It turns out the iPad was just too expensive after all

ZDNet ^ | August 2, 2017 | By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[Swordmaker]

It seems that people love everything about Apple's tablet -- except the price.

One of the biggest complaints I've seen leveled against the iPad is that it was too expensive compared to other tablets, and that the high price was acting as a barrier to sales.

Turns out that was true.

The iPad is an interesting device. Once seen as possibly the successor to the iPhone, it's one of those devices that burned brightly, but burned itself out very quickly, going from launch to peak sales in under four years, and ever since it's been in steady decline.

[Swordmaker]

A prime example of how to pull a sow's ear out of a silk purse. . . and to distort a very good and glowing report on the iPad's recovery, with a Year-Over-Year 15% gain in units sold in a quarter that is usually the most depressed by showing that gain in a bar chart that will obfuscate that huge gain in comparison to high bars of previous non-comparable quarters including holiday quarters. He also presents a graph showing the cumulative iPads sold, as if it were dispositive of anything about the gain in the LAST QUARTER. It would take a HUGE uptick in sales to make a large or even really noticeable change in that graph. Even so, you can see an up tick in the curve.

The author goes on to complain that Apple sold only one-third the number of iPads that they sold of iPhones they sold in the last quarter and claims that is somehow a failure! Then, he moves on to complain about the profits after recognizing that the iPad did gain market, something he has complained about in the past which he attributed to high prices. Now when Apple has lowered the prices and introduced new iPads, also at lower prices, he complains about the reduced profits, despite gaining market share. He doesn't want his cake when he gets it.

He also makes the totally false claim that the iPad was intended or perceived to be the replacement of the iPhone. Say what? He then doubles down by complaining that the iPad isn't a replacement for the MacBook. . . something he's been pounding on for years, since the iPad came out.

This author has a reputation of always finding negatives in what Apple does. It's his schtick. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is a. FUD artist and will work for clicks.

[Inyo-Mono]

I bought an iPad Pro earlier this year and really like it. Much better to take on trips out of town than my lap top.

[Swordmaker]

This is a good example of how to take good news about Apple and turn it into FUD. How do you take the fact that the iPad grew sales by 15% year-over-year after several years of steadily declining year-over-year quarterly sales? Adrian Kingsley-Hughes gives a textbook example of how to turn a silk purse into a sow-s ear of FUD in this article. — PING!

Thanks to The Batmann for the heads up.

IPad Fud!
Ping!

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[pgkdan]

I bought an iPad Pro earlier this year and really like it. Much better to take on trips out of town than my lap top.

Me too. If anything happens to it I'll be at my Verizon store asap to buy another. It's far superior to my Asus tablet.

[murron]

I’m just curious. I bought an Amazon Fire tablet for 49.99 for myself, and one on sale for 29.99 for my husband. I added a memory card to mine to increase the storage for under 20.00 to mine. I use it for everything, playing games, reading e-books, listening to podcasts, surfing the net. What is the difference between an IPad pro and the tablet I’m using?

[dfwgator]

Phones are “good enough.”

[TexasGator]

Me thinks you are slightly biased in your review of the review.

Facts are facts.

[Vaquero]

My wife loves her iPad

I cheaped out and got an Amazon Fire. I hate the system. I use my IPhone for everything except I use my HP laptop for a few things. Going to go all Apple when things are replaced. Mac laptop will be next for me. New iPhone after that

[MamaB]

I am on my 2nd IPad. I have a desktop but it has not been turned on in years. I also have nearly 300 books on it including the Bible. I love that it has cellular data. I use it when I am not home. My daughter has one and when we got lost in B’ham, she used her map to find the way back to I65.

[al baby]

My wife got be ani mac 27 in 2011 or 2010 i was buying a pc once every 2 or 3 years love it we also have two i pads she has an i phone i have an adroid i have old man eyes love apple crap

[House Atreides]

What do you hate most, Apple products or bikers?

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

You’re going to go to Apple hell for questioning them.

[TexasGator]

“What do you hate most, Apple products or bikers?”

Those that support motorcycle gangs.

[angry elephant]

The iPad can run far more business apps than the Amazon Fire can.

I have had an iPad, and now have an iPad 2 and an iPad mini. Will buy another iPad mini when the 5 comes out.

I also have the Kindle Fire, an older expensive one, and it is fine for entertainment, but the closed architecture makes it worse than an Android tablet for running business apps.

[Bobalu]

I’m a cheap SOB...I got a 79.95 tablet at WalMart and it’s great!

10” screen, magsafe USB and charging connector, full-size USB port.

It has 3 different charge ports, one is a barrel connector :-)

Has loud audio, good cameras, fantastic image, long battery life, the wifi range is excellent.

There is even a keyboard that you can connect to the magsafe connector.

The thing has been on continuously for over a year now since I use it for Skype contacts.

I sometimes plug it into a 5TB external HD to watch a film from my large library.

Cheap sometimes turns out to be good.

[TexasGator]

“. New iPhone after that”

$1200!!!!!!!!!!! Really?

[Governor Dinwiddie]

A few years ago my employer gave me an iPad2 which was then new. It is was sort of a novel gadget at the time.

I used the Facetime feature a little, and streamed some music with it. But you can't plug in an SD card or a USB cable. You can't load your own music on it (I'm told there is a way which requires jumping through hoops).

I still have the iPad2. Never use it. It needs to be upgraded and evidently iPad2s require a trip to an Apple store. Since the closest one to me is two hours away, that is not an option. Other brands of tablet's are more flexible, and not restrictive about what you are allowed to do.

[AFreeBird]

I have apple products and a motorcycle.

I should hate myself?

[Sans-Culotte]

I’m just curious. I bought an Amazon Fire tablet for 49.99 for myself, and one on sale for 29.99 for my husband. I added a memory card to mine to increase the storage for under 20.00 to mine. I use it for everything, playing games, reading e-books, listening to podcasts, surfing the net. What is the difference between an IPad pro and the tablet I’m using?

It's not clear exactly which Fire you have. If it is the standard Fire, the display is probably not as good as the iPad, and it may be much smaller. I have a Kindle Fire HD 8 which compares well with my iPad mini. My iPad started to malfunction, and Apple could not repair it. Rather than paying the big bucks for a replacement, I bought the Kindle Fire HD 8 for $69. Use of the Kindle is very similar IMO to an iPad. One thing that is much better is file transfer. If you want to import something to an iPad, you have to do it through iTunes. With the Kindle, you just connect it to your PC and drag and drop files (pictures, videos, digital comics, etc) to it like it's a flash drive.

Once I figured out that the Kindle was a worthy replacement for my dead iPad, I also put in a 32 gig SD card.

[RegulatorCountry]

Apple innovates and shows the way, then the me-too imitators figure out how to dodge their patents and flood the market with cheap knock-offs.

Such is the way of the world, and has been since the ‘80s.