New releases and the future of tablets

They even wanted to release their new phablets or tablets at about the same time. Apple unveiled the next generation of iPads – the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3 on Thursday (16 October 2014) and the following day Samsung released its Galaxy Note 4, at least in the UK, although the device […]

They even wanted to release their new phablets or tablets at about the same time. Apple unveiled the next generation of iPads – the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3 on Thursday (16 October 2014) and the following day Samsung released its Galaxy Note 4, at least in the UK, although the device had been formally unveiled in a conference in Berlin on September 3, 2014. In the mix was Google, who also launched its Nexus 9 tablet last week, with pre-orders starting also on October 17.
So, what’s new in Galaxy Note 4 when compared with Galaxy Note 3? Note 4 is yet another effort at moving away from desktops and laptops to handhelds, with the larger smartphones and phablets effectively providing the real transition. Farhad Manjoo in his October 15, 2014 New York Times article states that Galaxy Note 4 “is superior to just about every other phablet on the market.” He says the only real competitor is Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, which has a more intuitive interface. According Manjoo, superior features of Note 4 include “the sharper image, larger display; the ability to charge its battery to half-full in just 30 minutes; and a series of on-screen features that make it easier to use the device in one hand.”
Just as its predecessor, Note 4 has a stylus, which is a handy tool for manipulating big phones. It also has a fancy display. Note 4’s screen is larger, with 5.7 inch diagonal, compared to iPhone 6 Plus’ 5.5 inch.  The company DisplayMate, which carries out technical tests on digital displays, refers to the display of Note 4 as the best performing smartphone display that it has ever tested. A display metric referred to as “color accuracy” was judged to be much better in Note 4 compared to iPhone 6 Plus. Manjoo has this to say about the display of Note 4: “To my eyes, the Note 4’s screen did look better than Apple’s – sharper, more vivid and just generally delicious, the kind of screen you don’t mind staring at.”
Note 4 does fall short in a few metrics: the beloved fingerprint scanner in iPhone 6 isn’t nearly as good in Note 4, and the heart-rate monitor in Note 4 is also inferior. Aside from these, Galaxy Note 4 seems like a good product that you can upgrade to, especially if you are not an Apple die-hard.
While iPhone’s interface specifically considers the device as a phone – for making a phone call, scanning your emails, getting directions, etc., the interface for the Galaxy phablets recognizes and supports a dual mode of use: as a phone and for more profound tasks such as those associated with productivity – taking notes while being on the phone, managing your emails, working your calendars, or watching a movie. Although the basic OS for Note 4 is Android, Samsung has superimposed its own homegrown user interface TouchWiz, to help it accomplish intrinsically phablet functions. Critics say that TouchWiz is not pleasing to the eye, and that it adds layers of unnecessary steps to common tasks.
Do tablets, in general, or iPad in particular, have a chance in the marketplace in the long run? As Apple launched new versions of iPad last week, the issue of the real usefulness of iPad surfaces, especially with smartphones getting more powerful and larger (phablets) and laptops getting smaller, with tablets being squeezed out in the process as the line between a phone and a tablet becomes blurred. The fact that pure tablets such as iPad or Kindle, unlike phablets and smartphones, require Wi-Fi hot spots to function also detracts. Thus, tablet vendors need to give a reason-to-exist for these devices, or distinct purposes that differentiate them from phablets and laptops.
After four years of dominating sales, the iPad is slipping against its peers in the tablet world. It is facing tougher competition from tablets made by Amazon, Samsung, and Lenovo. To be sure, iPad still leads, with a 26.9 percent share of the global market, followed by Samsung with 17.2 percent and Lenovo with 4.9 percent, according to the research firm IDC. But in the second quarter, Apple’s iPad sales declined 9.3 percent compared with the same period a year ago.
The issues with iPad include the high cost, which is more than those of many laptops, coupled with the short list of capabilities that the device has. So, “does anyone really need an expensive tablet like iPad?” The real issue with iPad might as well be the fact that the device, with its high price tag, does not seem to have a distinct purpose relative to phablets and laptops. Tablets are just not as useful as these other devices. Moreover, tablets seriously lack innovative apps that run on them.
Can the upgrades unveiled last week by Apple reverse the trend for iPad? Will a fingerprint sensor do it? Certainly not, since we have that in iPhone as well. The new iPads are also expected to include support for Apple Pay. This also is not an adequate incentive since we have the same capability in iPhone 6. What about the proposed partnership with IBM that Apple announced in July to enhance the productivity of iPads (and iPhones) for use in businesses? Well, without real innovations coming out of the collaboration, iPad’s problem stays.
The take-away from this article is that as vendors continue to release new tablets, these devices, lacking a distinct purpose, are continuously being “squeezed out” of existence by increasing-size smartphones (phablets) and decreasing-size laptops.