My three sons share an Apple iPad given to them by Mimi, their grandmother. When she bought it a couple years ago the iPad was top-of-the-line with 64 gigs and a Retina display. The boys run it hard on car trips where it functions as a hotspot and under covers in their bedrooms along with a couple iPhones, iPod Touches, various Kindles and some cheaper seven-inch Android tablets. In all we have probably a dozen touchscreen devices in the house but most of the action takes place on iPhones or that one iPad. Great for Apple, right? Not really. Apple’s iPad sales are dropping you see and the reason nobody seems to talk about is they don’t wear out.
The rule of thumb in personal computers is there is a new generation every 18 months and regular users aren’t willing to keep the same machine going for more than two generations so our median PC replacement time is about three years. Mobile devices don’t typically last as long with manufacturers and carriers planning for a median 18 month replacement cycle. This is in part driven by cellular contracts (or has been) but battery longevity comes into it, too. And of course the state-of-the-art in mobile phones has been increasing so rapidly that 18 months is about right for everyone except me.
While a 10-inch iPad is more expensive than a high-end cellphone it isn’t dramatically so, especially with the decline of mobile contracts. Apple and the carriers originally expected iPads to last about as long as phones or maybe a little more. But they don’t fail that quickly. At best (or worst depending who you are) iPads may follow a PC three-year replacement cycle. But they haven’t been around long enough to really test that so the big fear at Apple is they’ll last even longer than PCs.
My kids have never run out of memory with the iPad despite all the crap they load on it. Battery life remains acceptable especially since they’ve learned to keep it plugged-in during long car rides sucking movies down from a Seagate Wireless Plus media server. Mama fills the Seagate box with movies grabbed from Netflix and our Dish DVR, keeping cellular data consumption to a minimum. Without the Seagate box my kids consume a gig of cellular data per kid per day, which sorta staggers the old phone bill.
This unexpected iPad longevity has hurt Apple recently with Wall Street. Traditionally they’ve handled such problems by introducing new models and they’ll do the same again shortly. Only this time it might not be enough. In fact I’d bet that it won’t be enough because I have a hard time imagining what would make me replace our iPad. Apple has an iPad trade-in program to get older units off the street in the USA and put them on the street as refurb units priced for third world markets like Vietnam.
If that doesn’t stimulate enough demand Cupertino may be tempted to make earlier iPads deliberately obsolete with new versions of iOS. I hope they don’t but it won’t surprise me — an act of desperation from a company surprised by its own product longevity.
I have three iPads and an iPad Mini in the house. Yes, the iPad 1 doesn’t use the latest iOS, but it still holds a charge and runs all the apps I want, so I’ll keep it until it’s dead.
Maybe it is time for Apple to flex its muscle in a different way and teach Wall Street that selling crap quality just to support unnecessary use of earth’s finite resources isn’t the way Capitalism should be practiced in the 21st Century.
Steve showed the world a better way to compute. Now it is time for his successors to show how economics doesn’t have to be so evil and bad.
Considering that one apocryphal cause of the Great Depression was a lack of built-in obsolescence, you’ll be swimming against the tide.
In the UK used iPhones still sells at a high price on the likes of eBay. Something that you’ve got to take in to account when buying a new one is that you can get a good portion back selling the old on on!
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But, yes, people are holding on to Apple products longer because they’re still exceptionally good after a couple of years. The better way to look at this is that when the person does change they’re more likely to buy Apple again. They’re building a better quality of loyal customers because now they know what a quality product is.
There lots of reasons to upgrade.
My IPad1 became a hand me down to my 5yo nephew. I replaced it last year with the iPad mini. My mini does not have a retina display, but since my old eyes are getting older all displays are retina displays to me.
When ever my nephew comes for a visit, he asks to use my iPad, because many of the games he wants to play will not run on the iPad 1.
It’s the killer apps that will make people upgrade. Sooner or later ther will be a 64 bit app that will make everyone upgrade. Or Apple can release a a multi-user os that uses the fingerprint scanner.
Today’s Marketplace on NPR had a short piece about move from quality to planned obosolensent during the 50-60’s, and a organization trying to change that.
Good point about the 64-bit apps. Apple should be pushing developers to create a high-perf app that requires it.
Maybe computers (tablet) have finally evolved to the point of being a true appliance. I’ll keep my toaster right there on the counter as long as it makes toast. If it breaks and I can make it work again, even if I have to pull the toast out with a fork, I’ll probably still keep it.
We have probably 8 ipads in our house (I am an iOS developer). My kids are are using 2 ipad 1’s and an ipad 2. Occasionally they get a game they can’t install. However there are so many games they can play it hasn’t been a big deal yet. I think you are right none of my iPad’s have worn out and none really feel obsolete. My biggest complaint about the ipad is it is still stuck with a gig of ram even the latest model. However your average user wouldn’t even recognize the problems this can cause. Same with my computers I don’t feel the need to upgrade other than throwing an ssd into my imac, I have always been a chronic computer upgrader. The only thing I could see pushing me to upgrade is maybe something from Oculus.
I have never run out of memory on my Retina iPad.
1gig has become the new 640k.
Truth is, you probably wouldn’t know if your iPad ran out of RAM. Storage, that’s another matter.
Apple probably figures that keeping new iPads at only 1 Gig of RAM will force developers like yourself to write apps that will still be compatible with older iPads that have been upgraded to the latest OS. From the OP and the number of followup comments in agreement with it, this appears to be working.
Of course it just contributes to the “problem” of iPads having a long lifespan and not needing more regular replacement.
Totally no surprise to me. I’ve used Apple products, though not exclusively, for 30 years…they rarely wear out. Yeah, they get slow and obsolete. Yeah, batteries wear out and RAM needs expanding. But they only fail long after they have become technological dinosaurs. Let Apple begin a new era of non-obsolescence, not planned obsolescence! Hey, it could happen. Maybe.
Apple should create and endow (with Apple stock) a Global iPad Learning Foundation. The Foundation could buy old iPads in the U.S., and send them to thousands of poor small villages in India, to help the school systems over there.
How about letting Apple and it’s shareholders decide how to spend their money. Everyone who sees a person or a company that has substantial money is always trying to figure out ways to spend it for them. If you to see such an operation built start raising capital or spend your own money. Apple has done plenty for the environment and is leaps and bounds ahead of the vast majority of US companies.
Isn’t spending other people’s money the function of the government?
Hey, lighten up – RedFred is just making a suggestion. And I’m a Appleshareholder, and like the idea.
iPads require a lot of connectivity to be useful, and many of the poorest areas in India don’t have adequate broadband (or even reliable electricity sometimes.) It’s such a vast country that there is certainly a need that a program like this could address appropriately (ie a good match of tools to available resources) but the poorest areas need many things before iPads. If you look at the earliest One Laptop Per Child prototypes, for example, they came with hand cranks so they could be used in areas without electricity.
What you are describing is called corporate colonialism. I don’t want to see Apple going down that path.
Is any form of charity also colonialism?
Chromebooks are also competition for the iPad and tablets in general. When I asked my 11 year-old grandson which he would keep — Chromebook or iPad — if he could only keep one, he picked the Chromebook, see:
http://cis471.blogspot.com/2014/04/laptop-vs-chromebook-vs-tablet.html
I would make the same choice.
Is that the right question? I don’t disagree with your comparison between the Chromebook and the iPad, but people aren’t by and large buying iPads because they’re asking themselves: “which one would I keep if I could only keep one?” For most people their use has very little to do with limited availability of 1 device, which is what this question implies.
If my wife, family, friends, or business rely on me having a truck (maybe my job requires it, maybe it’s a status symbol necessary for my local business, maybe my wife likes it to move things, maybe she’s worried that we have a 4 wheel drive vehicle for the impending zombie apocalypse) I’m going to own a truck. But perhaps 90% of the time I just need a light, small, efficient vehicle that gets me to and from work and looks like what my co-workers drive. I can want that small simple device for a variety of reasons. Maybe I buy a new one, maybe I buy it used.
Now if someone asks me, “If you could only pick 1 of these 2 vehicles, which would you pick?” I’d have to say, I keep the truck–because I can use it for everything. But that doesn’t mean that I, my teenage kids, and most of my friends and acquaintances aren’t going to all buy Honda Civics of various kinds, new and used.
I know with the time you spent writing that long blog article, and making the comparison between the two devices, you’re going to feel like you have to defend your position. I don’t own an iPad, and personally I’d probably buy the Chromebook, but I don’t think the question you’ve supported that article on is the right question. 🙂
[http://cis471.blogspot.com/2014/04/laptop-vs-chromebook-vs-tablet.html]
The longevity should be a selling point. It’s what makes Apple products worthwhile and it helps create diehard customers. We wouldn’t tolerate such high prices if we were buying something that would be obsolete in 18 months. I recommend Apple products to friends and family that don’t want to have to worry about things not working.
Seems to me that Wall Street has the wrong projections and that maybe the stock is overvalued if you are only focused on the short-term. In the long-run, I think the consumer technology brand that can stand behind its products in terms of their longevity and quality is going to have an advantage from a price perspective.
Same experience.
iPad 1 went to grandson when got daughter (4 months older than her nephew) iPad retinal display.
iPad 1 still work horse and used all the time- plenty of games despite no camera/ face time and MineCraft deficient. Been dropped a few times too.
Bob- your kids describe outs exactly-> under the sheets playing on iPad.
Can see the faint glow through bedspread when supposed to be asleep.
The “median replacement time of 3 years” for a PC hasn’t been true since the mid 2000’s. Once the 64 bit Intel chips came up, there’s really little reason to upgrade. Clock rates topped out at around 3Ghz. 4-8GB of memory and 500G – 1TB disk is plenty for most uses. Those specs have been around for 5+ years. There’s really no reason to buy a new one. I hung on to my 2006 MacBook Pro for nearly 8 years, and would have kept it longer if Mac OS X still supported it.
People say PC sales tanked because “everybody’s switching to mobile.” No, the real reason PC sales tanked is because the PC you bought five years ago is fine. (Yes I know about outliers like gamers and VFX work still need the latest GPUs. But that’s a small slice of the market.).
I concur.
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The biggest thing about PCs is that the machines have outstripped the ability of developers to create applications that will push the envelope. I’m a gamer, and I do spend money on making sure my graphics card is up to snuff and that my RAM is maxed out, etc., but if it weren’t for that I doubt I’d replace a 64 bit machine with another one for years.
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I find it ironic that PCs are now the “keep around forever” devices, and the constant device churn has moved smaller and smaller. Of course, were it not for the iPhone and the subsequent smartphone revolution, we’d probably be getting by on our old bulletproof Nokias, which typically need a battery replacement to keep going.
My view is that the PC manufacturers, and especially laptops have given people no reason to upgrade. Consider something like the display where they went hell bent for fewer and fewer pixels on the screen (16:9 has 11% few pixels than 16:10 which was again fewer than 4:3) and pixel density even went down. Keyboards are crap. More and more things are soldered down or unchangeable. The current Thinkpad T4x0s has a lower maximum RAM capacity than one from two years ago.
Nobody seems to bother with TPMs or good access control. Security and backups are major concerns but the PC manufacturers do nothing to solve it.
Is it such a big problem for Apple ? They are slowly building a HUGE installed base of devices and plenty of happy customers. The unit sales per quarter may be flat, but they remain at a very high level.
Many companies could live with such problems…
According to asymco.com each Apple (iTunes) user is worth about $48 per year in additional purchases – https://www.asymco.com/2013/11/11/whats-an-active-user-worth/
“The bottom line is that in the last 12 months the average iOS user contributed about $48/yr to the ecosystem via Apple’s own properties”
Apple doesn’t need people to buy new iPads frequently, and will do quite well just having them participate in the iOS ecosystem.
The key word is Active, and there are a lot of those iPads that just sit around. My parents got one to read email, and occasionally they do use it for that, but it’s spent much of its life on a table in the corner of the kitchen. And there are plenty of others like it parked on bookshelves behind executives, buried under papers on elementary school teachers’ desks or abandoned in a tangle of obsolete smartphone chargers as users have moved on to phone-based lifestyles.
And that’s the real change in that revenue-per-user report: the numbers take off in 2011, when the iPhone 4 was released and the exclusive AT&T contract was opened up to Verizon. A huge amount of the iTunes traffic in recent years is driven by phones, not iPads. Having these things sit around forever not generating new tablet purchases may be fine if the model is to chase everyone over to a higher revenue phone platform.
As we are fast running out of resources on this planet because there are far too many of us, long lasting products of any kind are good. Manufacturers deliberately curtailing product lifetime below what current technology allows is immoral. Every time you buy something, it should last much longer than the previous version. If that means manufacturers eventually go out of business, so be it. The people involved can move on to doing something else useful.
Mr. Cringley,
May I suggest that you get hold a copy of the book “The_Waste_Makers” by Vance Packard!
How pray tell do you get netflix movies onto that seagate drive?
I echo Gary’s question, but from the Dish perspective. The only way I know (besides screen capture recordings of playback) to move Dish DVR content to any other viewing device is with the Hopper Transfers app – which no longer runs on an original iPad because it requires iOS6.
$ man mplayer
Wow, I didn’t even know about the Hopper Transfers app. I use iSkySoft’s iMedia Converter Plus to do the job but they obviously got in trouble because the latest version (iMedia Converter Deluxe) no longer has download support. But there are other ways to do it. PlayLater will download Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon videos for later viewing. As a Dish subscriber I can use DishAnywhere to watch my recordings and then re-record them using a screen capture application like iShowU or ScreenFlick (these are OSX apps I’m afraid). Worst case you can use a video capture card or USB device to grab the video signal coming out of the DVR to your TV.
That sounds like a lot of work. Doesn’t all (or most) of that capturing and transcoding have to be done in real time? Or have you automated the process?
I just replaced an iPad at work. The previous one would not let me download apps saying I needed to upgrade the os to use them. However, the iPad would not upgrade the os saying it was current or something like that. It was like the “Apps Natzi – no apps for you!” So the apps were dying one at a time as they needed to get upgraded. Very frustrating.
It occurred to me that since Apple can obviously determine the os, they could have directed me to apps that functioned on that os but they don’t because they want me to buy a new iPad to get the apps.
That said, I have an iPod that is like version 2 that keeps on running even though we can’t get any any apps for it so we loaded it with music and now it is basically a shuffle.
First I think tablets will probably become 3-5 year devices. With no moving parts they will be much more reliable. Tablets also enjoy the benefits of the PC industry. The operating systems and applications are complete, well designed, and well implemented. There will be less need to add features that require more powerful hardware. So far tablets have been positioned to be display devices with the storage and extra processing placed in the cloud. Tablets in general are sufficiently powerful (my Kindle Fire excepted) processors to display most types of content in HD at good frame rates. So there is no overwhelming reason for one to “need” to replace their tablets until they fail.
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Bob I know you have one or two book projects underway. In reading this column I am reminded of the fact your home is probably a technological treasure trove. You’ve tried so many things over the years. I’d bet one could write a book on it. Collecting content, storing it on a media server, and getting it to work well with a variety of tablets and smart phones is a noteworthy accomplishment. Your choice of the Seagate Wireless Plus Media Server is brilliant. I think I know which software you’re using to pull it all together. Is it PlayOn?
Well, they’re not bulletproof. I’ve taken good care of my iPad 2 since I’ve had it (2-3 years, forget exactly). However, I’ve lost the mic and cell service. WiFi and the rest still works so it’s still in use. Checked on the repair cost and it’s sufficient high to make the iPad a replace-not-repair item. Probably their design goal – hope they recycle the things.
The fact that iPads wear out slowly means a steadily accumulating installed base. Apple should get more serious about selling apps for them. They have a lot to learn from Amazon about how to help customers and sellers find each other.
I have a 1st gen iPad that I still use every single day. It works fine. I only use it for web surfing, email, and streaming video, so there is no point in me upgrading to a newer iPad. This iPad accomplishes those tasks just fine.
What would make a difference for me? Software! Specifically, software that is outstanding in its value and its design, but which just can’t run on a 1st gen iPad!
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want someone else planning obsolescence for MY iPad. But, if a new iOS had some great new features that were used well in great new software which requires a great newer iPad, I would have to consider it.
(PS switching to flat icons and broken iMessage didn’t affect my desire to upgrade, Apple!)
It is simple — most of the people willing to pay $400 to $900 for an iPad now own them. Simple Economics 101 tells us to sell more you need to increase demand and one way to do that is to lower the price. When the demand softens for a product at a fixed price, it becomes easier for competitors to enter the market.
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Of course the smart people at Apple already know this. Apple is notorious in postponing what would be an obvious move. They usually have the next big thing planned and it is only a matter of time until they make their move.
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Now is there a next big thing? I wonder what it will be…
@Mama fills the Seagate box with movies grabbed from Netflix and our Dish DVR
copyright criminal! off to the fema camps with you!
I don’t think so, thanks to battles fought years ago by the VHS and BetaMax folks. This is content I have paid for and am using legally.
Re: “content I have paid for and am using legally”. I think mpaa’s real question was whether or not you had to brake any drm encryption to use what you paid for. There is computer software available that will let you play any drm’d Blu-Ray DVD, but the software can’t come from a USA company, since it would be illegal to sell or use such software in the USA.
I used to look forward to hardware improvements, ie. faster CPUs, GPUs, network cards, larger & faster hard drives, more RAM, etc., used to rationalize upgrades. Now that I use mobile devices for most of my computing needs, the most important hardware improvement has been improved wireless & cellular communications (WCC). However, since we also now have almost ubiquitous data caps on every network connection, upgrades purely for better network speed are a waste of money. As long as we have data caps, there is no good reason to spend money on faster network connections simply to go though one’s data faster. So my upgrade pace has been slowed considerably. No real reason to change hardware simply for a faster network if it just means using up the data faster. As for apps, things work fine as they are on the old hardware. So if Apple wants to sell me a new iPad, maybe they should tackle the data cap issue. Maybe a networking partnership with their nemesis Google?
I’m convinced that iOS 7 exists because iOS 6 ran too fast on the iPhone 5 and earlier.
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Maybe there was a bit of Jony Ive’s chafing at Jobs’ design taste (which has since been proven to be far superior to Ive’s.).
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But mostly the former.
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It was a rude awakening to realize I have to be cagey about Apple upgrades, the way I’ve had to be for years with Microsoft.
After you’ve had an iPad for 7 years, what’s the chance you’ll get your next tablet from another manufacturer? Low probability, I’d say. So now you’re an Apple customer for life. Add in the vast amount of money that Apple is making from app and content throughput, and where’s the problem for Apple? Other manufacturers are going to get squeezed out of your life.
Agreed, if it was a cheap POS I’d be looking at other options, as it is I would never buy another tablet just based on reliability alone.
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Cheap, Fast, Reliable.. Choose Two.
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“Cheap, Fast, Reliable. Choose Two.”
So true.
i have an IPad 2.0. I dropped it and cracked the corner of the display. Yeah it’s getting a little slow with games. But with Netflix, as long as I have a good connection, it works great. If the battery would completely fail, then I would get a new one. I just can’t justify buying a new one. I have gone to the apple store and held the IPad air in my hands. It is an amazing device that is super light. But I’m not going to upgrade until I’m forced to. I have a 2009 Mac Book that works great. Same problem. I want to encourage economic movement but the progress in tech goods doesn’t motivate me to make those purchases.
Anything with a non-replaceable battery wears out. iPads included.
Yeah, but if it last long enough for the product to become obsolete… what does it matter?
Have you ever heard anyone complain about iPad 2 battery life?
I keep switching back and forth between my iPhone 5S and my Galaxy Note 2. I like many of the apps on the iPhone, the build quality is much higher and it plays well with my Mac and airplay stereo I own. However there are now more (and better) apps for Android. There are some very good Android tablets out there, not to mention Windows 8 machines that are basically the MS Slate but actually affordable and useful.
If you just want mainstream applications, iOS is the way to go, even with the somewhat higher price to pay. If you want something for an office, either iOS or Windows 8 on Intel hardware. For everyone else, Android is good enough.
BTW, where are all the Lightning connector peripherals?
One app category that is non-existent on Android, but prominent on iOS, is music creation apps. You can get truly amazing guitar amp simulators, synthesizers, recording and mixing, beat creation, samplers, etc apps for iOS; however, the entire category is pretty much nonexistent on Android because it lacks the very low latency audio APIs that were built into iOS from the beginning. If you are a musician, you buy iOS devices because no other phone or tablet gives you that capability. There’s also a thriving market in iOS hardware peripherals to connect guitars, microphones, MIDI devices, etc to your device. Android can’t even play in this game.
They started working on it with Android 4.1: http://source.android.com/devices/latency_design.html . But, you’re right, if you need it now, it’s hard to beat Apple: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/05/why-mobile-low-latency-is-hard-explained-by-google-galaxy-nexus-still-android-of-choice/ : “For now [mid 2013], Android can’t match app selection, API quality, availability of MIDI support and wired connections to instruments, or audio performance and flexibility available on iOS.”
I recently upgraded my o10 year old, home brew PC with another home brew one because it could no longer keep up but I expect the new one to last another 10 years. I’ve had my iPad (2) for who knows how long but it’s still working fine and runs all the apps I need. Unless Apple does something deliberate to prevent me from upgrading the software I can see it lasting many more years yet.
Early on in the life of today’s current technology, IE back when PCs first came onto the market and later on, mobile devices, hardware was continually advancing and along with it, software to utilize and fill it so it made sense to continually upgrade the hardware and software. Today, hardware is for the most part as powerful as it needs to be with plenty of capacity for most software. as a result the sales model that worked in the 80’s and 90’s that was based on continuous hardware upgrades no longer works.
However companies like Apple (sans Mr Jobs) still continue to try to build value based on the old out of date model and while there are many who will line up at 3 am for the latest gizmo (I am NOT one of them) that’s not enough to replace the continuous and steady upgrades (and thus sales) needed to sustain the old model.
Hardware has simply become a utility item, like you car or fridge and just like those, there is no need to continually upgrade them any more. Are there better models out there as time moves on? Sure, but the ones you have still work fine. You don’t stop driving in last years car just because the model year changed.
Am I the only one whose kids have dropped and cracked the family iPad’s screen, not once, not twice, but four times? I keep convincing myself its cheaper to repair (via 3rd party) than replace.
Three words, dude: Otterbox Defender case. If it’s available, the first thing I buy for any new tech toy is an Otterbox Defender. Pricy, but cheaper than even one screen replacement.
Sounds like a Stride commercial.
I don’t see this as a problem. People will get tired of buying replacement android devices eventually. People are still buying LOTS of iPads. They’re just being dissuaded by heavy marketing. However, quality products tend to shine through. Kids are all about Apple. That’s the good news for them.
Cringely: “an act of desperation from a company surprised by its own product longevity”
I question how truly surprised Apple is by the longevity of thier iPads. Apple products have always outlasted their competitors. My main desktop is a mid-2007 24″ iMac. I have no plans to upgrade it anytime soon. Since getting that iMac, I’m on my third employer-issued Windows laptop (one Dell, two Lenovo/IBMs).
I know Apple has been accused of forcing obsolescence as they have moved from Motorola 68XXX to Power PC to Intel chipsets, but I don’t that was the motivation for making those painful choices. They have had many other opportunities to force obsolescence without doing so. They could have easily cut off my old iMac when they released Mavericks, but they didn’t. I would be disappointed if they began to do so now just to pump sales.
Apple is known as taking a long-term vision of things. I think they know that artificially forcing obsolescence would undermine their reputation in the long run. To the contrary, they stand to gain sales with a reputation for long-term reliability compared to the junk pedaled by the copycats.
Rather than a surprise, I think iPad longevity is expected.
I guess I’m the only cheapskate here.
I spent $799 last year…on a refurbed 13″ MacBook Pro (Mac only for computers, since 1989)
But there’s no way I would spend $500 on a tablet.
Spouse has an original Surface RT w/ membrane keyboard I got for under $200 (work uses them, so they provide support).
My tablet is a 7″ SS Galaxy Tab 3 16GB for $50 (-$50 online promo code) plus a 2-year contract on Sprint (I chose 2GB for $17/month)
Sprint even offered me another one free w/ 2-year contract (mobile data plans start @ only $5/month)
Oh…. don’t worry about the next 1-2 generations:
1) speed is increasing faster than it did with computers because they are starting so very slow and they don’t have to reinvent as much as reconfigure (heat WILL become a BIG issue soon).
2) augmented reality games are going to require new processors in 1-2 years and probalby entirely different hardware
3)… and this is The Killer App….. the mobile device will become the ultimate smart credit card with multiple biometric validations built in and with kill switching built in. There will be a very affordable insurance policy to cover killing your machine. In fact, there will be a recycle cycle built into the high end insurance so, the ipad will not MAYBE die by the next generation but will be set up to Definitely die by the next generation.
oh… “Killer app”… ha ha…. didn’t realize the pun til just now…..
Steve Jobs probably never saw the Story of Stuff, a look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns – about the way we make, use and throw away all the Stuff in our lives:
http://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff/
The Story of Electronics explores the high-tech revolution’s collateral damage:
http://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-electronics/
Hey Bob, when are we going to get another IBM article?
Here is a good one:
https://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-22/ibms-eps-target-unhelpful-amid-cloud-computing-challenges
For a while I was finding your “IBM bashing” tiresome, but I guess I’ll eat crow and admit you were right, and Warren Buffet is wrong. IBM is not in a good way at all.
Apple are very much into the forced obsolescence game. A while back, I bought a used iphone 3 for my son. A few months later, Whatsapp (his #1 app at the time) stopped working. Whatsapp and Apple blamed each other for the problem, but it really boils down to the fact that Apples development platform stopped supporting the iphone 3.
The thing about the iPad is that it’s quite expensive (not subsidized like the iPhone) – and purchased by people who already have both an iPhone and a Mac (or PC). So, it’s not a high priority item to upgrade. But, it’s not that they won’t at some point, either. Apple’s profit margin on iPads is quite good. They could cut that and sell more or keep it as it is.
So, I don’t see a problem here.
I agree the iPad is expensive especially if you compare it to Android tablets. If you’re only using a tablet for Netflix getting a Nexus tablet is a no-brainer over the iPad.
Hey Bob
What every happened to Cringely’s critters crawling around on the moon
Craig
As an involuntary early adopter (gift from spouse) of the original top-o-the-line $800+ iPad1, I now find the device infuriatingly slow and crippled and virtually useless for any productive daily activities. Complete waste of money in the long run. I curse it every time I try to work outside its ridiculous limitations.
That Apple pulled the plug on software upgrades for iPad 1 devices after a couple minor bug fixes makes me feel like Windows user.
Upside: Brick outhouse hardware still runs great, screen still looks good and the battery still lasts more than a day. Will last forever.
But Safari is beyond useless, crashing constantly, never able to open more than 1 tab reliably, loading pages at glacial pace and the 2 others browsers that I bought were no better.
The only functionality it has for me is:
1) as an email READER ONLY, in bed, first thing in the morning, but never replying, since the POS won’t support sending group email,
2) as an very occasional ebook reader, when I can find the rare ebook that sells for a reasonable price. (Really, we are years into this ebook thing and you are still trying to sell me a little stream of ebook data for 75% of the cost of the real printed, bound, shipped, signable, loanable, re-sellable hardcover? FU! Oh wait, plenty of young idiots are happily paying those prices.)
3) navigating via google maps on a screen large enough to ascertain actual usable data.
Tablets are great toys for women and kids. I never cottoned to all the idiotic IOS restrictive user controls.
In contrast, the 10″ Mac Air that I bought for a the wife a few months later is still a fully functional, stable, software upgraded, speedy modern device. Multiple users that can be customized and configured all day.
Web pages load in an eye blink in same WiFi environment with active tabs all across the screen.
Unrestricted, sortable email via multiple apps.
Give me an dumb device that can serve 4g to my Mac Air and freedom Steve the Monk’s walled garden.
Never gonna sucker me with another expensive IDIOTIC OS device.
Software upgrades rarely make computer’s faster. They add more code to fix stuff and add features, but the added code takes more processing cycles. If you could revert back to the original OS and apps, it should work like new. An iPad is a computer, after all. Unfortunately, it has a faster “upgrade” cycle.
A new iOS that abandons older iPads is the obvious “fix” for Apple, but the salad days of the iPad are gone with the cheap screens that Android is enabling. My daughter is happy running her YouTube videos on a $59 Android knock-off tablet I got her.
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The iPad was the ultimate cool object when it came out. To me it was Mr. Spock’s tricorder and futuristic clipboard in one, the flat panel of glass and light in Hollywood imaginations. The iPad stood alone when it launched, but Google Nexus tablets are just as good now and MUCH cheaper.
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The tablet market has flattened out anyway at just 4% growth over 2013. Check out: https://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/01/apple-tablet-market-share-1q14/
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I don’t see any cure for what ails the iPad or the tablet market. Cheaper Android tablets will continue to eat iPad marketshare. What’s happening is that smartphones have supersized up to near phablet size and users just don’t need that extra tablet screen size anymore, well at least not so much.
Apple’s path forward is having the phone replace the tablet. They make monster money on the iPhone hardware, the software marketplace is the same, and people replace them (via upgrade or breakage) more often.
This is already happening. The LinkedIn app, for example, “requires” features in newer IOS versions, and have locked out iPad 1 users from using the app. Now, LinkedIn is not a killer app for me on the iPad, so it going the way of the dodo is no big deal.
What happens when your killer app no longer works?
Re: “What happens when your killer app no longer works?” Switch to a different app or Android or Windows. Those of us, who have been using computers, have learned to adapt to change. Except, of course, for China. 🙂
Alternately, Apple clearly held on to the iPad-2 for too long. Oh it has legs yup, mine works great once I kill a lot of the UI effects for parallax et.al, and I know a few folks who recently bought the last generation of the ‘2’ knowing Full Well this: a.> it was good enough, or better than android for their needs and b.> it was more likely to get upgraded (in SW b\c that is where the future is) even through the point, that where even, obsolete they are still very functional. Which is vanishingly hard to say about a bargain ‘droid from a ANY previous HW generation. – Or this iPad-2 running iOS 7 can, in my case go to the kids. All of these iPad-2’s will be replaced and how many with an android? Maybe as much as ten percent and that is overly optimistic.
But the real rush will be in the new iPads that have fingerprint and how that is (AND will be rolled into enterprise offerings) able to offer simple-yet-complex authentication. Simple for the user and complex via implementaiton to fabricate my thumbprint. These will roll over in Enterprise and will go to junior execs, but the new iPads will go to ‘mahogany row’ (even though the next gen iPads cost Less to make than the iPad-2)
No Bob’s kids are NOT the desired metric for product use, and most of the iPad-2s and certainly all of the iPad-1s will go that long sunset to half-time / quarter-time usage. But the ‘rest of us’, as in the computer for ‘rest of us’ will upgrade and call the previous version the iPad for the ‘rest of our’ kids /extended family.
ENTERPRISE
Huh? What? No? Hate to tell you this but product longevity does not imperil a company. It does build brand loyalty. In fact Apple has lost a fair amount of brand loyalty lately because the retina devices are not as repairable, and the iPads do not last as long as other older apple hardware. You can ask what do I mean by that but this week I told a small business it was time to replace their G4 Mac Minis. 9 year old devices win brand loyalty even if they may have hung onto the devices a bit long. Guess what? That business just bought replacement Mac Minis. So while product longevity does in a full world market mean lower quarterly numbers it also means long term stability.
So what product should Apple introduce next? Probably doesn’t matter unless like the iPad it undermines other product lines. Personally, I’d like to see them get into car sound systems in a big way. The controls in the fleet of vehicles our company maintains (Ford, Mazda, Toyota and Honda) are terrible. The car companies could really benefit from Apple taking over. Otherwise the vehicles are relatively the same and while we run them into the ground we are replacing vehicles every year. A well design console with iPhone integration may just be the deciding factor in what we purchase next.
I have just taken possession on a brand new ipad retina mini Carlos fandango all singing tablet thingy. I didn’t really need one as my ipad 1st generation was coping very well, however Apple have a very clever marketing ploy to overcome the robustness of these devices, software releases and therefore Apps that won’t work on earlier gen models, very very clever. Still I sold the much missed blighter for nigh on a hundred pounds..wow now that really is a problem what to spend it on…
This post cracks me up. Until recently (Surface Pro 3) I was an iPad only tablet house. They are so f’ing easy to break. Longevity is not a concern. There are so many things you get wrong, but this just is crazy.
DN
If I bought an iPad (I don’t own a tablet) and it wore out after 18 months, there’s no way I’d buy another one.