Worldwide tablet shipments have declined 8.5% | Hacker News Reader

Worldwide tablet shipments have declined 8.5%

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36 pointsprostoalex62 comments

There's lots of good reasons for this- phones doing the same job being the key one- but I wonder if people are paying attention to the replacement time on tablets as a possible cause as well?

My wife bought a Nexus tablet a few years ago. It's tough enough to survive minor drops or bumps and we don't take it outside of the house ever so I have a hard time imagining it breaking. At the same time, the things we use it for are simple and we won't really ever need to upgrade to a better tablet.

So why would I need to buy a tablet again anytime in the next decade?

Maybe part of the reason for declining tablet sales is just because everyone who wants one already has one?

I take your point but 10 years maybe a bit hyperbolic. The replacement cycle of a phone is likely 1-2 years a tablet maybe 5ish unless it is mission critical.

I wonder if tablets are declining in business & education; which are likely large consumers of tablets. Maybe that, or they haven't hit their stride yet.

Post PC era passed faster than teenage fads, and we are back in PC era.

Are PC sales increasing in any segment? The article mentions 2-in-1 convertible laptops "cannibalizing" tablet sales, but I don't know if that convinces me that we are going to see the PC reign supreme again.

Worldwide PC sales were up in Q1 2017 for the first time in five years, https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pc-market-sales-incr...

I don't think we'll ever be in the PC era ever again. We are in the mobile era right now, not PC era.

My theory:

1) The sort of people who had pcs before everyone got them, use pcs as much as ever, though they also use mobile.

2)The sort of people who got pcs because of the internet have moved to mobile and won't get another pc.

3) Tablets are being replaced by smartphones rather than by new tablets.

Someone with access to historical sales data for PCs, tablets & phones could check the data for support of this plausible hypothesis.

The line will blur pretty quickly, I suspect.

I look forwards to being able to just dock my phone into any monitor and have it be my computer for the day.

Yeah, but one of my PC's is a Surface Pro now, which as far as I can tell is a tablet by the article's definition.

The tablet w/ keyboard is interesting to me. The touchscreen laptop form factor was pretty bad; bulky and really unlikely to be leveraged as a tablet or touchscreen.

The newer surface pros seem to actually nail the form factor: small enough to be a tablet, powerful enough to be a laptop.

The Mac ecosystem is slower to adapt but I think the air & MacBook will be a single line; either a combo or one will get dropped. The iPad (really most of their products minus iPhone) need a significant upgrade in terms of computing power and batt life.

I honestly think the declne in tablets is surface pro style form factor winning over a tablet w/ aftermarket keyboard etc

Not sure why you think iPads need computing power upgrade, their mobile SOCs consistently benchmark as the fastest available. And iOS is far more moemory efficient than he competition.

Now their laptop line on the other hand...

And I can't think of convertibles as anything but a niche product or even a fad. Jack of all trades, master of none, wuth bonus fingerprints all over your screen.

To be honest that's news to me I don't use tablets. I think potentially ios makes it seem less palatable to something like a MacBook air and I don't believe they are on par w/ a surface pro-- although you might be right about performance / convertibles but I'm not sure.

I see Apple maybe even killing iPad now the plus is released and just blending the air, MacBook, and iPad into 1 device.

I agree about the laptops, I had an i7 MacBook pro from 2011 and it was powerful; still competed w/ newer offerings. I sold it for $500 and built a i5 6500 hackintosh it's quirky of course but 33percent more powerful than the laptop and minus the screen it's on par w/ a 1999 iMac and including a Mac pro mouse and Mac keyboard it was about $560.

The laptops are not only disappointing; but I just can't even afford them

Thats because post-PC devices infantilize the user.

Just watch the number of "permissions" involved when dealing with Android apps. Something that also crop up if you attempt to use Windows UWP apps for anything productive.

Effectively for profit malware and big media fretting over piracy has lead to an attempt to cram the freedoms afforded by the PC platform back in the bag.

This in turn result in a generation of products that are useful only for posting selfies and watching the latest slapstick on Youtube.

I wonder how long it will be before MS require a registered company for buying anything running "pro". Something akin to requiring that one is a legally certified and registered computer engineer before one can own and operate a debugger.

As phone screens get larger and laptops get slimmer and lighter, tablets become more and more useless

I have two tablets. No idea why. Although I do run my compiler on my iPad as an external monitor so I guess it's an extremely expensive, super tiny external monitor.

Me too, the first one had the digitizer and the SD port break and the second simply borked out of the blue... So I bought a cheaper and crappy smartphone to use as a GPS instead...

Too bad I don't know enough electronics to reuse their screens : I could make a neat raspberry pi laptop out of them.

I think if they just factored in the sales of "phone tablets" like the iPhone Plus, this decline would disappear.

The laptop is like the perfect tablet... compact, more powerful, comes with its own built-in keyboard AND screen stand.

What more could you want?

A battery that is measured in weeks.

A full-sized keyboard. My hands are a bit too big to comfortably use a laptop keyboard.

(I realize that, if the lack of a full-sized keyboard is the problem, a tablet is not the answer...)

Have you tried 13" ThinkPad recently?

I agree. I've purchased two Dell XPS 2-in-1's (one was an i3 and the other an i5) in the past few years, and I would never go back to using a plain tablet device. The amount of additional functionality that you can use out of the box is staggering. I can do everything from running desktop/server software demos for customers to folding them and using them as a tablet when relaxing and browsing Hacker News.

I was all in on tablets when they first started out. I've had the original iPad, the Motorola Xoom, the HP Touchpad, and many more including convertibles like the Asus Transformer. I really wanted tablets to be the future and replace at least my desktop, but all these years later it hasn't worked out.

I've still got two tablets, and iPad mini that I mostly use to read either PDF or pictureful rulebooks for table top games that won't work on my Kindle and a Dell Venue 8 Pro that mostly goes unused and I kept it around with the idea of working on a good tablet UI for Linux, but haven't had time or really the desire to do that.

When my wife's Galaxy Tab died, rather that get a new Android tablet or an iPad, she opted to just upgrade her laptop to a convertible(ZenBook Flip) that mostly gets used in plain old laptop mode. Even my kids who have had some kind of tablets for some time of their lives have started preferring "real" computers, especially daughter who is the oldest and gets how much more she can do on a real computer.

I think for me What it boils down to was that there was nothing that tablets really did best. If I'm going to be sitting on the couch doing some web browsing or watching a movie, a keyboard is nice to have for the web browsing and for both it's nice to be able to side the laptop down rather than holding a tablet for log periods of time. And when I do need to be more mobile, phones handle that aspect just as well and maybe better if I need to be able to put said mobile device is a smaller-than-tablet-pocket. I think in the long term, the extent of tablets will largely be some kind of pseudo-tablet convertibles like the aforementioned ZenBook and probably fewer like the Transformer of the Surface Book and most tablets that do stick around with be Surface like holdouts that can't more easily be converted into real computer mode.

I think most people use tablets to watch TV in bed. Now that iPhones and Androids are shipping with larger screens and higher resolutions, there isn't much need for a second device.

I still think the need for tablets exists, because even larger phones feel inadequate for browsing the web, particularly on sites were the desktop version is superior to the mobile one. That said, tablets tend to limit the user's ability to perform other day to day tasks, most notably moving files around. My suspicion is that sales have fallen in part because tablets, particularly iPads, have too narrow a use case to justify their price.

Pretty much. The Apple devices assume that you buy into their ecosystem. It is interesting to note that back when the first ipad shipped, Apple release a camera kit that plugged into the tablet. But it only allowed files to be transferred to the tablet, not the other way.

Similarly Google started out allowing bi-directional file transfers, but then later rolled that back to only allow reading, not writing, with regards to removable storage.

This leaves Windows. But there there fusing of Windows Phone's UWP and NT's win32 is awkward at best. Resulting in the best use of the "tablet" to prop it on a surface and attach a mouse. This because UWP file management is highly restricted, leaving us to use touch-hostile win32 programs for that task.

Android can do bidirectional file transfer quite happily, you just need a "file manager" app. My Zenfone even had one preinstalled.

Thats the thing, only system apps are allowed to write to removable devices.

Yeah, some OEMs include a minimal file manager with their devices. But they are a pale comparison to what third parties can offer.

My tablet doesn't do much more these days than serve as an e-reader. I use it to read books, Pocket articles, and RSS feeds, primarily. I very occasionally use it to watch some downloaded videos as well, either on a plane or at the gym. But otherwise, there's little on it I do that I couldn't probably do on a Kindle or a Kobo.

Nonetheless, I'm not convinced that this is really a problem, assuming you didn't pay an arm and a leg for yours. I paid somewhere between $200-$300 for my 2013 Nexus 7, it's held up for about four years now, and I still use the thing regularly.

Tablets sales are down in part, I imagine, because nearly everyone who wants a tablet already has one, and if the one you bought was above a certain threshold (i.e. Not Crap), you can comfortably use the thing for several years without needing to upgrade. Manufacturers need to realize that tablets are not phones, particularly as phones get bigger and more useful; people aren't going to upgrade their tablets every two years. Nor should they.

Case in point, I'm fine with the stock OS on it at the moment, but when I decide I no longer want to use it as is, I have at least three other OS's I could potentially load onto it, such as:

- MaruOS (http://maruos.com/#/)

- Kali Nethunter (https://www.kali.org/kali-linux-nethunter/)

- LineageOS

Nexus 7 2013 must be the optimal tablet. Perfect size and weight + stock android.

If they ever released a 2017 version I will order 4.

Make the smartphones smaller again, make high end 10 inch tablets again with a competitive price. All I want is high end smaller than 5 inch smartphones, and a 10 inch high end tablet, and a 12 or 14 inch notebook and a 30 inch 4k monitor.

I have the current gen, but the outlook looks worse and worse to get a brand new high end smartphone in the 4.5 to 4.8 inch size. You cannot put a 5.5 or bigger phone in your jean's pocket. Only women and certain hipster carry a extra handbag to store their big smartphones. Bit no wonder, when you already have a 5.5 inch or bigger smartphone there is less reason to buy a tablet as well. Another factor is that the hardware spec stalled for two years. The Android and iPad Air 2 tablets were completely unchanged for straight two years - no wonder there is little reason to upgrade a 2013 tablet if the 2016 model is almost the same hardware spec. Where are the multi window features, where are the octo-core tablets with 4+ GB memory? iPad Pro segmented the models, so you now have to pay more for high end, where as in previous gen you got more for your bucks. So new non Pro devices are as slow and little changed compared to previous gen.

With constantly improving mobile flagships, it's hard for me to see what niche tablets are targeting. Could anyone enlighten me?

niche tablets or just tablets in general?

Personally I just use my iPad to watch TV shows in bed

I think they're asking which niche tablets are targeted at.

you are right, whoops

I now use my android phone for everything I used to use my tablet for. The only thing I miss about the tablet is that I could get a lower volume level on it than I can on my phone, for bedtime podcast listening.

I don't think they're targeting it much but the niche that tablets seem to fill is kid distraction for parents.

i think most people who have a tablet are still able to do all the things they want to do on their tablet. No reason to upgrade.

True but not the whole truth I think. My tablet's battery recently died and rather than get a new one I now use my phone for everything I used it for.

There isn't a decent android tablet out there save for maybe the Tab S3 but it's pretty expensive and only 32GB. Everyone who wants an iPad already has one, and Microsoft is eating Apple's lunch with the surface line.

The NVIDIA K1 Shield is pretty nice and I really like its form factor. I have it flashed with Lineage OS though.

I have it and like it too but it's a few years old at this point, the performance and battery life are not amazing.

I should put Lineage OS on it, it might give it a breath of fresh air.

The Lenovo Yoga tab3 plus released last year got a 9300 mAh battery and the rest of the specs are decent. Might be a good alternative. I'm thinking about buying it as the price is decent and my old Xperia tablet Z from 2013 which I'm still using more or less daily is starting to die on me.

Samsung is selling 2/3rds as many Android tables as Apple sells iPads...

iPads aren't like iPhones where you need to replace it every two years, or at least your phone plan allows you to. I'm still using my Mini 3 just fine, and this past Christmas my parents finally decided their iPad 2 was too slow to keep using.

And aren't iPads outselling Surfaces? Not that the two really complete.

The Asus Nexus 7 was probably the best Android tablet for size, features, and value. I didn't buy a tablet this year because I couldn't find any Nexus 7s.

Unfortunately the Nexus devices went to high end pricing range after the first few versions. The Nexus 7 was great.

Being in the market for a tablet (to use as a document viewer when backpacking), I just looked it up on Newegg.

$400-$600, for a device from 2013. Wow.

probably because the last nexus 7 came out 4 years ago.

The Nexus 7 was my favorite consumption device ever. Now it's either a crappy chromebook screen, a too small phone, or a too bulky laptop.

The Kindle Fire isn't bad as a purely media-consumption device. I use mine all the time for in-bed reading and TV. Even better, when I picked it up, it was on sale for something like $40, so I would say it was well worth it - although I think Amazon has made up for it with the ebook sales they have gotten out of me.

I got the low-end Kindle Fire around Xmas. While I don't mind the hooks into all the Amazon bloat, the browser is atrocious on any site that isn't about as lite as HN.

It just can't handle the typical 200 trackers and ads of most media sites - possibly too little ram.

Consequently, the Fire sits unused.

It supports sd cards.

Surface sales are declining, and it's questionable whether they have yet been profitable (high return rates fir first two versions).

Mac sales are increasing, and at their highest market share in 30 years, and Mac average purchase price is 2-3x that of the rest of PC makers. Apple makes around 75-80% of the profits in each of tablet, pc, and smartphone markets.

(high return rates fir first two versions).

That would be an interesting read.

I can't really think of an essential daily app (minus work / minus business related / minus intensive reading) that I use which has better UI and UX on a tablet. Everything just seems easier on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Plus as some people already mentioned, tablets from couple of years ago still run quite well right now. Especially newer iPads.

> I can't really think of an essential daily app (minus work / minus business related / minus intensive reading) that I use which has better UI and UX on a tablet.

For me it's TV. While I own a TV, I essentially never use it. A tablet has more viewing area than a phone, which makes it much more pleasant to consume TV shows on.

I think you hit the nail on the head re. how well relatively recent tablets work. At first I thought a tablet would be like a phone — replaced annually — but I find that I've had the same tablet for four years. It does its job, it's a nice size (and Google haven't come out with another 7" tablet since!); why replace it?

For me it's watching videos and reading on the web. Like you said though, there's no need to upgrade too often. My iPad 3 is 5 years old now and it's still working fine for those uses.

How do you carry a 5.5 inch device? In an extra handbag? I find such devices too big for my pockets.

I rather prefer 4.8 inch smartphone and a 10 inch tablet. A tablet is much nicer to consume websites, type in short text and watch videos - also less eye strain.

The problem, imo, is that Google dropped the ball, and nobody really picked it up.

And by dropping the ball i mean the gradual rolling back of distinctiveness between Android tablets and Android phones.

With 3.0/honeycomb, Android tablets got a distinctive interface with a single system bar, aimed at using tablets primarily in the landscape orientation.

Alongside this the first generation of Android tablets often shipped with a full size USB A port, to allow connecting things like storage and input devices (3.0 also introduced basic HID support to Android).

But come 3.1, Google did the inexplicable move of introducing a new set of storage permissions distinct from the "external" RW permission that had existed since Android 1.0. There were "media" RW permission, specifically set up to cover removable storage.

The real problem was that by default the write half of the permission set was exclusive to system apps, meaning apps bundled with the device.

End result was that Android went from being a potential production platform to being a straight media consumption platform.

Then as 4.x rolled on, more and more of the tablet UI was rolled back, replaced with a variation of the 4.0 phone UI.

This culminating in 4.3-4.4 where the single bar was fully removed on all sizes of tablets, replaced with a dual bar setup where the bottom bar would move to always be at the bottom (on phones it sticks to the portrait "bottom").

And while MS seemed poised to pick this up with Windows 8/10, they largely fumbled.

For example UWP apps are not allowed to access anything but the users home area, unless they make a specific request and the user approves. But the approval has to happen via the age old win32 file picker dialog, that is a right pain to operate using fingers.

This then leaves us with the equally old file explorer to handle file management. And not only is it still a win32 program, though now outfitted with a ribbons UI, but it is the same process as is operating the overall Windows UI!

Similarly win32 programs still have a close button everpresent on screen, making it easy to close those by grabbing the device by upper right corner.

Never mind that the Windows 10 tablet UI has sprouted a Android-like back button, but that do not interact with win32 programs except to send them to the background.

Nor is there a good indication that something is running. You have to basically tap the switcher button (same one used to handle multiple desktops in desktop mode), and see if anything pops up.

All this result in the best option for using Windows "tablets" is to prop them on some surface and attach enough devices to use them as ad-hoc desktops.

Dropping the tablet specific UI in Android (it was in 4.1 or one of the other Jellybean releases, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich had a good evolution of the Honeycomb UI) for the giant phone UI was where I started to sour on tablets in general.

4.1 did so for screen sizes around 7". 4.3 or 4.4 did so far anything 9" and up.

There were some elements added to the base phone UI when using a tablet though. For example you either get notifications or the quick options depending on what half of the top bar you swipe from.

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