Posted on 12/01/2014 7:42:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Tablet sales worldwide are starting to slow down, according to the latest figures from IDC, and it seems the cooling market is having a particularly chilling effect on Apple.
All in all, the analyst house has predicted growth for this year will be just 7.2% for the whole tablet market, compared to over 50% in 2013.
The figures make particularly grim reading for Apple, which has actually seen a 12.7% decline in sales compared to last year.
At 16% growth, IDC's end-of-year predictions look a little brighter for Android, but the real stand out story is Windows.
Sales of Microsoft's Surface tablets have surged 67.3% from 2013, with its market share increasing from 0.9% in 2012 to an expected 4.6% this year, equating to 10.9 million units sold.
Of course, this still puts Windows tablets firmly in third position, however IDC has also predicted Microsoft could treble its current shipment volumes by 2018, hitting 32.6 million units and raising its market share to 11.4%.
By comparison, Android's tablet market share is predicted to fall from 67.7% today to 64% over the same period, while iOS will decline from 27.5% to 24.5%.
IDC is also up-beat about the continuing growth of Surface, and other Windows OS tablet, sales through to 2018. While overall year-on-year growth is anticipated to fall to just 3.8% in 2018, for Windows devices it'll be more in the region of 17.9%.
Was Tim Cook right?
Earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook pinned a 9% drop in the sales of iPads during Q3 2014 on existing owners being simply too happy with their current tablet to go out and buy a new one.
There was some scoffing at this claim when Cook originally made it, but Ryan Reith, a mobile device analyst with IDC, has indicated Cook may have been right.
"In the early stages of the tablet market, device lifecycles were expected to resemble those of smartphones, with replacement occurring every 2-3 years," said Reith.
"What has played out instead is that many tabled owners are holding onto their devices for more than 3 years and in some instances more than 4 years," he explained.
Reith added that, particularly with iOS devices, legacy software support for older devices had been a major driver for people hanging on to older tablets.
IDC predicts that larger screens, increasing numbers of cellular-enabled tablets, Google's next move with Android and Chrome OS, the possibility of an iPad Pro and how the industry reacts toWindows 10 are all major events that could shake up the tablet market in 2015.
"The next six months should be really interesting," Reith concluded.
Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. A little expensive but bazingly fast. I purchased the Core i7 version wih 8 gig RAM abd 256 gig SSD. From button push to login is about 7 seconds. I run everything on from Microsoft Access and SQL server to Adobe Creative Suite 5.
I bootcamped my MacBook Air so I can run Win 7 on it. I like the Apple hardware, lightweight and fast, but mostly run Windows programs.
For a tablet I like my iPad mini.
All the rest of my laptops are Lenovo Win 7s. My job requires a lot of portable devices.
Hate the keyboard on the MS tablets so would rather separate out the devices so I have a good keyboard when I want it and a lightweight fast device, iPad mini, to carry for email, web searches and reading Kindle books
I had a Blackberry Playbook for a while, but it went bad in a year. Amazon never created a kindle app for it so that was frustrating.
Most people can get by with just a device or two, but my job is sort of techie so lots of options are required.
I do wish that Apple would let me bootcamp the ipad so that I could have Windows functions on it as well.
I still don’t understand the point of any tablet. I mean, if you’ve got a smartphone and a laptop, why do you need a tablet at all?
To me it’s all of the inconvenience of not having a laptop, combined with no phone. A computer is better for computer stuff and a phone is better for phone stuff. Get two good things and skip the middleman.
Just... why?
“... give the user a pleasant and great experience without new shocks to their existing habits.”
Now you just nailed a serious problem that I’ve been coming across since Windows 8 came out.
I use Windows 7 on my laptop and that’s what my mom had. She is technologically illiterate and it has been a serious struggle to get her on board. (Terms like ‘mouse’ and ‘desktop’ are nonstarters for her.)
With every FREAKING change to technology, she gets farther behind. Right now, she has no email because her live account did security updates months ago and she couldn’t navigate that. She can’t sign up for a NEW freaking account because she cannot understand the ‘needs two symbols, two letters, two numbers, and the blood of a virgin’ BS and she cannot get it over the phone. (We’re on opposite sides of the continent, so I can only help her over the phone.)
As security becomes more complicated, technology is leaving a MASSIVE group behind. I intentionally didn’t upgrade to Windows 8 because there would be no way for me to mirror her movements of we were using different OS.
The horrible thing is that now she needs a new computer and all she has available is Windows 8 and I don’t have it to help her. So she has a sputtering computer (that MIGHT actually work fine if she would trust me and actually RESTART it... she STILL believes that she’s restarted it by turning the monitor off and on... *sigh*)
Worse - I’m not a total moron and each leap is starting to leave me behind. In about ten years, I’ll be just as confused as she is now.
These tech-heads simply cannot understand that the low-level user (most of us) are simply not that invested. We need a SIMPLE, CONSISTENT user-interface that we can rely on for the long run.
Dammit.
Whoever invents the Jitterbug OS for seniors will be rich.
I’ve owned android tablets - Nexus 7, Dell Venue 8, LG GPad 8.3 GPE, Galaxy Note from 10.1,and the Galaxy tab pro 8.4. I’ve liked all of them but if it’s not supported by the development community I sell and upgrade.
The only one I have now is the Tab 8.4.
“Since this latest iOS update, my iPad air has been giving me nothing but trouble. Safari now gets slower and slower the more it’s used until I am forced to restart it.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is “bloating” their Safari releases to hog more memory, in order to encourage people to upgrade to the new iPads.
They have their uses. For example, leasing agents at my company are using them, because they can view available apartments, take applications, take credit card payments, and even do lease signings on the tablet, without having to lug a laptop around all day.
However, when my gen 3 iPad becomes Obama-like (e.g., unreliable and stupid), I’ll replace it with another iPad.
Microsoft?
Ptui!
________________________________________________________
I bought a I-Pad when they came out, I liked it and I reduced my laptop usage substantially but I still needed the laptop.
I still have my original I-Pad, I use it for reading scriptures and little else. I do have a Microsoft tablet.
When I first got it I thought perhaps I made a mistake. There were few apps for it. Now, it is my go to machine. It is a full fledged computer and a tablet. I really love it. It has pretty much put my laptop into retirement. It’s faster than the I-Pad, more compatible with my desktop and lasts all day on a charge. By the way it’s much cheaper than an I-Pad.
The Surface Pro is, functionally, a laptop. It has a detachable full keyboard, and has an internal hard drive. It’s just more compact and more flexible than a typical laptop due to the touch screen. It also has a SIM slot, so you can add mobile data, which most laptops cannot do. True, it doesn’t (I don’t think) act as a true phone, but it can do video conferencing/Skype and so on over the data link.
I think I should send your post to my neighbor who works for Microsoft. You really describe well the reality people face especially seniors. My mother is 84 and uses a mac and it’s still very frustrating.
Does anybody remember Lotus, WordPerfect, Asthon-Tate, and Novell ?
Please, please do. Because I’ve actually tried to contact Microsoft about this problem.
I’m a Gen-xer and I’m starting to get confused. My daughter is a 90’s baby and she’s noticing that the kids are out-pacing her. If you don’t do it every day, technology gets more difficult as you get older and things *are* getting more complicated.
I want to spend $800 on a new computer for my mom, but she won’t be able to use it and I won’t be able to help her. As of right now, you’ve got a Boomer without technology and she was a happy Googler and emailer before.
We need a basic, user-friendly interface that is so simple and dependable. Something that won’t change much over time and has automatic updates.
PLEASE pass this on because MY family is getting desperate.
(Oh, and my Boomer best friend is in the same mess. She works with a Mac and she’s realized that her husband simply *cannot* grasp it. She bought him a smart phone and, after six months, he refuses to even touch it any more. He wants his flip phone back and they don’t sell them. So, the iphone was thrown through a wall and he’s without a cell phone. He’s in his 60’s. My mom’s old cell is dying and I can’t get an old model that she can understand, so that’s about to go out the window, too. This is a serious problem.)
I hear you loud and clear and will pass it on.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is “bloating” their Safari releases to hog more memory, in order to encourage people to upgrade to the new iPads.I'm not sure they are actively bloating, but I suspect they are not investing much time into optimizing, and deliberately doing so to encourage people to blow more money on their products. They did this with the iPhone, which is what eventually forced me to dump it and move to Windows Phone. Oh well, I bought the iPad mostly as an eReader, and for that it still works fine.
Thanks for letting me rant, dear. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.