Clingy fondleslab owners TORPEDO industry forecasts With tablet owners keeping their devices longer and passing older models on to friends and family, industry analysts ave been forced to rethink their ambitious predictions for market growth. Research firm IDC says that it has lowered its 2014 forecast for the tablet market after researchers found that in many cases users were …
Every time I see some forecast from IDC or whomever, it ends up getting followed up with "Well, I guess we were wrong, but here is a list of excuses we didn't see coming but everyone else did"
Seriously, how can anybody not take into the account that when people pay over $500 for a tablet that they are going to give it to someone else rather than have it collect dust in a drawer? Especially since current tablets aren't all that much better than the previous model, which still work quite well for most uses.
Millions are out of work because all their jobs have been outsourced to third-world countries, wages and salaries have been pared back to the bone while prices have increased to the point where most people are now working 60+ hour weeks just to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, and these idiots wonder why people can't afford to keep buying new shinies? Where the hell do they think the money's coming from?
I'm reminded of an interview I once saw with some celebrity back in the Y2K millennium celebrations. A luxury boat was to sail down Sydney Harbour at midnight and the starting price for entry-level tickets was $90,000. "Oh, it's not exclusive," the celebrity said, "it's open to the public, anyone can buy a ticket and come on board with us." Yes, this is how delusional these people are; they think that just because that kind of money is pocket change to them that anyone can just pull 90 grand out of their arse.
So "outdated" tablets are just fine. My girlfriend is still happily using her original iPad, and there's absolutely no reason she should replace it when she's only using it for email and browsing.
Just look at the stats for how many computers there are out there still running Windows XP. The vast majority of them were sold with XP, and since they still work and still do what is required of them, the owner has not deemed it worth the cost/hassle of replacement. Many of those people will replace that XP machine with a tablet when the XP does fail (or gets fatally hacked) but that may be several years from now.
Meanwhile, those who are using tablets today may still be using the same tablet several years from now. If it keeps working, what's the reason to replace it? Faster CPU, better resolution? What difference does that really make for email and browsing?
The larger iPads are surprisingly solid bits of kit, especially once placed in a nice cover/holder/thingy; I can see them lasting a decade+ for careful owners.
Assuming the batteries last that long. I suspect shortening battery life will be a major factor encouraging churn rather than thinner/lighter/faster/shinier.
More likely that it becomes no longer supported by the latest OS, and you only get point release updates for serious security issues. The 3gs is in this boat, but just got a security update recently, almost five years after it was released, and very likely there are more to come.
So pretty much a 5+ year PC style replacement cycle in other words, instead of the 24 month phone replacement cycle.
I've had my transformer tf101 for three years and it's running a kit-kat variant atm.
I'm now looking at 'upgrading' to either another Asus OR the Zperia Z2.
Our Original HTC flyer is plugged into the TV (next to the chromecast) for streaming google play or other (non-chromecast) material.
I think there's a CM variant that updates the Flyer, keeps the pen function and turns it into a 'phone, so I might have a hack at that.
I'm certainly not changing just for the latest shiny-shiny.
(OK, I will like the design of the Z2 to match my Z1 compact handset...)
I managed to get KatKiss on there:
http://public.timduru.org/Android/tf101/KatKiss/4.4/
It seems to be ok, except I don't think bluetooth works. Video/hdmi out works, so you don't need a chromecast.
I can't check as I've reinitialised and given to my brother. (and he's in north wales and not that technincal).
Hmm what's the saying, once bitten, twice shy.....
There were days when there simply weren't good cheap Android tablets available. It's only thanks to thanks Amazon and Google for realising the cheap tablet market was committing harakiri due to awful hardware.
IDC don't seem to have taken into account the huge number of terribly slow, resistive touchscreen cheap Android tablets that were quickly put into people's drawers never to be used again after the purchase fad had worn off.
If someone's first tablet is a slow piece of junk it takes a massive amount of convincing for them to buy a second tablet that actually has a working touchscreen and operates fast enough for web/email.
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