Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down? | Hacker News Reader

Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?

techcrunch.com

35 pointsbane71 comments

I basically use my tablet for three things: web browsing on my couch, as a companion lookup device when I'm reading a book or paper that's challenging, or for the occasional game. I've had it for like 3 years now, and I can't think of any reason to upgrade it unless it breaks. I like it, but it's basically useless as a content creation device, and it already does everything I need it to do.

Just a general thought. At some point (for consumers anyway), these paradigms will unite. As such, what will follow is the necessity for window management that can handle different use cases. Right now the only OS really attempting to bridge the gap is Windows 8, which is currently an unfortunate juxtaposition of two battling WM's rather than a seamless unification. Apple isn't really bothering to unify at the moment, Google isn't sure what it wants to do, and desktop linux (though I primarily work in linux) really is a less quality product.

I'd argue that window management innovation has been a terribly sorry state for quite a while. I mean, I would venture a guess that the increasing prevalence of browser-based tools is in part a result of a lack of [good] innovation by WM's (of course, as well as better tools for web app developers). Mobile OS's have been the only thing to really shake things up.

I'm not sure exactly what my point is here. Just a general feeling that we're going to continue to debate on the differences between tablets and pc's until someone actually goes ahead and creates a useful WM for both use cases. Windows 8 is an okay start in that regard, but I feel there's a way to do it better.

Definitely agreed. Another interesting problem for the near? future is multi-device window management - can you use the collection of devices and screens (whether phone/tablet/desktop/whatever) on hand at a given moment as a kind of ad hoc multimonitor workstation? What about when multiple users are involved? (of course all of this is a systems/OS and privacy/security challenge, as well as an interaction design challenge)

I sometimes get the impression most people now think of window management as either a solved problem and/or one rendered irrelevant by the rise of "mobile", but it's quite the opposite IMO.

I'm hoping the Ubuntu phone will lead to faster innovation in this area. I don't expect it to become extremely popular, but it will give tinkerers far more ability to hack around with their WM than other phones, and it will immidietly make available all of the existing WM options for desktop linux available to try out on a mobile device.

I guess 5 - 7 years are over and people replace their old desktop/laptop PCs this year.

As for tablets: They are pretty boring content consumption devices. Why would you buy every year a new tablet if all you do with them is surfing the web/watching netflix? Also there's no mobile network operator who will give you one "for free" every two years when you renew a contract.

"Also there's no mobile network operator who will give you one "for free" every two years when you renew a contract."

I live in South Africa, and that regularly happens here. People take out 2 year contracts for "data" and get tablets/laptops for free along with it. I suppose it's not so common in more developed countries where most mobile internet packages are "unlimited". Here, they're very much limited to multiples of 500MB/month.

No. In Western Europe, where I live, we also have a lot of mobile packages that bundles a tablet/phone for 1 euro and a data subscription plan that is often limited to 50 or 500mbytes.

For instance my mobile phone plan includes 60 minutes of free phone call, 50mbytes of data, free call to people on the same operator on the week-end and unlimited SMS for 9euros/month. There's a 15euros plan that includes 500mb and 150 minutes that I might switch to in the coming months.

I pay 15 euros a month for 1000Gb in the UK, with http://Three.co.uk/ on 4G with tethering permitted. Unlimited Texts and 1000 hours of talk time.

I get no roaming charges in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United States.

For 50 Euros I can roam worldwide with no extra charges beyond that.

The "super tablets" that the article claims as the next step are what every nearly tablet before the iPad tried to be, and they universally fell on their face.

In arguing for "super tablets" the author writes: PCs are expensive, prone to failure, easy to break and magnets for viruses and malware. After just a bit of use, many PCs are susceptible to constant freezes and crashes.

I don't see how a super tablet addresses any of that except perhaps cost. Ever drop a tablet? Have it fall into water? Ever see people using phones and tablets with shattered glass? I don't see them being less "breakable" than a PC, in fact much moreso because they are being moved around a lot more. They are also a lot more likely to be stolen, misplaced, or lost. And a tablet, especially one that runs MS Office, would not be any less of a target for malware than a PC, nor any more immune to it.

You're right that there's nothing inherent to the tablet form factor per se that makes it less vulnerable to malware. It's just that the different input mechanism and smaller screen size makes backward compatibility less useful, and it's easier for platforms (including Windows RT) to build security into their app models if they don't have to worry about compatibility.

Ever drop a tablet? Have it fall into water?

Yes, both in bath and in a stream. My Nexus 7 survived just fine, and didn't even shutdown.

By not needing to vent heat like most laptops, the tablet is actually pretty well isolated. It only had a few drops of water seep inside even after submerging completely.

Tablet sales are down because 10" tablets are not very useful devices, and 7" tablets are increasingly having their lunch eaten by phablets. (edit: And because manufacturers push 10"s over 7"s, and some other reasons)

The article is all about the purported benefits of tablets as being low maintenance, lower user burden, but a tablet is a form factor. There's no reason why you can't produce a machine with a keyboard and monitor that has the limited options and simplicity of set-up as a tablet, and indeed there have been periodic attempts to do that -- ChromeOS is perhaps the latest. It turns out that, contra the article, they haven't been wildly popular.

The tablet form factor is never going to be a good choice for office workers who use MS Office, even with various plug-in keyboards and other hybrid approaches.

I'm betting a couple of factors:

1) XP is finally too dead to even consider continuing to use. You can't get by with IE8.

2) Windows 8.1 has mitigated windows 8 problems. This is probably helping a lot of folks through the 7/8 anxiety.

3) Companies not named Apple haven noticed that their laptops are ugly clunky hunks of plastic and are working on ultrabook-form-factor laptops, placing them only half a decade behind Apple.

4) Chromebooks have also exploded on the low end of the market (5 million+ sales in 2014).

The bullshit "super tablet" the techcrunch article describes sounds more like a $250 chromebook/netbook than a $800 'super tablet.'

Tablets are simple appliances limited to consuming content . My IPad 1 lets me watch Netflix, Youtube and surf the web just as well as the latest version of the IPad .Therefore I see no reason to buy the latest version. I have in the meanwhile bought/upgraded laptops thrice for myself as I see an immediate improvement in my productivity with faster CPU and more RAM or bigger SSD.

I was happy with my iPad 2 until I upgraded to iOS 7. iOS 7 has slowed down my iPad 2 to a point it is barely useable. I bought a new iPad Air only because of iOS 7, otherwise I didn't need another tablet.

About these super tablets... "...least a 13” screen, 64 bit processor, 2GB of RAM, 256GB drive, a real keyboard, an actual file system, and an improved operating system with windowing and true multitasking capability..."

They've just described a laptop/chromebook, right?

Basically they've only described the Surface.

If you add the touchscreen requirement, yes. And while the Surface certainly hasn't been a flop (not the x86 version at least), looking at its sales alone wouldn't suggest that it's the way forward.

It's a "We must kill tablets to save them" kind of strategy.

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that different form factors are more adequate to different usage niches? Why is it that people insist so much in one form to rule them all?

Also, how does the author explain 7" tablets being so much more popular than 10"?

> The initial market for tablets is now saturated: grandparents and kids have them, people bought them as Sonos controllers and such, and numerous households have them around for reading

This author's view of tablets is so, so off the mark it makes the whole article even more worthless than the title suggests. Gaming, messaging, browsing and a dozen other activities are responsible for the majority of tablet usage.

How can I be sure yours isn't off the mark as well? Are there any studies? Any evidence? As is, I can't believe either of you.

Well, a harder question would be: why is this surprising? (How can a tablet ever replace a PC? How come leading companies thought/think that it could?)

This is what is so confusing to me. Although I had a similar skepticism about smartphones, before I got one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA&t=2m24s is why

Seriously though, the Economist speculated it's because XP is being phased out.

Tablets are getting squeezed. The app driven, web-consumption use case for tablets is getting eaten by smartphones. Meanwhile PCs are still necessary for heavy usage. Put yourself in an average user's shoes. You already carry around a subsidized smartphone more capable than most tablets, and you can pick up a $500 laptop to handle everything else.

IMHO, a few years from now you'll have a more mature application ecosystem and better docking solutions for smartphones. Once people can use their smartphones with a full size keyboard/mouse/monitor, it's game over for tablets and PCs.

>Once people can use their smartphones with a full size keyboard/mouse/monitor, it's game over for tablets and PCs.

You already can do that. You've been able to do that for the past few years. You can connect a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and a display with the appropriate adapter. Android has supported it since launch, and iOS for atleast as long.

People don't want their phone to be their PC. They want something physical they can use to get work done. Institutional and corporate purchasers are some of the largest consumers of new desktops and laptops. They want discrete, manageable hardware, not to have to deal with the nonsense of buying all of their employees a phone.

Sales are down because no new ones have came out in a while.

I upgraded from my iPad 3 to a Retina Mini, but I didn't really need to, I just did. A co-worker gave me more than I could sell it for on eBay and I found an open-box Mini at Best Buy, so it wasn't like I spent $200 to switch.

I use it all the time. It's easily my primary device. It's to the point where I certainly wouldn't sell my laptop (2013 MacBook Air 13") but I'd consider downgrading it since I don't use it enough to justify the $1300 cost.

make no mistake, tablets are the next wave of computing for the mass market. the article basically says that we're in the lull between saturating the early adopter segments and addressing the majority segments, i.e., we're peering into the chasm. it's not a reversal of the market toward pc's.

the reasoning, in my reading of the article, is that the tablet market materialized so quickly that most manufacturers (including apple) didn't have enough time to anticipate future market needs beyond simple consumption devices. now that tablets are "a thing", manufacturers are regrouping to provide the next set of features and functionality that now seem obvious to deliver but are more complex. the timing is also dependent on a number of technologies having advanced enough (processors, displays, batteries, software toolchains, ubiquitous connectivity, etc.).

even in the enterprise, computing devices are moving toward being appliances, which is where tablet technologies fit in (note that mobility is not a key priority for a good chunk of the enterprise). your average salesperson, accountant or analyst has no appetite for managing the device itself, and ios and android (to a lesser extent) are designed to hide away this complexity. 15" tablets with wireless keyboards/mice and robust remote management capabilities will replace (or converge with, if you prefer) most desktops & laptops in the enterprise in time. many outside sales teams are already on tablets since mobility & connectivity trump power for outside sales.

>15" tablets with wireless keyboards/mice and robust remote management capabilities

you just described a chromebook. And at 1/3 the price of a tablet, Chromebooks are plenty appealing in ways a tablet just isn't

if its going to be bigger than 10", lets have them run x86 processors instead of arm stuff, since we have battery?

Tablets will become obsolete once smartphone's screen size increases. We're already into the 5"+ region for smartphones and rumors have it that the next iPhone will be in the region of 6". That's enough screen real estate to browse web sites. Past that the device becomes cumbersome to carry around and if you're in a fixed position you can use your PC/ultrabook.

I have gone through the 'make it smaller' phase of mobile phones from when they were relatively large heavy bricks that ruined your clothes (or could only be carried in your hand) down to the small chocolate bar size where you could comfortably put two of them in your pocket without noticing them.

Now, I find we are going through a 'make it larger' phase where mobile phones are getting too large again to comfortably fit in your pocket. I dislike my Samsung S3 for that reason, and it is no longer one of the largest.

When a phone is too large to fit conveniently in your clothes because of weight or size, you can no longer think of it as 'mobile' because you rarely carry it on your person, and tend to put it down and walk away from it out of earshot.

My biggest use case for my iPad is reading textbooks and a phone of that size is really only good for reading text that can easily be moved around like a novel.

I'd love a tablet I could do real work on. The Surface comes closest with the fold-out keyboard, but it's a bit expensive. I live at the command line when I do dev, so installing something like Ubuntu would be ideal.

I'm not convinced this is a niche need, either. Manufacturers are just slow to catch up.

I have another rant in me about the entirety of tech chasing Joe Average, but that's for another day.

What about the Transformer Pad?

I use my Nexus 7 with a bluetooth keyboard and a Debian installation, though I mostly SSH to a VPS. There's also Ubuntu for Android[1], but I haven't tried it.

[1] http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android

A Chromebook might be what you are looking for. Powerful enough to run full Ubuntu on, built in keyboard, built in ssh client and an easy to access terminal.

It seems to me that this is going to be the cycle for the next decade or so, with PC sales and tablet sales cycling out of phase with each other.

Mind you, my own purchases don't reflect this. My current PC I bought 3 years ago, and I've purchased three iPads since (selling the older ones as I went along, they really do retain value quite well, making this a not terribly expensive habit).

The fact remains you can't work on a tablet and you can't talk on a tablet. You can, but it's not enjoyable. I would ditch my phone if they would give me a talk and text plan for my iPad mini. Instead they're just making the phones bigger.

Question to HN: has anyone tried the Onyx Boox series of ereaders sized 9" and over ?

I am getting tempted, no small part of the temptation is the fact that its software stack seems entirely open source, based on Linux and the source code is on Github. That seems just perfect. The only thing that bothers me is that it is somewhat pricey $300+ and am not too sure about its performance.

I lug around quite a big pile of technical pdfs. If something can reduce that weight I am up for it. So the decision for me is whether to go for a tablet or a e-reader like onyx boox, it seems to be a "few of a kind" if not one of a kind.

EDIT: Thanks, whoever upvoted this back up from grey, it seems to have annoyed someone.

I have a Boox M92 (9.7"). I'm a fan, generally.

The experience (thanks to screen refresh speed) is inevitably much clunkier than on a tablet, but I really like it for technical reading. I like to read outside in the sun, and e-ink works well there.

The M92 is definitely a cheaper feeling device than your average tablet - I guess thanks to lower volumes. I think if I were doing relatively short bursts of reading/reference inside, I'd go with a normal tablet - the refresh difference is really noticeable. If you're sitting back and reading for longer periods, the Boox is fantastic.

I have a 10" IREX. E-paper is much better to read, and no tablet can beat its battery life.

But switching books and random access are slow. Getting into a chapter and reading it works quite ok, but it's not good for reference books.

Unexpectedly, it's great for looking at some work and making annotations.

Wow I had never seen these devices from Onyx before. Thanks for posting this. I too would be really interested to find out how the phone works in the real world.

I am less interested in the 9" ereaders, but would be interested in finding a 11" panel to put in a chromebook.

The problem is that no mainstream vendor is selling an open e-ink device. Nook came close, then changed their policy. These smaller vendors don't usually survive.

Maybe the problem is the software and not the hardware? I mean, people are used to software like Microsoft Word and this kind of software is vaguely imitated in the tablet world. Even if that were the case, you have to buy an external keyboard (because nobody wants to use the soft keyboard when dealing with important documents) and maybe a mouse because after working you want to play a (decent) game (decent games require the use of mouse, right?).

At the end of the day, you have a tablet + keyboard + mouse and a "limited" OS (limited compared to a real OS like Mac OS X/Ubuntu/Windows). Compare this configuration with a Mac Book Air. Who wins?

It is only a matter of time before someone sells a "docking station" for smartphones with HDMI outputs to a monitor and a keyboard/mouse setup as a replacement for a desktop. (if it doesn't exist already)

That's been done (Motorola, ASUS...), but people don't buy them.

Unless you're on a really tight budget, there's no point in having a device with no less bulk than a small laptop but that becomes useless without your phone docked inside, and obviously not as good as a laptop (ARM, Android vs a desktop OS).

I do all my browsing and coding on a phone + bluetooth keyboard. It's inconvenient in some ways, but still more conveninent than my desktop.

Phones may replace desktops more surreptiously, in the way that laptop HDD form-factors inflitrated desktops. We may get a "desktop", that looks like and behaves like a desktop (including software), but whose innards is technology borrowed from phones. ARM, cell network, etc. The keys: it's powerful enough and it's cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Lapdock-500-Pro-Smartphones/d...

I give you, the recent past! I used one once, the experience was underwhelming. It could have been good (my phone had more than enough power to run a lightweight linux window manager and web browser pretty well, the android software just wasn't very polished)

And it's untimely death

http://www.cnet.com/news/motorola-confirms-death-of-webtop-l...

http://www.androidcentral.com/tag/webtop

I wonder if it would be better now that mobile GPUs are pushing as many (or more) pixels as desktop screens have. I agree the software is the problem and still probably not there yet, and it's unlikely any company is going to put the development resources into it needed to get it right.

The solution is (maybe) to go commodity for everything. Maybe a partition on your phone with ubuntu on it and just boot into a different OS when you dock? You'd need it to boot fast, and you'd probably want to share files between desktop-mode and phone-mode, which is going to be difficult. Hardware-wise, screw the laptop form factor and just go for the monitor/keyboard/mouse that many many people already have in their house. The only hardware you sell is a cord splitter that plugs into the phone and triggers a fast OS switch when you plug it in.

ChromeOS might work ok, too, if you're ok with just a browser; it could be just a little Chromebox already built and ready.

I think Windows 8 was a step in the right direction, where different user interfaces run on top of the same system.

The various cloud sync services are also making small steps towards a future where you are using the same software system from a variety of devices (with the system making appropriate accommodations for the devices in use).

The Motorola was doomed from the start, IMO.

Take a phone - which to all extents is relatively locked down.

Add a Linux operating system - in which people don't know. What you mean I can't use Office 2007?

Further restrict the OS - even if you know how to get around, odds are you can't just install the stuff you want inside the Motorola garden.

Then to put the nail in the coffin... Make all the accessories overpriced. What you mean, I just signed years of my life away, paid a few hundred and still have to pay $300 for a lapdock (That runs a gutted OS)?

The idea is great... but beat to death by a corporation trying to lock down and monetize every piece.

Just my opinion.

I hope people are starting to wake up to the fact that a tablet is just a smartphone that doesn't fit into your pocket and usually lacks the "phone" functionality.

My tablet fits in my pocket and can make and receive VoIP calls just fine. I'd happily sell my cheap phone if it didn't cost me much more to have a mobile Internet plan just to receive calls.

My tablet, which I bought 4 years ago, collects dust in the closet and I use it maybe twice a year - I just can't find a single reason to use a tablet on a daily basis and yes, I had the new iPads, Surfaces etc. in my hands. Everything I need to do outside home I can do on a smartphone and if I need to do real work, I just use a laptop.

Anecdotal: the PC and laptop I bought around the time tablets started coming out are starting to show their age. So now I'm in the market for their replacements. Could a factor be the fact that the age of the tablet market currently equals the average lifetime of a PC?

I would expect PC end-of-lifes to be distributed randomly or on a yearly cycle, not on a three-year cycle.

Good point. Here's a theory: laptops were running out of time and people had to opt for a new laptop or a tablet (which, at the time, had the novelty factor) and most of them decided to try a tablet. Tablets did not replace the old laptops so (some) people have since bought a new laptop. This could explain why laptop sales were down during the first stages of tablets' market penetration.

Yes, this is close to what I was trying to bring up.

That doesn't make sense. Not unless the introduction of the tablet caused people to buy PCs and laptops. There might be some dynamics between the two, but it doesn't relate to the age of the tablet being equal to the average lifetime of a PC.

The tablet gets eaten by phones and phablets. As somebody else put it: "Phone, tablet, and laptop; pick any two." No need to have three of them for most people. In addition, the customers who tink to need all three already have a tablet.

> ... alike are again purchasing PCs, and Mac sales are on the rise year-over-year.<

'Super Tablets' but no 'Super PCs' in this incomplete article. It's a hardware matter treated pathetically by the Industry.

Two words:

NEW GAMES

Gaming has been on the rise as always, and PC gaming has started picking up heavily, especially with the modern eSports scene pretty much dominated by PC. And you need to upgrade those guys to keep abreast.

UHD displays are finally becoming common (not just for Macs anymore). A lot of people are upgrading, at least at the high end, because the experience really is better.

Because come to find out, tablets are actually fairly limited and not the be-all and end-all of even end-user computing.

An entire article about the costs of PC management, without addressing enterprise management of tablets & phones.

"The main benefits of super tablets to enterprises are their systems management and replaceability. Smartphones and tablets are so simple and easy to manage that they are typically handled by an IT organization’s cost-effective phone team rather than more expensive PC technicians, who are typically so overwhelmed with small problems that they cannot focus on fixing more complex issues. Apps can be provisioned and updated by both IT and end-users without causing conflicts or problems. If a device is lost, it is easy to remote wipe data and to provision a new device with all of the same settings.

"Programs like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) just accentuate the fact that smartphones and tablets are so easy to manage that enterprises are comfortable letting their employees pick the devices themselves."

Prior to Feb 2014, iPad management required attaching a cable to every device. Enterprise improvements were requested for years, too bad Apple waited until sales slowed to address the concerns of IT admins, http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/26/apple-launches-big-improvem...

"I’ve had conversations with IT pros and people who roll out large iPad installs in the past and they’ve mentioned that one of the things that has continued to cause Windows devices to hold some appeal is their better remote installation and configuration support. To that end, Apple has made some updates to improve that situation.

Both the enterprise and education programs now have support for Mobile Device Management hands-free configuration. This ‘zero touch’ setup has been a long-requested feature for many pros, as it eliminates the need to cable up every deployed device and install a profile via Apple’s Configurator utility."

Im sure if tablets were made that "could do more" they would have the same sort of it issues as desktops.

I don't even see why people even want to replace PCs with tablets. Its like replacing a car with a motorcycle. They're just different things.

because the hype begins to slow down

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