US data show slump in Apple tablet share It’s no great surprise, perhaps, that Google’s Android is taking tablet share from Apple, but new figures suggest the rate of catch-up has accelerated this year. A 1000-odd user survey recently carried out the US statistics gatherer the Pew Research Centre and The Economist which focused on US tablet ownership during the three …
I'm no Apple fanboi (hate them with a fiery passion) but even I can understand why the Reg might want to cover stories relating to their products. They are one of the biggest companies in the world, and certainly the biggest in IT. Maybe what they do 'matters' and therefore is worth reporting.
Get over it.
"A 1000-odd user survey recently carried out the US statistics gatherer the Pew Research Centre" - El Reg
"The study is based on a survey conducted from June 29 to August 8 among 9,513 adults including 4,638 mobile device owners. " - Pew Research
For a more analytical response to this report, go here -
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benedictevans/2012/10/02/how-many-tablets-are-in-the-usa-and-does-it-matter/
Go to www.netmarketshare.com and look at the US marketshare for the various mobile browsers - iOS has over 62%, Android 21%.
So, despite Android's trumpeting how many more Android phones there are than iPhones, it can only get 21% of the share of actual usage (and remember, that's where Google gets its money). Does it really make sense that Android tablets are 27% (and surely Kindle Fire's would count as Android in the stats, too)? Seems a bit fishy to me...
In my case, and a few others I know - no, I no longer surf with it and no longer use it at all.
We were given iPads at work several months ago and after the novelty value wore off (after about 7 days) I went back to a light-weight laptop. If you do a fair amount of typing I found the iPad to be a PITA. I know of several people who switched back to laptops as well - although I do not know their reasons.
I would sell it on ebay but it is company property :-(
Go to StatCounter and do the same thing. Android then appears to be exactly where you would expect it to be given the figures in the article.
Stats are only as good as the method used to create them.
Tell me how many millions of Tablets we are talking about. As long as Apple is creaming off the lions share of the profits in a growing market (and there is $600Bn worth of reasons that say we should assume so) - do you think they care?
Especially since their Market share can fall - and their actual salescan keep increasing for a good while yet..
Try telling that to the muppet in charge at Nokia....
Despite Symbian sales growing he dumped the platform because it had a falling market share.
Mind you, he swapped it for a platform that has a near zero market share
And at the time he dumped it had a bigger market share than the iPhone has now.
Elop of course is hailed as a massive strategic thinker.... by those who don't work for Nokia or own Nokia shares... the few remaining are hoping to be redundant before the cash runs out next year.
Market saturation - perhaps?
There is a limited number of people who can shell out $699 for a tablet.
Assuming all those who can, already have an iPad then all the future sales will go to Android.
Of course this doesn't really matter for Apple - Porsche do very nicely with a tiny market share compared to VW
Do you think I care?
Sorry, unless you're a shareholder shill, no one cares about profit. Never in the most heated Windows vs whatever debate did someone go "But look how much money Bill Gates makes!" Indeed if anything, making profit was a criticism - it means the products are overpriced, by definition.
Market share matters for lots of reasons - with Android vastly outselling IOS (and Symbian before that), it suggests may the media should stop obsessing about Apple, and maybe companies should provide apps for more than just the minority of Apple users. It also shows up as false all the claims about how Apple would take over the phone market.
Of course, perhaps we could say that all that should matter is what we individually prefer to use - but in that case, I wonder why Apple fans try to constantly quote every irrelevant stat they can find that happens to make Apple look best.
I haven't seen any of these Amazon devices but isn't that standard for any Android based thing which doesn't carry the Nexus brand? E.g. HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz, etc. Should we therefore only count Nexus branded devices as Android devices? Or is there something fundamentally different about the Amazon slabs? Just asking.
..to an extent, yes. However, the amount of whining is disproportionate, too. HTC has "Sense", Samsung has "Touchwiz", Motorola has.. umm some shit or other- I don't know anyone who would touch one of their devices for various reasons.
It's not great, but it's not that bad. I found HTC's effort to be more intrusive than Samsung's. However, the standard Android interface on my Nexus 7 is the nicest of the lot- the least cluttered and most usable. Personally, I would be really happy to see two versions of a given phone sold- one full of manufacturer's crapware apps and interface shells, the other a fully supported and working bare Android. My S3 is lovely, but would be even more lovely without the half-baked Samsung gubbins- the situation is very like the crapware problem on otherwise good laptops, just it's harder to wipe and re-install them.
(Yes, I know about and use Cyanogen, no it's not ready for primetime on the S3 yet.. but I would prefer supported options)
It's a tossup, the nexus devices are great, but have no card slot.
Yes, we should only count Nexus branded devices as Android devices? Yes, there is something fundamentally different about the Amazon slabs? Or yes both? I've been aware of and understood the crapware analogy for years and am also a Cyanogenmod user for this reason. But I don't understand why the author singled out Amazon slabs alone as possibly not really Android.
Those odd users again....
I think the Android case has been helped with the launch of the Nexus 7; I suspect 'Google' has a better brand that 'Android' to the average layperson. Likewise, the average person probably doesn't care that the Kindle Fire's run Android, but like it for its price vs features set.
I personally am wondering if there will be a market crash in tablets - a large percentage of my friends and associates have tablets (mainly iPad variations) are now either selling them or have passed them to the kids as they don't actually have any use for them. I would actually like to conduct a survey of people buying tablets to ask "what are you actually going to use it for" and see what the responses were.
I would actually like to conduct a survey of people buying tablets to ask "what are you actually going to use it for"
I'd be much more interested in waiting 3 months, and then asking "and what did you use it for in reality?". I wonder how many people would answer either "for porn" or "as a paperweight".
Yep, it's a good point, and I know I held off buying a tablet for farkin' ages, until I had a use case.
(In my case, it was for something with massive battery life, and small bulk/weight that I could use for documents on the fly or longish emails, and it was a fine decision, as it turned out..)
@AC 14:14
Same here and managed to wangle one for 'evaluation' (i.e. someone else paid for it). Advent vega 10in thing with MicroSD, usb, hdmi, dual core and VegaICS - not the most sophisticated but with all the functions of most tablets. It proved nowhere near as useful as a basic netbook in the field - too big at times, too small at others. At home its quite good for photos/iplayer on a big telly with HDMI. It now gets used for about 4 hours a month and gathers dust.
For a phone I have an S2 which does virtually all i need. A bit bigger screen for browsing would be good and a bit more battery life helpful.
The Note2 looks like it solves the problem (phone too small, tablet too big). I wont get one but can certainly see that the market is probably a lot larger than just a niche. The original Note surprised all the 'experts' by selling in much greater numbers than anticipated and I reckon this will too. I can see prospective S3 punters going for it although iP5 wannahaves will never realise what they're missing. Its not so much a shiny toy, more a useful tool.
iPads are stupidly expensive devices. It's not surprising that if another manufacturer undercuts those prices with a device running Android that the OS would start to gain sales. This is especially pronounced for 7" tablets, like the Nexus 7, Nook and Kindle Fire which are all around the $200-250 price point and offer an experience which is perfectly acceptable to a lot of people.
I expect it is this pressure which is forcing Apple to produce their own "mini" though I'd be surprised if it sold for $250 or less. It'd probably sell for $299 and probably in a gimped form e.g. 8GB storage to encourage people to buy something more expensive.
It's not just about the price but price is an element to consider here.
Some people simply might not want such a large device. Apple and it's fans go to great lengths to try and discredit the 7 inch tablet but it has served the e-book retailers well.
A smaller device means a cheaper device and drives down price to "impulse buy" levels. While price is not the main factor, it helps to get people familiar with Android. They see it. They like it. They dump their Apple products.
The Nook and the Nexus 7 are the Android gateway drugs.
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