Five Reasons Why Tablets are a Fad


I must admit, I am as guilty as the next guy, I own two tablets; the iPad and the Playbook, but the news of a 28% decline in tablet sales has me thinking, can tablets in general survive the hype? My personal opinion, we have already seen the peak of tablet sales, from here on tablets will continue to decline and stagnate, and here is why:
1- Low power limits tablet use. Face it, those of us who own the devices always try to find reasons to justify  our purchase, but truth be told, these devices are just not powerful enough to be used for much else other than web browsing and casual gaming. If you are into music creation or video editing, you're out of luck!
2- The thrill is gone. I remember my first time seeing the iPad and handling it at the Apple Store. I couldn't stop my wonderment at the sleek device. Now, if you ask me, the wow factor is gone, we've all seen it before. Having an iPad on a train will no longer draw looks from commuters, or make you more attractive to the opposite sex for that matter.
3- Desktops and Laptops aren't dying anytime soon. Many were the prophets of doom who hailed tablets as the next phase of computing. Here is why they have always been wrong, tablets do not have a big enough screen size, and not powerful enough to sustain the productivity that workforces, or most homes require. At best they will remain companion devices to PCs.
4- No incentive to upgrade for existing users. At this point it is safe to say that anyone who really wanted a tablet has probably already gotten one, and current owners are likely more resistant to upgrading. The reason simply is this, for what you need tablets for, the current version you have is likely more than adequate. When the iPad 2 came out, I saw no need to shell out that kind of money for very marginal performance improvement, and my iPad was already pretty good at what I wanted it to do for me. Sure, there are tech junkies who simply must own every new device who will keep supporting new versions with their money.
5- Trends R US. There was a time when computers got more and more powerful with each released. Then came the craze of portability, and with it came the fad of low power systems, dubbed "netbooks". Now, with netbook sales declining, it is reasonable to extrapolate that Tablets too will be a fad. The interesting point though is that PC sales have remained strong through all of this. That is staying power.
In conclusion, it is my belief that Tablets will not completely disappear, they will remain companion devices, but not every body will buy them out of necessity like they would a desktop. Truth be told, they do not have the staying power of the tried and tested desktop PC. Microsoft can rest easy.

Comments

  1. I wrote up a response, which I planned on putting as a comment, however it ended up being longer than your post, so feel free to read up:
    http://vluj.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-tablets-productivity-and-desktop.html

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