“For Apple, the iPhone is a sale that keeps on giving — at least in the U.S. Once a customer has bought one, he or she is likely to come back for another, usually within two years, when that contract expires,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“The iPad is a like a big iPhone in some respects,” P.E.D. reports. “In terms of how often they are traded in for a new model, however, and what happens to the old, they may be more like Macs (which tend to get replaced every 2-4 years) or, worse still, TVs (5-10 years).”
P.E.D. reports. “‘We think Apple would prefer the iPad become a big iPhone,’ the report concludes. ‘We suspect, though, based on recent CIRP data about how buyers use them, that it’s as much like a Mac, TV, or iPod, with less frequent replacement.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Suspicion is not hard data.
iPad was only released on April 3, 2010. While not typical Apple product users, we’ve already had, on average, four iPads per family so far (1st gen., 2nd gen. 3rd gen. and Air; none of us happened to purchase a 4th gen. iPad).
Let us know by voting in the MacDailyNews poll (left column on main site, menu option in app) how long you use/plan to use your iPad before replacing it.
I think Apple is quite happy, thank you very much, with the billions they pull in every year from the ecosystem they created around these iDevices, regardless of the hardware upgrade cycle for each.
I’m personally on my third, iPad 1G, iPad 3G and now iPad Air. Every one gets better and I find needy soul to pass my old one too. Share the journey!
Well done Mike.
Yes, I too have passed my older iPads down to family and friends.
Agree. I’ll keep mine longer than the phone. But if I happen to get a windfall of some spare cash I might upgrade sooner than expected.
Somewhat enjoyed the article.
I for one wish – iPad Mini came with telephone capabilities. It an ideally small enough for portability, powerful enough with the A7 M7 processor, and large enough to do some revisions to work while out and on the go. Connect a bluetooth ear speaker and I don’t require holding the device up to my head for incoming calls.
Also, I would like to see this device not be pre-installed into automobiles, but to be able to dock it.
Skype account will turn your iPad mini into a phone, and work well. You will need Internet access via a hardware hotspot, or a local WiFi access site, but I know people who do this quite happily.
My cycle is:
iphone: buy every other product cycle (iPhone 3,4,5…. not the S)
ipad: buy every 3rd version (iPad 2, iPad Air)
Macs: when apple care runs out is about the time I get a new one, thats a special case though since I usually need a powerhouse for a computer.
We are on more or less a 3 year cycle with the iPhone. The better they get the longer they last.
iPads are different. More like you buy a new one and pass the older one onto family. For example I bought my wife a 3G and set up her older 2G for my parents. I sent it to the UK (Ilve in the US) and now we can FaceTime whenever we want. Although the iPad Air looks cool, I don’t see the need for a new one yet.
Macs tend to be 3-5 year cycles. I usually upgrade my MBP every 3 years (since I use it for work as well as personal). My wife’s aging white MB has been retired and she is using my previous MBP instead.
I’m all for supporting Apple but only when I’m ready for a new machine. Next in line is probably the MacMini which is our media and backup server.
Took the iPad Air redesign to get me to upgrade from my 1st gen. iPad (May 2010), but I’m loving it. The unlimited AT&T plan was transferred to the Air and the old iPad stays on my nightstand.
Very happy with the Air so far, but would be all over a bigger iPad for my business.
We upgrade iPhones every 2 years and the old one goes to the kids. We had an original iPad, which my son bought and later sold to a friend, an iPad 2 and iPad 3, still in use but no plans to upgrade.
it depends on how much innovation there is. when the new iPad came out in october 2012, it was basically an upgrade and i passed. if that’s the innovation, probably every 3-4 years. maybe.
when the iPad Air came out, i was one of the first to buy one. if that’s the level of innovation, possibly every year to 2 years.
I recently dropped my iPad 3 on a corner and shattered the glass. Fortunately, I had AppleCare. $50 later I had a brand-new (well remanufactured, no doubt) iPad 3. As cool as the new iPads might be, my iPad 3 does and outstanding job at what I use it for (media consumption, mostly) and I’d rather save the money for the next Mac Mini or (if I’m feeling really rich) a new Mac Pro. Granted, Apple will get my money either way, but my Mac Mini is a bit long in the tooth these days (core 2 duo design) and replacing it is higher priority than a new iPad.
My wife and I generally keep our Macs for 5 years, at least. She wanted a new iPad after a little less than three. So it’s more like an iPhone upgrade cycle for us.
What drives the upgrade cycle is when circumstances render what you have currently “not good enough”. Macs last a long time before software advancement and OS X upgrades render them slow and obsolete. The iPad is still new platform, so software and OS development is moving rapidly, rendering an iPad… not quite obsolete, but good to replace in about 2-3 years.
I would expect that in the future, things will calm down, the platform will mature, and a tablet will suit your purposes for five years.
——RM
I have steadily updated my iPad as each generation has seen a great improvement. Also, the trade-in value of old iPads seems to be holding up.
I know a lot of people who are pretty pleased with their older iPads.
Yeah but if it still works… why toss it?
An older iPad is perfect for kids to beat on…
Perfect to travel with to store movies for watching in the RV when camping in remote Alaska. (No TV signal 30 miles outside any major town– that’s a LOT of area!)
Perfect just as it is. Don;t need to update apps that still work.
Like the best Apple stuff– overbuilt and usefull well beyond the “Tech replacement” cycle of every 2 years..
Hardly true.
I have upgraded my ipad 3 times… Better half has done it twice.
I also have a mini.
Observing people around me who have ipads.. Id say the cycle is closer to iphones than macs !
You miss the point about the tremendous incentives provided by carriers to upgrade iPhones. They don’t reduce your monthly bill after the iPhone has been amortized over the life of the contract. You can essentially upgrade for free, if you sell the older iPhone to cover the upfront cost of the new one. Only the slow or lazy don’t take advantage of the situation. No one is providing incentives to upgrade iPads. I think the iPhone upgrade cycle would be much less frequent without the carriers help.
I upgrade phones at contract so I’m on the “s” schedule. The monthly cost is the same whether the phone is replaced or not. I kept my original iPhone and my 3GS as spare iPod Touches for different areas of the house. I was going to keep my 32GB iPhone 4S but traded it for the 64GB iPhone 5S at the upfront cost of $100.
My iPads are on the 3 year cycle. I bought the origin iPad and gave it to my mom when I replaced it with the iPad 3. My next iPad will be the one that has built-in LTE advanced or if Apple introduces a 13″ iPad Pro.
The iPad 3 is still perfect for me, although I was sorely tempted by the iPad Air’s reduced weight.
This is a tough one for me because I just don’t see how they can improve much year over year on the iPad. So my current iPads seem perfect and I’m going to use them for a long time… but that’s what I say every year. So I’ve bought the 1st gen, 2nd gen, 3rd gen, 4th gen, the 1st gen mini and 2nd gen mini.
I am an Apple person going back to 1996, but I haven’t purchased an iPad yet because they are expensive, Apple doesn’t make it easy to add storage, and I don’t want to live in the cloud. Apple’s insistence that everything you do requires an Internet connection is pushing me away from their products.
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