“Apple’s iPad business has been on a downswing for a long time now and we’re not talking about modest declines, either. In the company’s fiscal year 2013, a little over 71 million iPads were shipped for nearly $32 billion in revenue,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “By fiscal year 2016, those figures had plunged to 45.59 million and $20.63 billion — performance that’s nothing short of disastrous.”
“Even during this downturn, though, CEO Tim Cook continued to indicate that he was bullish on the iPad over the long term,” Eassa writes. “And based on what Apple just announced vis-a-vis iPad at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, it’s clear that Cook and his team haven’t given up on iPad — not by a long shot.”
“It’s doubling down to make it a compelling device that doesn’t merely exist in the shadow of the company’s wildly successful iPhone product line,” Eassa writes. “Each form factor (large-screen tablet and phone) have their unique advantages and disadvantages, and if Apple does its job right, potential customers will see value in owning both iPhones and iPads.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Finally, the promise of iPad is realized. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, June 5, 2017
SEE ALSO:
CNBC review: In the market for a new tablet? You should buy Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro – June 17, 2017
TechCrunch reviews new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: ‘Apple pays off its future-of-computing promise’ – June 14, 2017
Apple’s game-changing 12.9- and 10.5-inch iPad Pros arrive in stores – June 13, 2017
Jim Dalrymple reviews Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Highly recommended – June 12, 2017
LAPTOP reviews Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Amazingly fast performance beats most Windows laptops – June 12, 2017
Ars Technica reviews Apple’s 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Much more ‘pro’ than what it replaces – June 12, 2017
These go to 11: Apple makes iOS more Mac-like and iPad’s promise is finally realized – June 9, 2017
The iPod was not a huge runaway hit at first. It was a moderate success and exploded when it was made compatible with Windows libraries via iTunes.
The iPad is a work in progress. I own an iPad Pro, but bought it for the bigger screen and improved audio- not as a replacement for a desktop or laptop computer.
iOS 11 looks interesting and we will see when the Public Beta hits the street.
Ever tried to print from an iPad? You can’t. Need special printers for that. Very anoying.
Yes, our iPads would not print to our old HP Inkjet printer. In frustration, I scuttled it and picked up an Airprint-compliant Canon Pixma, and life is good again.
After that particular Canon model had been out for a good long while, it made its way to an HSN clearance sale where I was able to get a really good deal on it. Except for the Mac Pro, this coupon-cutter has never had to pay full price for anything, thanks to learning my mother’s trick: once they think they have you, walk away.
Maybe you should’ve scuttled the device that forces you to rearrange your world around it.
Picked up a surface, and it prints to everything.
Getting a Surface Pro would have fitted in fine, but printers are ridiculously cheaper. Besides the HP had a broken hinge
Surface = Just Another Windows Laptop (JAWL) but with a touch screen. Boring. Nothing new here. Move on.
Windows itself is a non-starter and all stagnant one-trick-pony “trendsetting-in-their-own-minds” Microsoft knows offering nothing truly new to the game. If I wanted a Windows portable it sure as hell wouldn’t be a craptastic Surface model.
This is more typical of the thinking of the “trendsetting geniuses” aka morons at Microsoft:
REVIEWERS GIVE A GIANT THUMBS-DOWN TO WINDOWS 10 S:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/reviewers-give-a-giant-thumbs-down-to-windows-10-s/?loc=newsletter_large_thumb_featured&ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=24166283854915527599218894642661
Apple has given up on Mac mini and Mac Pro, however.
I think looking at the decline in iPad sales in a vacuum is short-sighted. I think the question is would you rather be still putting close to 10 million devices of your in customers hands or not? No, it’s no where the runaway success of the iPhone, which has exceeded everyones wildest dreams, but Apple rarely sells over 5 million Macs in any given quarter, so selling almost double the number of iPads is no failure from any point of view besides the initial surge in sells when first introduced. An iPad is closer to a laptop than a phone with longer upgrade cycles – but I feel, and confirmed by the satisfaction numbers, that an iPad is an integral part of a larger number of people’s tech life.
I’ve had iPads since 2010, and they are part of my daily life. I use bifocals, and it’s just so much easier to hold and position the iPad for reading than a MacBook. And the app ecosystem has retrained my brain to use apps for content consumption. When I sit down with my seldom-used MacBook, I have to seek out sites in Safari instead of having an app present the content to me.
An iPad can mostly replace a laptop (even more so with iOS 11), but a laptop can’t replace an iPad. You can’t use a MacBook as a musical instrument, or to comfortably read a book, or to read a comic or a magazine. My only wish for iPad is that the large one was an 11.5″ or 12″ screen. 12.9 is just too big and unwieldy.