets, notebooks and PCs. Only that tablets are in-between phones and notebooks, and many people around the world just got their first access to internet and only own a smartphone. So no tablet and notebook sales from those.
If a brand stagnates, people start looking elsewhere for new more exciting devices. For example in China tier 1+2 cities the last 6 months there is a new trend, iPhone 7 was a big let down in their opinion, and so you see more and more high end Android phones - it happends very fast.
To manufacturers of phones/tablets/notebooks/desktop: produce new better models with new exiting features. Why is my 2010 notebook has the same spec as 2017 models, despite new ones that meet even the spec cost almost twice as much? Why is dual core in 2017 models still almost the only option? Where are the augmented reality camera features in smartphones and tablets?
Great comment. What you are saying is spot on. I had a 2009 17" Toshiba satellite dual-core I upgraded ~1.5 years ago to another Toshiba Satelite 17" with a quad-core haswell chip. Now my mom is looking to upgrade her aging 2010 Gateway 17" dual-core machine but for Intel's latest lineup, most i7 laptop CPUs are only dual-core and only a slight clock speed bump above the i5 models. I guess they felt quad-core mobile CPUs consume too much power for laptops but still, since they were able to do it a couple years ago, why have we taken a step backward?
She also is a happy owner of a non-retina iPad mini which is still chugging along.
I think the move to fewer cores and lower clock speeds was to improve battery life. You can still buy laptops with quad core CPUs (even Xeons if you look round), but battery life is nowhere near as good as the new dual core i7s
I cannot agree with the quoted statement. Early Apple tablets do not work as well as when they were released. I bought an iPad 3. After each major iOS release it became slower. Now it runs iOS 9 and it is unbearably slow. I only ever use it to watch YouTube, and even this is an exercise in patience.
Because of the performance drop, I had bought an iPad mini 4. After half a year I sold it because I simply didn’t use it often. I cannot imagine spending $400 on a new iPad. I will keep using my iPad 3 until it breaks. And I will not buy a new iPad again. The OS and form factor is too limited to do any serious work on it. (I’m not going to buy a keyboard and stand for a tablet just to have a subpar laptop experience.)
Just as a side note, we've never needed to upgrade the ipad air 2 nor any prior tablet from apple. We're of horror stories of devices slowing down or degrading with each iteration of ios so we've been lucky in not keeping them up to date.
On the other hand its actually been a negative impact in regards to wanting to buy a iphone. Knowing that if apple ever force a update or accidently swipe a notification away we could be looking at slower devices is a incentive not to buy their iphone products.
If you're that worried you should just simply stop using the internet. People downloading the facebook or messenger app kind gives a clear message they don't care about their privacy or their data.
The hardware possibly matured to a point where future iOS releases don’t have a noticeable performance impact anymore. The iPad 3 and iPhone 4S became slower with each major update whereas the iPhone 5 is still perfectly okay to use. Apple’s recent ARM chips rival laptop CPUs. Apple would have to intentionally cripple iOS devices to make them feel sluggish.
(Nevertheless, since my trust in Apple has eroded, I can imagine the bean counters thinking of how to increase sales by deliberately degrading older hardware.)
As counterpoint, I used my first generation iPad until I broke the screen last year. (It withstood more than a few drops as the corners attested before finally succumbing.) Granted, my use case wasn't overly intensive: mostly just web browsing and video viewing (Netflix, HBO Now, iTunes). My primary gripes are with iTunes and video storage management, and while that was more acute with the limited storage of the first generation iPad, it hasn't changed with its 9.7" iPad Pro replacement. But that first generation iPad worked well for me, even with iOS 9.
Can I asked something? Why are iPads popular? Genuine question. I will admit first that I also use an old iPad for watching YouTube, but that's because I run Linux on my surface pro 3, and YouTube sucks my battery dry faster than you can say sudo.
But, the iPad is still too heavy to hold for extended periods, falls over all the time on its rubbish case if I keep it on the uneven bed, and I find the surface kickstand does the job much better. Or just a normal laptop. Even for playing music when I cook, laptops somehow have less friction.
You probably do on your laptops or phone what others do on the iPad. it's also worth nothing how much more portable the iPad mini is than the 9.7" form factor.
I also upgraded to a newer iPad which is dramatically lighter. Around 1lb seems about the limit for comfortable use indefinitely. The new iPad is a little lighter than a hard back book, the iPad mini at 0.65 pounds is lighter than the average paperback.
PS: The 12" pro is 1.59 pounds which IMO is to heavy for sustained use.
You are conflating several issues that have little to do with the topic of what happened to tablet sales e.g. Apple's iPhone sales drop is China is only tangentially related to tablet sales drop worldwide (fwiw I agree your diagnosis about lack of fashionable iPhone upgrades, particularly a new design. the other significant factor is spiking iPhone prices in international market due to exchange rate).
Tablet sales and upgrade patterns can't be directly compared to smartphones. Consumers upgrade their smartphones often because in key markets those purchases are subsidized (the single biggest factor in the iPhone's success was switching from a full price sale system of the original model to the subsidized system for the iPhone 3G). Tablets are more comparable to laptops/desktops. However iPad has even dropped below the Mac. Why is that? So back to the techcrunch article:
> part of the slow down in sales can be chalked up to user disappointment in the devices’ limitation following the initial excitement around the space...growing size of smartphone displays has gone a ways toward cannibalizing tablet sales, as well, limiting the need for a much larger device when so many handsets are now within the six-inch range. On the high end of the spectrum, convertible touchscreen Windows 10 devices have eaten into tablet market share, while Chromebook sales have begun to dominate the education market that tablet makers once saw as a key use case...Amazon marks a rare bright spot on that end of the spectrum, due to its relatively unique ability to subsidize costs as it positions Fire tablets as, essentially, content delivery devices...
When the iPad launched in '10 the iPhone was 3.5" and the laptops were big and bulky. In the following years that space for tablet growth was squeezed by large Android phablets and Macbook Airs (the 11" launched in a few months after the original iPad). Still the iPad, was proclaimed as the future of computing by Apple. It should have reached upwards to dethrone laptops/netbooks. The tablet problems are simple:
1) multitasking/multiwindow is basic on tablets and the UX is just not good enough, especially considering the disadvantages when compared to laptops/desktops with bigger screens
2) data/file management and sharing for projects spanning multiple persons and tools. iOS in particular is woefully lacking in this regard
3) poor input system. This is arguably the most critical factor. As long as a hardware QWERTY keyboard remains the most efficient way to provide text input then the laptop form factor, and OSes designed for that form factor, will remain dominant for productivity. An iPad with a hardware keyboard but without a mouse/trackpad is a sick UX joke resulting in arm fatigue.
More than anything else, TABLETS NEED A REVOLUTIONARY SOFTWARE KEYBOARD or INPUT SYSTEM. That should be Apple's or a YC startup's first priority.
(NB: tablets offer voice input, some actually decent, but that's obviously a nonstarter as general input in a noisy classroom, library, coffee shop, open office plan unless perhaps Apple can make a stenomask[1] fashionable. A revolutionary touch software keyboard still seems the best bet imo)
There's some kind of obscure irony that the longevity of tablet hardware and software is having a negative effect on sales. Like netbooks, that could ultimately mean manufacturers lose interest in the form factor in favour of something with higher revenues.
The tablet would have doomed itself by being too user friendly.
For me the ideal tablet size is the 7 inch tablet.
Easier to browse with than a phone (possible to use mobile sites and desktop sites), easier to read (it's paperback size), easier to hold than a ipad/10inch tablet.
can ANYONE recommend anything at least as good as a nexus7?
Personally I greatly enjoy the Tab S2 with Book Cover. It has an AMOLED screen which is superb for night time reading, and feels small enough to put almost anywhere.
Samsung just released the next version of it, but I'm not sure how sold I am on the all glass design.
I love my ipad mini 2 for the same reason. If my iphone's too small for it then the mini is the next step. I can take both just about anywhere easily. I don't know how portable the 9.7" would feel - but I'm sure the 12.9" would live firmly at home or a backpack.
I find reading on a tablet quite terrible. Your eyes get tired and use late at night delays melatonin production. I like the Kindle Paperwhite a lot more for reading non-technical books and magazines.
The problem with tablets is they're incredibly limited. The hardware seems to improve with every generation, but specifically in the instance of iOS: the software seems to be stagnate. What's the point in having super fast storage, quad core processors and fast memory if the software is so limiting and horrible it doesn't let you take advantage of it?
As a developer, I find iOS to be a horrible operating system and very limited. If you want to surf the web or play games then the iPad is great for that. The same thing applies for Android tablets, however I find Android tablets to be slightly more developer friendly because you can hack them and access powerful applications.
Bottom line is tablets can never replace computers or laptops.
The same thing applies for Android tablets, however I find Android tablets to be slightly more developer friendly
But Android tablets are also awful. Although I am primarily an Apple user and my wife uses an iPad, we bought an higher-end ASUS tablet based on Atom for me and our daughter (to watch cartoons on long car trips). The tablet came bloated with all kinds of nonsense apps, of which more than half cannot be removed or disabled. Android updates stopped after a year or so. It had an SD card slot, but it could only be used for a small subset of applications.
The Nexus 7 2013 that we owned was better in the lack of crapware department. But the last Android update was in 2015 (6.0.1).
After some iPads and the Nexus 7/ASUS adventures, I decided to stop using tablets completely. Laptops have become so light and compact that it's easy to take them to meetings (especially the MacBook 12" is great in this regard). As a bonus, I can just store my notes, etc. in plain text (org mode) in git, rather than being locked in some cloud silo.
As a bonus, I can just store my notes, etc. in plain text (org mode) in git, rather than being locked in some cloud silo.
Not a bonus: on Android, you can use MobileOrg+SyncOrg (which syncs to any git remote). Or you can use Emacs on the terminal and sync using a generic generic git client like SGit.
My experience with Android tablets has also been dismal. I've had two: a first (maybe second?) gen Kindle Fire rooted Cyanogenmod and more recently a Pixel C purchased with the dev discount.
The first was kinda slow and heavy, and its display was too low DPI to use it for extended reading. All that was somewhat forgivable given that it wasn't supposed to run anything but Amazon's flavor of android, and, well, it's old. Running phone apps on it wasn't too bad since it's a 7" tablet.
The Pixel though... its hardware was nice. It looked nice, felt nice, and for the most part, handled nicely (though its bezels had be accidentally tapping things on the screen frequently). The problem is that its WiFi drivers were horrible and as it turns out, the cracks in the android experience are much more visible when running on modern, powerful hardware. Lots of bits just felt janky, disjointed, or sluggish. None of the browsers I tried were as nice as mobile Safari, though Firefox came closest, which is weird to me — why isn't Google's browser the best on Google's OS and Google's hardware?
Beyond that, the C's full size form factor made the lack of quality tablet apps on Android blindingly apparent. More often than not I had to settle for stretched out phone apps, which look and feel like crap on such a large screen. To be fair, the tiny handful of good tablet apps I found were very well-made, but they were far too rare.
I'd also say Android's dev/hacker-friendliness is arguable. Yes, one can side load unsigned apps, which is cool. To me, though, this point is nearly moot due to the quality disparity between the Android SDK and dev ecosystem vs the same of iOS. Perhaps I'm biased, but barring projects where iOS doesn't provide the necessary hardware access or something, I'd almost always do my prototypes and v1s on iOS and port to Android later when demand drums up than vice versa, simply due to time and frustration saved.
Ugh. While i have not tried MS own Surface line, i have a 8" Windows tablet here, and it is basically a mess.
MS has basically taken their Phone patform and bolted it onto desktop Windows. Thus you either have painfully limited phone apps (that you need a MS account just to download even when free) or you have the Win32 UI stuff that is a mess on touch screens (small widgets, easy to accidentally drag-n-drop, ever-present close button near the screen edge, etc etc etc).
The Surface line may work a bit better because they have a pen to use, but at that point you are basically emulating a mouse via different means to get around the worst of the Win32 UI issues.
> What's the point in having super fast storage, quad core processors and fast memory if the software is so limiting and horrible it doesn't let you take advantage of it?
>If you want to surf the web or play games then the iPad is great for that
I don't even think they're particularly good at surfing the web. The interface on the iPad (and perhaps tablets in general) is simply too limited to be useful for much other than basic surfing. It's annoying really, because many sites try to be tablet friendly and ruin their desktop experience to fit the tablet needs, but the tablet still isn't really as good as the desktop ever was.
You may be correct in that it's the software, personally I think it's the touch screen that's the limiting factor.
You sound like the person who would really like a Pro Surface. I am a Linux head but the build is quality and the ease of tablet like duty is amazing. I used my friends with a frown and then I became really envious of the form factor and quality. I think this is the future of non-Apple laptops.
They're not good for surfing the web either, they're just better than phones, purely because of the larger screen. They still have all the same limitations, especially with the lack of a keyboard. I could browse Reddit or HN on a tablet, but there's no way to write my own comments longer than maybe one sentence because there's no keyboard. So it's fine for reading news stories, but that's about it; anything that involves interaction is just too cumbersome to bother. And if you suggest hauling around a separate keyboard, now you've made it so I might as well just bring my laptop.
Sad part is that Android could have been there, except that Google got into a civil war between Android and ChromeOS, with the latter winning. Thus Android as anything more than a glorified media player OS sat stagnant for 5 years.
"In the past month, both Apple and Samsung have refreshed their flagship tablets for the first time since 2014"
The first sentence doesn't say it all? These things aren't cheap (for most of us) and people want the latest and greatest. Updates have been coming in the 6 month to 12 months window for phones/tech. I know I wait for releases to purchase hardware. It's the only way to ensure the longest support window, for one.
My parents recently bought a new Windows laptop because their modern iPad can't do all of the things they want. If tablet software can't compete with PC, then their sales are bound to go to zero as PCs like the Surface become more prevalent. Personally, I don't own one as my phablet does everything that I would want a tablet to do, and my PC and Kindle do the rest.
Tablet sales are lagging in America because manufacturers are not innovating. One of the top rated Android tablets today is the Nvidia Shield K1. It's a great tablet. It costs $200. You can use it to stream a very playable PC gaming experience via GeForce Now provided you have a solid 20 mbps connection. You can connect it to your television and use it as a console. It's 3 years old and still pretty rock-and-roll weighed for it's entertainment value. Its display is easily cast to a television or monitor for anyone that needs to use it for a workspace via Google apps. And there isn't even anything on the American market that offers serious competition.
Sure, there's the Google Pixel C. It's got a top notch Tegra X1, but it hobbled itself by not including an SD card slot. Google Drive is nice, but I don't want to be beholden to Google for my files. And the Switch looks gimmicky (and sub-par).
So this far there's really no reason to move beyond the Nvidia Shield. At least not on the American Market.
Then Asian market is doing much better. They're cranking out some quality spec Core M tablets for $200 to $300. If American tablet sellers would get in on the trend, we might see a decent uptick in sales.
I had the first 1, and managed to turn that into 4 through two recalls (all basically cosmetic flaws) that have all at this point died. one was killswitched, recovered and killswitched again and bricked. one is stuck in a bootloop after a cm10->cm11 auto upgrade. the other two's batteries failed and i soldered usb cables in their place and they have a second life in the back of my electric junk drawer.
I thought about buying a k1 tablet, but i really couldn't justify it as i have a one plus 3 that does almost everything a tablet did. and i can make calls on it and not feel like a goober.
I have the first shield tv and its awesome. I use the g-force now service to stream witcher 3. I love streaming games. I used on-live back in the day, and was bummed when it failed. I lost like 10 games.
I did here that nvidia had a lot to do with the nintendo switch, but i don't care enough to vet that rumor, so i will jsut spread it anyway.
The reason it is king is because Nvidia has basically pulled an Apple. Same internals have been supported from 5.0 all the way to 7.0. This while most tablets barely have been supported within a single own major version.
I went the other way: 7" tablet + small $20 featurephone. I think the whole combo is cheaper than a single 6" smartphone, and you can't beat the battery life.
I have been using my original iPad Mini since it shipped. I have not found a reason to upgrade it. I did get the MaxiPAD (iPad Pro) with the pen to use to draw and take notes however when I want to read or just in general, I use the Mini.
This is pretty much the answer. Tablets have a far longer lifetime than PC's (which are endlessly upgrade-able) and phones (which are constantly lost or destroyed).
My first one broke after 4 years of continuous use, the battery went flat. So i bought a unused one from a work colleague and have been using it ever since.
5 years ago I was given an iPad 2 by a friend who had received it as a gift and was never going to use it (I think he had had it sitting in a box for a year at that point already). I have never updated the OS and I use it for reading. Sure, it is a little bit bigger than I would like, and the screen is low rez, but it lets me read books for the entirety of even the longest flights. I have looked at getting a newer android tablet (nexus 7 style) but nothing is worth the money since I have a perfectly functional one already. There are pretty hard limits on the performance you need to deliver all kinds of content since no one is using a tablet for serious production, there are better tools that are actually fit to task. All they can do is up the battery lifetimes. Well, marginally better for the environment I guess.
Yet not long ago everybody was anticipating the end of the general-purpose PC because a tablet (with an optional keyboard) was seen as good enough for "ordinary people", and the merger of MacOS into iOS is expected any day now.
I think that assessment wasn't entirely wrong, it's just that smartphones, rather than tablets, turned out to be that general-purpose PC for many people.
Smartphones got much larger. I think if it were just Apple, we'd still have tiny screens on our phones and iPads for general purpose computing at home. Thankfully there is competition and people voted for larger phones with their wallets, so now our phones are as large as we "need" them to be.
I'm sure that played a role. Personally I hate big phones, which is why I have the smallest iPhone (thankfully they keep that option, at least) and an iPad Mini. But many people around me are perfectly happy to use a big ass-phone for most of what they do. Good for them :-).
I, too, dislike big honking 5+" smartphones, and while I could see how they replace mini tablets, I don't think they can be used as general-purpose computing device in the way a tablet can.
Back when the ipad first came out the iphone was far more limited and had a small screen. Now most of the ipad only apps are migrating to the iphone as well. With the large screen and powerful processor on par with the ipad there's less reason to need the ipad. Same with android, with large screens and powerful processors the need for tablets is going away, its an extra expense most people can't justify anymore.
Had high hopes on my purchase of iPad 2. Thought it would revolutionize my Internet experience. But after getting hold of iPhone 4S and later other smart phones my use of iPad dropped to zero. Didn't find the need. Now its a device for my kid for games and educational apps.
The only tablet I've ever wanted to own is a light 12-13" e-ink reader for music sheets. Sony did one as an experiment and closed the division I think?
We are to make an announcement of the product On April 2017. There, You will find a lot more of GVIDO and related products & services. We are making great effort to be ready in mid 2017
About pricing
The final price hasn’t yet set. Since it has 2 large scale E-INK monitors, the price of the first model is expected to be slightly higher than two of iPad Pro 12.9 inches. It’s getting slightly higher because of the new components though, We try hard to keep it as low as possible.
I keep my iPad on my couch end-table, if I need to do any browsing or streaming my phone cannot handle. An added benefit of keeping my iPad here is it serves as a decent TV tray.
They combine the worst features of a laptop and a smartphone (too big to fit in your pocket, too awkward to type compared to a normal keyboard) and offer very dubious advantages, not to mention probably the worst software support out of all portable devices (barring smartwatches, another dumb fad).
Sure, a lot of normies and apple fanboys bought into the fad originally, but now they're beginning to realize that the device is mostly useless except for some casual youtubing in bed or letting your kid play some educational games.
Recently I dusted my Asus Transformer TF700 and slapped an AOSP Nougat rom on it. It's reactive, has a good form factor and a crisp, luminous 1980x1200 screen. I can't see a reason to change it. (Bonus: I took on a little challenge with it: No Google services and only FOSS apps. It's an interesting experience.)
Am I wrong in assuming that electronics firms just don't realize the special nature of the rise of modern consumerism? What I mean by that is that I think it's obvious that consumerism as we've known it isn't sustainable in practice. Sure, there's always going to be a demand for new devices but I think the rate of replacement of them is and will be very slow for a long time. Once devices get good enough or service demand well enough then it becomes a different market entirely just like how cars are today (people replacing them years later and not just every year).
Tablets are less convenient than phones or laptops for all tasks. "Hybrid classes never work in practice, you have to minmax". People hoped that tablets would be a useful addition to their lives, and now that they know that they're wrong, they have stopped buying them.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 68.5 ms ] threadIt's simply true. I have a iPad 2 and iPad Air 2, and both run fine. The former still on iOS6, so it is fast. Most people who upgraded iPad 2/3 to iOS7+ regretted doing so, and replaced their device.
It's Apple's fault, if they want more sales they shouldn't fragment and confuse the customer with the whole iPad Air 2 not updating for years, than two iPad Pro models with higher price, and now the 9.7 model.
People want faster hardware and new features with every model, otherwise there is no reason to switch and replace an otherwise good working device. It's the same for smartphones, tabets, notebooks and PCs. Only that tablets are in-between phones and notebooks, and many people around the world just got their first access to internet and only own a smartphone. So no tablet and notebook sales from those.
If a brand stagnates, people start looking elsewhere for new more exciting devices. For example in China tier 1+2 cities the last 6 months there is a new trend, iPhone 7 was a big let down in their opinion, and so you see more and more high end Android phones - it happends very fast.
To manufacturers of phones/tablets/notebooks/desktop: produce new better models with new exiting features. Why is my 2010 notebook has the same spec as 2017 models, despite new ones that meet even the spec cost almost twice as much? Why is dual core in 2017 models still almost the only option? Where are the augmented reality camera features in smartphones and tablets?
She also is a happy owner of a non-retina iPad mini which is still chugging along.
Because of the performance drop, I had bought an iPad mini 4. After half a year I sold it because I simply didn’t use it often. I cannot imagine spending $400 on a new iPad. I will keep using my iPad 3 until it breaks. And I will not buy a new iPad again. The OS and form factor is too limited to do any serious work on it. (I’m not going to buy a keyboard and stand for a tablet just to have a subpar laptop experience.)
On the other hand its actually been a negative impact in regards to wanting to buy a iphone. Knowing that if apple ever force a update or accidently swipe a notification away we could be looking at slower devices is a incentive not to buy their iphone products.
(Nevertheless, since my trust in Apple has eroded, I can imagine the bean counters thinking of how to increase sales by deliberately degrading older hardware.)
The first-generation iPad did not support past iOS 5.1.1.
But, the iPad is still too heavy to hold for extended periods, falls over all the time on its rubbish case if I keep it on the uneven bed, and I find the surface kickstand does the job much better. Or just a normal laptop. Even for playing music when I cook, laptops somehow have less friction.
I also upgraded to a newer iPad which is dramatically lighter. Around 1lb seems about the limit for comfortable use indefinitely. The new iPad is a little lighter than a hard back book, the iPad mini at 0.65 pounds is lighter than the average paperback.
PS: The 12" pro is 1.59 pounds which IMO is to heavy for sustained use.
Tablet sales and upgrade patterns can't be directly compared to smartphones. Consumers upgrade their smartphones often because in key markets those purchases are subsidized (the single biggest factor in the iPhone's success was switching from a full price sale system of the original model to the subsidized system for the iPhone 3G). Tablets are more comparable to laptops/desktops. However iPad has even dropped below the Mac. Why is that? So back to the techcrunch article:
> part of the slow down in sales can be chalked up to user disappointment in the devices’ limitation following the initial excitement around the space... growing size of smartphone displays has gone a ways toward cannibalizing tablet sales, as well, limiting the need for a much larger device when so many handsets are now within the six-inch range. On the high end of the spectrum, convertible touchscreen Windows 10 devices have eaten into tablet market share, while Chromebook sales have begun to dominate the education market that tablet makers once saw as a key use case... Amazon marks a rare bright spot on that end of the spectrum, due to its relatively unique ability to subsidize costs as it positions Fire tablets as, essentially, content delivery devices...
When the iPad launched in '10 the iPhone was 3.5" and the laptops were big and bulky. In the following years that space for tablet growth was squeezed by large Android phablets and Macbook Airs (the 11" launched in a few months after the original iPad). Still the iPad, was proclaimed as the future of computing by Apple. It should have reached upwards to dethrone laptops/netbooks. The tablet problems are simple:
1) multitasking/multiwindow is basic on tablets and the UX is just not good enough, especially considering the disadvantages when compared to laptops/desktops with bigger screens
2) data/file management and sharing for projects spanning multiple persons and tools. iOS in particular is woefully lacking in this regard
3) poor input system. This is arguably the most critical factor. As long as a hardware QWERTY keyboard remains the most efficient way to provide text input then the laptop form factor, and OSes designed for that form factor, will remain dominant for productivity. An iPad with a hardware keyboard but without a mouse/trackpad is a sick UX joke resulting in arm fatigue.
More than anything else, TABLETS NEED A REVOLUTIONARY SOFTWARE KEYBOARD or INPUT SYSTEM. That should be Apple's or a YC startup's first priority.
(NB: tablets offer voice input, some actually decent, but that's obviously a nonstarter as general input in a noisy classroom, library, coffee shop, open office plan unless perhaps Apple can make a stenomask[1] fashionable. A revolutionary touch software keyboard still seems the best bet imo)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenomask
The tablet would have doomed itself by being too user friendly.
can ANYONE recommend anything at least as good as a nexus7?
Samsung just released the next version of it, but I'm not sure how sold I am on the all glass design.
If you root Android, you can install F.lux (the real deal, not that fake red layer crap), which helps considerably.
We'll probably get an upgrade in June, but the old one will remain in service even if it doesn't have a phone connection.
As a developer, I find iOS to be a horrible operating system and very limited. If you want to surf the web or play games then the iPad is great for that. The same thing applies for Android tablets, however I find Android tablets to be slightly more developer friendly because you can hack them and access powerful applications.
Bottom line is tablets can never replace computers or laptops.
But Android tablets are also awful. Although I am primarily an Apple user and my wife uses an iPad, we bought an higher-end ASUS tablet based on Atom for me and our daughter (to watch cartoons on long car trips). The tablet came bloated with all kinds of nonsense apps, of which more than half cannot be removed or disabled. Android updates stopped after a year or so. It had an SD card slot, but it could only be used for a small subset of applications.
The Nexus 7 2013 that we owned was better in the lack of crapware department. But the last Android update was in 2015 (6.0.1).
After some iPads and the Nexus 7/ASUS adventures, I decided to stop using tablets completely. Laptops have become so light and compact that it's easy to take them to meetings (especially the MacBook 12" is great in this regard). As a bonus, I can just store my notes, etc. in plain text (org mode) in git, rather than being locked in some cloud silo.
Asus is king of crapware, never buy Asus.
Not a bonus: on Android, you can use MobileOrg+SyncOrg (which syncs to any git remote). Or you can use Emacs on the terminal and sync using a generic generic git client like SGit.
Not practical for my use case: the screen is too small, does not render LaTeX equations inline, etc.
The first was kinda slow and heavy, and its display was too low DPI to use it for extended reading. All that was somewhat forgivable given that it wasn't supposed to run anything but Amazon's flavor of android, and, well, it's old. Running phone apps on it wasn't too bad since it's a 7" tablet.
The Pixel though... its hardware was nice. It looked nice, felt nice, and for the most part, handled nicely (though its bezels had be accidentally tapping things on the screen frequently). The problem is that its WiFi drivers were horrible and as it turns out, the cracks in the android experience are much more visible when running on modern, powerful hardware. Lots of bits just felt janky, disjointed, or sluggish. None of the browsers I tried were as nice as mobile Safari, though Firefox came closest, which is weird to me — why isn't Google's browser the best on Google's OS and Google's hardware?
Beyond that, the C's full size form factor made the lack of quality tablet apps on Android blindingly apparent. More often than not I had to settle for stretched out phone apps, which look and feel like crap on such a large screen. To be fair, the tiny handful of good tablet apps I found were very well-made, but they were far too rare.
I'd also say Android's dev/hacker-friendliness is arguable. Yes, one can side load unsigned apps, which is cool. To me, though, this point is nearly moot due to the quality disparity between the Android SDK and dev ecosystem vs the same of iOS. Perhaps I'm biased, but barring projects where iOS doesn't provide the necessary hardware access or something, I'd almost always do my prototypes and v1s on iOS and port to Android later when demand drums up than vice versa, simply due to time and frustration saved.
MS has basically taken their Phone patform and bolted it onto desktop Windows. Thus you either have painfully limited phone apps (that you need a MS account just to download even when free) or you have the Win32 UI stuff that is a mess on touch screens (small widgets, easy to accidentally drag-n-drop, ever-present close button near the screen edge, etc etc etc).
The Surface line may work a bit better because they have a pen to use, but at that point you are basically emulating a mouse via different means to get around the worst of the Win32 UI issues.
That's kind of a funny thing to say given that one of the hallmark features of Android 'O' is them locking down what developers can do with the operating system: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/03/first-prev...
Check out the very first feature mentioned, Background Limits.
I don't even think they're particularly good at surfing the web. The interface on the iPad (and perhaps tablets in general) is simply too limited to be useful for much other than basic surfing. It's annoying really, because many sites try to be tablet friendly and ruin their desktop experience to fit the tablet needs, but the tablet still isn't really as good as the desktop ever was.
You may be correct in that it's the software, personally I think it's the touch screen that's the limiting factor.
The first sentence doesn't say it all? These things aren't cheap (for most of us) and people want the latest and greatest. Updates have been coming in the 6 month to 12 months window for phones/tech. I know I wait for releases to purchase hardware. It's the only way to ensure the longest support window, for one.
Sure, there's the Google Pixel C. It's got a top notch Tegra X1, but it hobbled itself by not including an SD card slot. Google Drive is nice, but I don't want to be beholden to Google for my files. And the Switch looks gimmicky (and sub-par).
So this far there's really no reason to move beyond the Nvidia Shield. At least not on the American Market.
Then Asian market is doing much better. They're cranking out some quality spec Core M tablets for $200 to $300. If American tablet sellers would get in on the trend, we might see a decent uptick in sales.
When the new one is released, I'm buying two.
I thought about buying a k1 tablet, but i really couldn't justify it as i have a one plus 3 that does almost everything a tablet did. and i can make calls on it and not feel like a goober.
i don't think there's another tablet in the pipe: http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/11/rumored-follow-nvidi...
I have the first shield tv and its awesome. I use the g-force now service to stream witcher 3. I love streaming games. I used on-live back in the day, and was bummed when it failed. I lost like 10 games.
I did here that nvidia had a lot to do with the nintendo switch, but i don't care enough to vet that rumor, so i will jsut spread it anyway.
Said as a happy eee901 owner and user.
Man those things were the shit. I first learned Linux on my brand new EEE901.
It was still working fine (running windows 10), but then I decided to add a SSD and broke the poor thing.
But I guess that niche is now occupied by Chromebooks (which is sad, because Chromebooks are surprisingly expensive here in Germany).
Edit: There are still netbooks being produced, HP makes one, IIRC.
I wonder how resale affects these markets.
-better screens (oled? color e-ink, perish the thought?)
-better graphics processing (maybe sacrifice some battery or thinness)
-incorporate top of the line features ('truetone' display, pens, etc)
All I'm saying is car makers find a way to make it work every year.
Now what is it?
Its a dual screen e ink reader.
From their FAQ:
We are to make an announcement of the product On April 2017. There, You will find a lot more of GVIDO and related products & services. We are making great effort to be ready in mid 2017
About pricing The final price hasn’t yet set. Since it has 2 large scale E-INK monitors, the price of the first model is expected to be slightly higher than two of iPad Pro 12.9 inches. It’s getting slightly higher because of the new components though, We try hard to keep it as low as possible.
Format will be PDF and it has a SD reader.
http://www.gvido.tokyo/#faq
Even at the office I no longer see execs walking around with them. Just a few years ago these things were everywhere out in public.
I assume the remaining holdouts have relegated them to bedtime devices.
They combine the worst features of a laptop and a smartphone (too big to fit in your pocket, too awkward to type compared to a normal keyboard) and offer very dubious advantages, not to mention probably the worst software support out of all portable devices (barring smartwatches, another dumb fad).
Sure, a lot of normies and apple fanboys bought into the fad originally, but now they're beginning to realize that the device is mostly useless except for some casual youtubing in bed or letting your kid play some educational games.
a) Google got into a platform civil war. Just as Android was getting serious about tablets, ChromeOS happened.
b) Intel tried to ram ATOM down everyone's throat.