How and why does Apple succeed with the ipad while Android tablets fail so miserably?

[MistaTwo]

I have a Shield Tablet that I still use fairly often and haven't had any issues with it as a normal user. It is still fairly snappy, the stereo speakers are great
if I ever use it to show a video the kids and such.

Apple has definitely put more effort into creating a tablet-focused experience though and it shows, especially on the software side.

On the newer ones have they at least given users proper file directory access? That has always been one of my big complaints with
Apple and their Files app. It isn't as much of a big deal on phones, but on tablets I tend to like having more control.

 

[BlinkBlank]

I find this a hard sentiment to get behind because the iPad Air 2 from 2014 is getting iPadOS 14 in the fall, meaning even if it doesn't get 15 (which it probably won't) it will have gotten feature updates from October 2014 through September 2021, with occasional critical security updates after that.

Click to shrink...

Apple has become much better with this recently, but have had 2 or 3 bad instances in the past.

What really burned me in the past was having an iPhone and the ever growing detethering from needing a computer to update and load on music / video etc. So I downloaded the newest version of iOS for my iPhone via WiFi (which was kind of new at the time), great. Then I wanted to sync and backup to my Mac. Except my iPhone was maybe 2 years old at the time, my Mac was maybe 6 years old. Well I couldn't download the newest version of iTunes to backup my iPhone, because I couldn't download the newest version of OSX because my hardware was out of date. It's not like I was trying to do some crazy new or technical stuff on my Mac, I just wanted to backup my iPhone.

I feel like it was right around snow Leopard Apple had some rough cutoffs, especially with the PPC to Intel move where a lot of PPC users that bought right before the switch got boned.

 

[Antiwhippy]

I don't believe that's what it's saying - each item only covers it's shaded area, not also the areas "below" it.

Click to shrink...

Uh yeah it covers below, if not how are you going to get the revenue numbers? Subtracting from each section?

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Uh yeah it covers below, if not how are you going to get the revenue numbers? Subtracting from each section?

Click to shrink...

The purpose of the chart is to indicate proportionality changing over time while also expressing how much the total changes - but the chart is not saying ipad sales are equal to half of iPhone, it's saying more like 10%. I hope I'm being clear in what I'm saying.

 

[Antiwhippy]

The purpose of the chart is to indicate proportionality changing over time while also expressing how much the total changes - but the chart is not saying ipad sales are equal to half of iPhone, it's saying more like 10%. I hope I'm being clear in what I'm saying.

Click to shrink...

No, I'm pretty sure you're meant to count from 0 to the peak, because there are way better chart styles to do what you're describing.

 

[Arthands]

I have a Shield Tablet that I still use fairly often and haven't had any issues with it as a normal user. It is still fairly snappy, the stereo speakers are great
if I ever use it to show a video the kids and such.

Apple has definitely put more effort into creating a tablet-focused experience though and it shows, especially on the software side.

On the newer ones have they at least given users proper file directory access? That has always been one of my big complaints with
Apple and their Files app. It isn't as much of a big deal on phones, but on tablets I tend to like having more control.

Click to shrink...

i have wanted to get a Shield tablet but it has already been discontinued for years. Oh well. They dont have a newer model

 

[Amnixia]

Android tablet is a really big understanding since there's 47474629 brands with 291017384729373 models and there are a lot of bad ones.

Apple succeeds because they control the brand and types. There are no bad ipads.

So a lot of people feel safer with buying an Apple one.

 

[-COOLIO-]

the nexus 7 was the only compelling one

 

[Deleted member 9330]

Apple has become much better with this recently, but have had 2 or 3 bad instances in the past.

What really burned me in the past was having an iPhone and the ever growing detethering from needing a computer to update and load on music / video etc. So I downloaded the newest version of iOS for my iPhone via WiFi (which was kind of new at the time), great. Then I wanted to sync and backup to my Mac. Except my iPhone was maybe 2 years old at the time, my Mac was maybe 6 years old. Well I couldn't download the newest version of iTunes to backup my iPhone, because I couldn't download the newest version of OSX because my hardware was out of date. It's not like I was trying to do some crazy new or technical stuff on my Mac, I just wanted to backup my iPhone.

I feel like it was right around snow Leopard Apple had some rough cutoffs, especially with the PPC to Intel move where a lot of PPC users that bought right before the switch got boned.

Click to shrink...

Well no arguments from me there, there were some rough transitions in the past and people got burned. Like you said though, they've come a long way.

 

[Fliesen]

? That literally says the iPad is larger than the Mac line.

Click to shrink...

wrong

I don't believe that's what it's saying - each item only covers it's shaded area, not also the areas "below" it.

Click to shrink...

right

The purpose of the chart is to indicate proportionality changing over time while also expressing how much the total changes - but the chart is not saying ipad sales are equal to half of iPhone, it's saying more like 10%. I hope I'm being clear in what I'm saying.

Click to shrink...

right

No, I'm pretty sure you're meant to count from 0 to the peak, because there are way better chart styles to do what you're describing.

Click to shrink...

wrong

It's a stacked graph. The total height is Apple's quarterly revenue. Colored according to its various product / services segments.

Apple Reports Second Quarter Results

Apple reported its second quarter financial results for the fiscal year after the market close on Thursday, April 30, 2020.

www.apple.com

As you can see, the Q2 graph has a total height of 58.000*1 million (i.e. 58 billion), which - by the "you count from 0 to the beak for every segment" logic, would mean that the iPhone itself is an 58 billion dollar business. Which it isn't (yet). At least not in Q2.

So while iPad isn't bigger than the Mac anymore (it was during it's heydays), AirPods and the AppleWatch are bigger than the Mac - which is kinda crazy.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

You said tablets are only for kids and housewives, and that's what I contested.

Click to shrink...

lol I don't know how it happened, but you quoted that other guy but captured my name.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

Ironically this an issue I have with a a couple apps I have on my iPad Pro. They are specifically designed for iPhone as there is only a portrait mode setting and I never use my iPad like that.

Why don't reviews ever mention this? Over the past 2 years or so of owning an iPad I didn't expect this...

Click to shrink...

Reviews typically aren't going to mention outlier experiences like yours.

Sure that may happen on iPad, but it's far more likely to happen on Android tablets.

 

[Pororoka]

Apple knew what they were doing and stuck to it to the end, now they are sowing the success of said strategy. Android tablets felt more like a reactionary countermeasure to me that was half baked and it showed.

My dad uses his iPad mini 2 daily after so many years (and it just received a security update at the end of last year!), still has decent battery life and even though it will be forever stuck on iOS9, it still works like a charm (even though sometimes it chugs a little using video out) on a mere 512 megs of ram.

My sister's Samsung Tab that she got in 2017 in the other hand stopped receiving updates in a matter of months. She tried to use it recently and she gave up on the slow UI and that it has to reload everything (including Web pages) after the application loses focus when multitasking. The battery can't hold more than an hour of charge. Now is a glorified youtube premium player that can't play the videos of said service in the background without stuttering. And that thing has 4 times more RAM and a "better" processor!

 

[Antiwhippy]

wrong

right

right

wrong

It's a stacked graph. The total height is Apple's quarterly revenue. Colored according to its various product / services segments.

Apple Reports Second Quarter Results

Apple reported its second quarter financial results for the fiscal year after the market close on Thursday, April 30, 2020.

www.apple.com

As you can see, the Q2 graph has a total height of 58.000*1 million (i.e. 58 billion), which - by the "you count from 0 to the beak for every segment" logic, would mean that the iPhone itself is an 58 billion dollar business. Which it isn't (yet). At least not in Q2.

So while iPad isn't bigger than the Mac anymore (it was during it's heydays), AirPods and the AppleWatch are bigger than the Mac - which is kinda crazy.

Click to shrink...

That is such a weird way to do that sort of graph.

Might as well just do a line graph.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

I ain't an angry OS warrior. I have friends using Apple's product and we get along fine even though they are a bit unrefined.


I don't think you can replace Excel on a laptop to do Monte Carlo Simulation for a stock model on an under-powered tablet. I didn't know being a Uni students and taking note is being a professional nor some amateur on Youtube creating useless contents.

Click to shrink...

If there's one cliche I love it's the whole "real professional work" bullshit.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

Because real professional uses a real laptop to do their works when they're on the move. While videophile, watch their favourite movies and TV shows on an OLED screen with at least 65 inch screen sizes fully calibrated at 800 nits at 10% full screen window. Tablet is for kids and housewives. I'm not surprised that the majority of android users don't like the form factor of the tablet because most Android users are disciplined professional who don't used kid's toys to do their work.

Click to shrink...

Laughs at the screen as his company gets in another 200 iPads to get prepared to be used by our clinicians for 3–D scanning.

 

[Sedated]

The ipads look better than android tablets. Sounds like a dumb reason for them being successful but ipads have always been praised for their looks and it does factor in a purchase going around a 1000$

The ipads get way more support in terms of software updates compared to android. Android phone and tablet makers usually abandon their products 2 years from release. Apple keeps them going for 4 years or so.

Brand value. Its an apple product. The only android brand near it is Samsung and even they are unable to sell you expensive tablets.

The OS experience on ipads is far better than android's. And app library of apple is more robust for work as well.

Main point-
No android tablet have been able to make a mark and companies haven't reiterated on them well. The next product in their tablet line have either not existed or have been poor compared to what ipad offers. This has resulted in a perception that if u want a tablet then ipad is probably the only good choice out there. After years of fumbling the competition has given apple complete market dominance here. And this perception is pretty hard to overcome.

 

[Deleted member 4262]

iPads have always been better tbh.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

That is such a weird way to do that sort of graph.

Might as well just do a line graph.

Click to shrink...

If you do to-scale line graphs, the lines can confusingly overlap back and forth especially if multiple categories are similar sizes and trading places over time. You also need to add an extra data point for totals. Another possibility would be stacked bar charts or sequentual pie charts where the size of the pie indicated the total (this would never be used but would be hilarious if they did).

All graphs have weaknesses, but I do think this is a semi common use case for this.

 

[Skunk]

There's a ton of reasons, I also think Amazon's Fire tablets killed the affordable Android tablet market, and the premium segment is killed by the iPad (because if you're spending that much it is better to just get an iPad). There's potential for a moderate spec tablet that can be priced under the premium iPad segment but not bargain basement level price; but the combination of Android OS's reluctance to add tablet-centric features to improve the experience and the availability of affordable iPads (iPad mini, the current iPad, or even refurbished ones) crowd out the possibility I think.

 

[King Kingo]

Honestly, the answer's quite simple. It all boils down to one program native to the iPad.

Procreate® – Sketch, Paint, Create.

Procreate® — the most powerful and intuitive digital illustration app. Available only on iPad, and packed with features artists and creative professionals love.

procreate.art

 

[Fliesen]

That is such a weird way to do that sort of graph.

Might as well just do a line graph.

Click to shrink...

No, that's the proper way of doing such a graph and visualizing a company's revenue split.

if you plot the same number in a line graph, it doesn't properly visualize whether or not the total revenue has gone up or down. Because that's the main performance metric you wanna look at - the company's total reported revenue.

Similarly, if you're interested in the, say, mobile phone (or console) market - you use that kind of graph to show whether or not the market is growing or contracting, while coloring each manufacturer's revenue accordingly.

Like, if you wanna plot your household spending, you better use that kind of graph to see whether or not your total expenses are going up. The spending distribution is interesting, and can give you insights at which expenses could require some trimming (i.e. candles 😉 ) - which a line graph wouldn't properly visualize

 

[Radec]

Lets not pretend Google is really great at hardware or maintaining projects, or supporting things in the long term....

Click to shrink...

Yep. The only good I can see from google is the Pixel's cameras. The rest are just awful and forgettable. Especially those pixel designs lol.

I'm using an android phone though.

 

[Antiwhippy]

No, that's the proper way of doing such a graph and visualizing a company's revenue split.

if you plot the same number in a line graph, it doesn't properly visualize whether or not the total revenue has gone up or down. Because that's the main performance metric you wanna look at - the company's total reported revenue.

Similarly, if you're interested in the, say, mobile phone (or console) market - you use that kind of graph to show whether or not the market is growing or contracting, while coloring each manufacturer's revenue accordingly.

Click to shrink...

Ah yeah, now that you've said it it does make sense for it to visualise the total combined revenue.

 

[Bjones]

iOS is a much more polished universal experience. Everything is much easier to do. All of your major apps are connected to one account/log in.

 

[Johnny956]

The performance of android tablets were all over the place, and seemed to be a race to the bottom in terms of price/performance. My dad must have chewed through 3 or 4 shitty android $100-$200 tablets of varying quality and support over the course of 5 years. At the end of the day it seemed to be less trouble to just pay a little more for an iPad and get the stability and long term support needed with something like a tablet.

Click to shrink...

Absolutely, I still have my iPad 4th gen which came out in November 2012. It's basically a media/book tablet now for my daughter and still runs well enough for that purpose.

My wife's iPad mini 4 is still used daily and runs great and that came out in 2015 and runs the latest iOS without issue. It's a no brainer even in the past to just get an iPad even you need a tablet

 

[LunaSerena]

I think that the iPad's simplicity works a lot in its favor. It's working right out of the box, you don't need to do a lot of set up and you know that if there's stuff on the App Store it will work without issues almost every time.

Plus, with all the security updates, they last a long time. My mom's old Air 2 works perfectly - we'll have it replaced this year because the battery just doesn't work (she needs to use it connected to AC) but In performance, you wouldn't think it's almost 6 years old at this point.

 

[Deleted member 9932]

I have an old ipad mini and it sucked at a similar rate than any other similar android tablet.

 

[hersheyfan]

In this age of large screened phones, having a tablet is more of a luxury than a neccesity. To sell a tablet to the mass market nowadays, it needs to be a big upgrade experience wise over what people can already get on their phones - nice big screen, snappy browsing, crazy battery life, a great device to use when you're just chilling at home. Apple absolutely owns that space, imo, particularly in the low end - the gulf in experience between the base model iPads and a base model Android tablet is just enormous, and thats why they're unlikely to give up that market anytime soon.

And I say all this as an Android lifer on the phone side of things! I've only ever owned an iPhone once (and hated it), but when it comes to tablets, after trying out my first iPad I never looked back.

 

[entremet]

All the Androids tables I used don't really have apps optimized for the tablet experience. They're basically blown-up phone apps.

 

[Deleted member 15737]

Android tablets suck. most of them are phones with bigger (and worse) screens. However, the surface tablets seem pretty good. Just before lockdown I bought a used surface pro 4 from a local game store and it has been getting a ton of use. It runs really well, and can even handle a few of the indie games I have on steam, which I didn't expect. The surface pro 4 apparently is ~5 years old.

Point being, if there's a way to dual install with an Android OS and we count that then I'd say there are good options, I'm just not sure why you'd want to (running mobile exclusive games maybe?)

 

[Deleted member 10234]

I liked my Sony tablet (I think it was the Xperia Tablet Z), I don't know what else I could've asked from a tablet. Nice design, water resistant and I never really felt it being sluggish in the 3-4 years I "actively" used it, worked just fine for web browsing and listening to music or whatever. I tried an iPad a while back and realized I just don't have any use for a tablet these days.

 

[trunx81]

I loved my iPad 2 and my daughter is still using it today for some old apps that won't run on newer ios numbers. Performance is crap with ios9 though, so slow you can watch every letter appear in slomo when you try to type. But it still delivers a better experience than her first Fire Tablet we've bought 2 years ago. I knew it was dirty cheap (50€), but still - if a 2018 tablet runs worse or similar to an iPad from 2011, you start to realize that Apple is making great hard- and software.

 

[The Albatross]

Originally it was build quality. Android tablets survived in the market on price even though they were generally much worse pieces of hardware. The Nexus 7 and Fire 8 tablets were very popular because they hit Apple on price. They were 1/4 the price of a new iPad and could watch all of the same media plus a little more and some better (YouTube on Android was always better than YouTube on iOS because of iOS strict rules around 3rd party apps background playing, restrictions on pip, and so on. Those have all changed since)

The Android lineup was dying and because apple had such strong market performance at the top of the market - $1000 tablets - they could drop the price of the basic iPad down to $300 and it was like a backhoe dumping dirt on the grave of Android tablets. No $200 Android tablet comes close to the build quality of a $400 iPad it's just night and day.

There are good Android tablet experiences but they're all on the upper end of the market and are laptop replacement models these days. And they're still worse than the Surface or iPad Pro.

 

[Akela]

I'm not surprised that the majority of android users don't like the form factor of the tablet because most Android users are disciplined professional who don't used kid's toys to do their work.

Click to shrink...

Here's an iPad being used on the International Space Station:



Still a "kids toy"?

Anyway, the fact that Android tablets largely failed has much to do with the same reasons why Android Wear smartwatches largely failed - there just wasn't the same commitment by Google towards to ecosystem and OS. When you buy an iPad, you're not just buying the hardware (Samsung make some pretty decent tablets that could easily compete with the iPad Pro in terms of specs - or at least build quality) but for the app ecosystem that includes thousands of apps tailor built for the iPad, many exclusive to the platform. Apple didn't get that automatically just from making the device, but by fostering the platform and constantly improving the hardware and OS.

Also early decisions like making it so that iPhone apps by default don't reflow to cover the iPad screen certainly helped by forcing devs to deliberately take the time to make iPad apps rather then leaving stretched iPhone apps as "good enough". Especially important in the device's first few years.

 

[bionic77]

The iPad has really evolved into something pretty powerful and compelling for a lot of people.

My dad is 76 and has trouble with a computer or laptop but he took to the iPad and iPhone right away. Initially it was really good for very basic things and a great way to view media. But now with the evolution of smarter keyboards, the apple pencil and much more powerful hardware for some people it is an actual tool to get work done. And it allows for many things you can't do on a traditional laptop.

But to answer the OP Apple took the product seriously. They have continued to work to improve and evolve it as well and I don't think anyone else was ever really trying or in it for the long haul.

 

[platocplx]

support. android OS support is terrible. they abandon the OS updates after 2 years. Apple has taken a more traditional computing approach to their products and have a way longer cycle of support on their mobile OS.

 

[Aureon]

because apple got developers to make apps and stuck with it.

Click to shrink...

Here we are.

iPad has a dedicated UI team, and dedicated apps.
Android tablets are basically 'here's your 10'' phone'

 

[Lunchbox-]

never used an android tablet that wasn't terrible

 

[sir_crocodile]

No-one's doing great with tablets because the tablet market stalled. Apple took the smallest hit from it though, because they made reliably good tablets. So they have the biggest piece of a withering market.

You have (or had, been a few years) to pay a lot to get a decent android tablet. I suspect a lot of people got crappy ones and were put off. When you buy an apple one, you have no choice but to pay quite a bit, but are guaranteed to get a good tablet in return - that is never a lock with android ones even at the high end.

That said I got my dad an ASUS one which was superb, but researched a lot and paid quite a bit to get it. But again, buying an apple tablet doesn't require that level of effort

 

[My Blue Heaven]

I've owned both and frankly Android tablets suck. My iPad Pro is perfect for casual browsing, media and chat during my WFH days. Performance is great, updates are seamless and I've never had a problem with it.

My Android tablet on the other hand eventually was made obsolete the second year of ownership as Google did not support that particular line of Asus tablets for Android updates anymore. Eventually it became laggy and unusable.

 

[iapetus]

I have a Huawei Mediapad 10" tablet and it's great for everything I use it for - games, Slack, browsing, the occasional Zoom call. Way cheaper and more customisable than an iPad. The kids have them too, and when they wanted access to the Karate Cats online game from the BBC website on their locked down (no browser) tablets, it took me all of half an hour to write and sideload an app to do that.

 

[yumms]

Samsung is still making great looking and performing tablets.

My kid has a Galaxy Tab A...no complaints, she uses it for Netflix, YouTube and games.

I have Huawei MediaPad M5 (got it before they were banned), which is pretty great well.

 

[OnionPowder]

i had an android tablet that I spent $400 on like 7 years ago that was so shitty I gave up on tablets until I picked up an iPad a couple months ago and I fuckin love it.

 

[Kthulhu]

On the newer ones have they at least given users proper file directory access? That has always been one of my big complaints with
Apple and their Files app. It isn't as much of a big deal on phones, but on tablets I tend to like having more control

Click to shrink...

It's not perfect but it has seen huge improvements over the past few years.

In addition to basic file management you also have flash drive support, 3rd party cloud storage integration, and support for SMB shares.

 

[ArchAngel]

I only had two good android tablets: nexus 7 (2nd version) and the goat Pixel C (that thing was amazing!)

 

[Muu]

ipad minis have always been my go to, but I've also written them off as consumer only devices. I've been really pleasantly surprised to find that stylus support is fantastic even w/ gen1 support only, and I'm using my mini in place of a Surface Pro 4 for making markups to a project I'm porting over at work.

Basically, I feel that ipads have a high degree of 'if it works, it works really fucking well' enough to a point that people can look over the times when it doesn't. A PC works reasonably well in most situations and most of us know by now to put up with some quirks. From my experience w/ Android there's a similar sentiment w/ their phones and tablets, and I just don't think people cared enough to make their tablets work for them as phones got bigger and usage rates of tablets plummeted.

 

[lunarworks]

Still a "kids toy"?

Click to shrink...

That old gem. I got that from Microsoft fanboys back in high school. I was using a kid's toy, and they were doing real serious business in DOS. Then they got Windows 95, and were doing real serious business in that.

 

[Advance.Wars.Sgt.]

They just couldn't compete with the premium consumers were willing to pay for it to have an apple on it. After that they saw that the market had topped so the market became Apple, Samsung, and incredibly cheap tablets. Worldwide tablet shipments peaked in Q4 2013. Microsoft has been able to carve a very nice niche with the Surface products in the last 3-4 years while the rest of the market vegetated.

Click to shrink...

Try the last 8 years. Surface (and the Surface team in general) has been nothing but a success ever since their inception. Hell, Surface so far has been the only competitor that has pushed Apple to better the tablet experience by including keyboards and upping their Pro models.

Otherwise the tablet market (which, let's face it, has evolved into a tablet hybrid market) would be stagnate AF.

 

[MrChillaxx]

I have a Surface GO (first gen, 8gb) and a S5e that i got for free. While i'm probably not the target audience for a "premium" tablet i guess... i can't think i've ever had any problem with my Android tablet? I watch movies, read comics books and mangas, check reddit and little else. The screen is gorgeous and the speakers are really good. It's also snappy as hell. Then again i have had zero interest in using it for "productivity" so maybe that's where the issue lies? Or maybe there's a bit of bandwagoning, idk.

Now my gf has a Fire tablet from 2017 and that thing is shit and an absolute waste of money.