Apple sales much less Mac than iPads - ~26m vs ~60m per year [0]. The other should be true as well: majority of ipad users don't have macs. Majority of ipad users have windows pc.
Apple could make ipad users more willing to switch to Mac from windows pc by making iPad more capable - but they are to greedy and too much focused on profit margins than growing the pie and revenue
I used to own ipad but don't own anymore even though I'm Macbook user - I have surface go though since I hate ipad software limitations.
> Apple could make ipad users more willing to switch to Mac from windows pc by making iPad more capable - but they are to greedy and too much focused on profit margins than growing the pie and revenue
Is it greed though? There are lots of people who _want_ a simple device like an iPad. Why force a more complicated device upon them?
If you allow so called 'power users' to muck with the system a lot of people end up breaking it by installing all kinds of battery wasting, privacy invading crap.
The only way to keep simplicity is to make it impossible to get complicated.
The elephant in the room w/ the expensive new iPad is that the consumer right now is experiencing a reset in their economic expectations (first of all because of the sugar rush of pandemic stimulus ending, secondly because of inflation, third from “polycrisis”). I think brands are catching on right about now.
Car companies for instance tried to quit making cars that cost less than $50k, especially if they are electric.
The new iPad strikes me as a little like the Apple Vision Pro. People might have spent their stimulus checks on them if they’d come out a few years back but now, no. Sure it does a better job of rending mobile apps in AR floating in your room than the MQ3 but it doesn’t have all the facilities for immersive worlds that the MQ3 does. They just can’t charge 7x what MQ3 costs for something that doesn’t do as much. The hardware is totally capable but Apple can’t or won’t add the software support.
Myself I quit carrying a desktop replacement laptop and I use an iPad as my “on the go” computer. As much as the industry tries to keep it a secret (so you’ll spend your money on an overpriced special keyboard) it “just works” to attach a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. If I want to do some serious work I RDP into a powerful Windows computer.
(Note one point of this way of working is that tablets are relatively cheap. I don’t feel all that bad if I smash a $40 Fire tablet or even a $300 iPad but I’d feel like I’d need to buy a case for a $2000 tablet, eliminating the sleekness advantage the tablet has.)
If Apple wasn’t NERFing the software you could have a great computing experience on an iPad Pro that would justify the cost.
Smartphones got established because they could justify a high price with corresponding value: if you add up the cost of all the gadgets an iPhone replaces it is much greater than the cost of the iPhone. Apple’s lost their way.
> Myself I quit carrying a desktop replacement laptop and I use an iPad as my “on the go” computer.
When I am at my desk, I use my MacBook. If I am going on a work trip, it will come with me. If I need to stay connected to work when running errands, my iPad Pro/cellular with Logitech’s keyboard combo is usually close by and I can do everything I need to do on it (but I am not a dev). For portability, it’s unmatched for me.
Same. I actually have 2! They're cheaper than computers and easier to manage. I also happen to have 2 kids. Maybe that's a coincidence, but it probably isn't!
I have both Mac and iPad - and they are used for different things. Idly playing games in a recliner is an iPad thing. Prime video, YouTube and Apple TV get more play on the iPad than the Mac.
My brother's household has 4 Macs of various form factors (mini, studio, 2 laptops) and 5 iPads (two of which are iPad pros - one hand me down and one new that is used for drawing... and one is an iPad mini).
There are many situations where an iPad is a preferred device over a laptop (or the impracticality of taking a Mac mini to bed) and many where the Mac at a desk is a much better choice.
Given the finances and priorities that support two sets of devices ... it should not be surprising at all to have both.
I'm a little surprised, but realize it is probable. I do know people that have both: either for themselves or more likely they have a macbook for work and a "family iPad" used by the kids.
I also know some people that also buy iPads for senior parents/grandparents and just use their iCloud account to make it easier to manage.
I'm using an iPad right now as a portable second monitor for my Macbook Pro via Sidecar. I also use the iPad as a music player around the house whenever I don't want to use my phone. It definitely could be improved and it will often sit unused for months but it finds a niche once in awhile.
Is it? Apple has a fandom that makes me think someone with a Mac would likely own an ipad, earpods, and apple tv.
There are few companies that have the fandom Apple has, especially with hardware outside the iphone/blue bubbles that teens and moms need for social standing.
It’s not a matter of fandom as much as it is network effects. The more Apple stuff you have and the more Apple users you know the more value you get from sticking with Apple for your next purchase.
It sounds like you’re using “teens and moms” as a pejorative—i would recommend getting to know some more teens and moms! There are many in both categories who are great!
People want macOS on their iPads because it's the software that actually works for professional use cases. iPadOS does not.
Apple could, of course, make iPadOS work for those use cases, but I have a feeling Apple management don't actually understand the problem. They always deflect around iPadOS's limitations instead of addressing them head-on. We need file management that doesn't break if you look at it funny and require a full system reboot to fix whatever daemon is managing containers. We need to be able to have apps that stay running when you close them and they need to be able to peg the CPU.
Hell, it's comical when Apple's own apps just pop up a generic "Export failed" error message if you task-switch between apps when doing exports or rendering. Did they just forget that they have a blatant "no background rendering" policy?
I think my journey is fairly typical: PC -> PC+iPad -> Mac+iPad
Rather than “allow” an iPad Pro to run macOS, I predict a variant of the MacBook Air with detachable keyboard … when detached, it’s just an iPad. This would need macOS to continue to get incrementally better with good support for iPad apps and a way to support constrained macOS apps in something like slideover windows and a lot of thought about touch support for macOS apps.
iPad's long device lifetime and ancestral software are visible in iPad global sales (2012-2023), including 12 quarters of declining sales (2014-2018), https://www.statista.com/statistics/299632/tablet-shipments-.... It's unsurprising that Apple ecosystem homes own at least one iPad.
> If iPad owners get access to macOS thrown in for free, then Mac sales will undoubtedly take a major hit.
VMs on iPad would likely be limited to high RAM (16GB) devices with 1TB storage on ~$2K iPad Pro. What percentage of global iPad sales are 1TB iPad Pros? If entry level iPads cannot run VMs due to lack of RAM and silicon support for nested virtualization, they can't "compete" with Macbooks.
Let's remember that iOS was derived from macOS and some iOS features (e.g. APFS) have been added to macOS, along with the ability to run iOS apps on macOS. Apple could create yet another OS subset (cOS) for headless/CLI server apps running in VMs on macOS and iOS, without iOS restrictions. This would allow local development on high-end iPad Pros.
I've never found the tablet form factor compelling. A bit too heavy and cumbersome, I'd rather a phone for holding or something that stands by itself, and then it may as well have a keyboard and be a laptop.
My kids seem to agree with this, they have a mbp and are asking for another laptop. They've never asked for another tablet and we got rid of the old one.
I've never found the iPad form factor appealing. I once thought I'd like the iPad mini.
What I do own and use often is a Surface Go 3 with 10.5" 3:2 aspect touch screen--though I rarely touch the screen. Drawing diagrams with the stylus is nice though. I once solved a math problem with the 'pencil' on it. It's just the smallest, lightest laptop-like thing that runs a real OS (even if that's Windows/WSL2).
I own a MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro. And I only use the latter for CAD work (shapr3d), even though I prefer the form factor a lot over my macbook, simply because iPadOs is useless for development.
Based on the user data I went through last year to see if we still needed to support anything before Safari for iOS 16 there was a surprising number of ancient iPads hanging about. I get the impression a lot of iPads are handmedowns.
With pencil support and sidecar, I see hardly any reason to move on from the 6th gen model. Maybe they'll disable sidecar on it when it's no longer supported or something.
Think the bulk of tablet use is fairly resource light; nowhere near the scale of multitasking going on as there is on phones. I've a ten year old Android one that's still pretty usable for me (OLED screen so mainly reading and media; it struggles with the web unless you've adblockers and whatnot though)
A Mac is their most expensive personal product. I'd bet a majority also have iPhones and Apple Watches. If you can afford a computer that expensive, what is $350 for an iPad?
Apple could make ipad users more willing to switch to Mac from windows pc by making iPad more capable - but they are to greedy and too much focused on profit margins than growing the pie and revenue
I used to own ipad but don't own anymore even though I'm Macbook user - I have surface go though since I hate ipad software limitations.
[0] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/