Apple is banking on iPad Pro overhaul to spark sluggish tablet sales

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Apple is hoping a major overhaul of its premium iPad Pro will help reverse sluggish tablet sales. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, next year's iPad Pro will arrive with some meaningful upgrades in tow and could finally give holdouts a compelling reason to upgrade.

The slates will reportedly be powered by Apple's own M3 chip and be the company's first to ship with OLED displays, which have been present on iPhone models since the iPhone X debuted in 2017.

The new iPad Pro will be offered in your choice of 11-inch or 13-inch screen sizes. For comparison, the current iPad Pro lineup consists of 11-inch and 12.9-inch models. Sources claim the iPads will be accompanied by an updated Magic Keyboard accessory with a larger trackpad that will make the combo look even more like a notebook.

iPad sales have not exactly impressed as of late. According to Apple's latest financial report, sales from the division were down nearly 20 percent in the most recent quarter compared to the same period a year earlier. In fact, it was Apple's lowest performing category.

As Gurman correctly highlights, tablet sales in general have been in a slump following the sales surge brought about by the pandemic. What's more, recent models have only delivered incremental updates (the last major overhaul was in 2018) so many haven't had a compelling reason to upgrade.

Tablets like the iPad increasingly have to compete with large-screen smartphones. Apple's own iPhone Pro Max line features a 6.7-inch display, and foldables from rivals like Samsung are far larger when unfurled. With such big phones on the market, some consumers are no doubt questioning where a tablet might fit into their life.

Apple's updated iPad Pro model is not expected to make an appearance at next month's fall iPhone event, or even before the end of the year. Sources tell Gurman the updated iPad Pro likely won't debut until next spring or perhaps in early summer 2024.

Image credit: Roberto Nickson, Burak the Weekender

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99940-apple-banking-ipad-pro-overhaul-spark-sluggish-tablet.html

 

[toooooot]

There is zero need to upgrade tablets as often as phones which offer new cameras and other features every year. I doubt tablet sales will ever be as good as they were that one time when they apple made them popular.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

While it maintains ludicrous prices, uses a useless OS its sales will continue to struggle. Bought a 13" MacBook Air with M1, 16GB, 512GB SSD far cheaper than I could get a 12.9" iPad Pro and I have USB ports, can use a mouse and get a real OS for actual usability and pwoer features and can install real software.

 

[VitalyT]

Sluggish sales, LOL. The insane price hike may have something to do with that. Last iPad I bought was about 800 euro for the top spec, which I thought was very expensive. Now the top-spec is 3,100 euro, as in HFS.

 

[Dimitriid]

You just need 1 feature and all ipad pros that are at least M1 based would sell like double its current numbers per month: Let them run macos apps.

You know, make the 'Pro' in the tablet name actually mean something a professional would want, like professional applications on it.

They got at least have Final Cut in there now but its time they just focus on working out whatever kinks might come from letting a macos app run while on ipados like force it into docked mode so a keyboard and mouse is present, come up with a clever control scheme, whatever. If I want to be a pro and I want to use my ipad 'Pro' I should be able to just launche Premiere or Photoshop and it should "Just Work™ " For it to actually be worth paying extra over the regular ipad and the ipad air.

 

[sorten]

"Surf websites faster" must be losing its appeal.

 

[Watzupken]

Apple should really assess the root causes of their "sluggish sale". Straight off,
1. Price - Apple have been increasing price of all their products even with no meaningful upgrade. They have already priced their products out of reach of more people. An iPad generally cost quite a lot when compared to competition, yet other than the SOC, everything else in terms of specification is behind. And truth to be told, the difference between M1 and M2 is insignificant.
2. Lack of innovation - Design is the same, barring some change in color and material used.
3. iPad OS is holding back performance. So while they can claim very powerful hardware, it hardly shows.
4. No consistent performance improvement. Comparing the M1 vs M2 256GB models, the decision to cut cost and use a single NAND hurts SSD performance. So there's tradeoff to "upgrading".
There are other points that's hurting their sale, and not just iPad sale. While they can sit safely behind service sales to keep up their profits, the drop in hardware sale will eventually come back to bite them given the services are mostly tied to their hardware/ ecosystem.

 

[dangh]

Just got galaxy tab s9 +. There is nothing this tablet is lacking and I don't have to lock myself in a walled garden.

 

[yRaz]

I've been looking at the new Samsung tab ultra because I want a tablet that I can draw on. I love my tablet for reading, drawing and playing MTG Arena on while I'm out of town. However, my current tablet is no longer getting updates and I can't root it so many features have stopped working. I don't know how iPad update works, but if it's anything like my current tablet I don't want to lose the ability to use it because they stopped releasing updates for it.

I love tablets as a form factor, but spending premium money on something that becomes useless after a couple of years due only to the fact that the manufacturer will no longer release updates for it.

And while I certainly have gotten my money out of my tablet, the idea of spending $1000+ on an "ultra premium" product really annoys the fudge out of me when it becomes obsolete in a few years. Not because the hardware is obsolete but because it no longer is getting updates.

 

[Jerry in WA]

I grabbed 3 lightly used Fire HD 10 tablets recently for $52 each. 8 cores, 2gb ram, 64 gb space with a vibrant 1080p screen. Paid $15 each to remove the lock screen ads. They do everything we want from a tablet (web surfing, play videos, light gaming) except for navigation (no GPS at all). The amazon intrusiveness is slightly annoying (I had to hack in the Google Play Store) but not spending $200-$500 per tablet eases that considerably. It'll do.