Besides cheap Android tablets and slower replacement cycles, another threat to the iPad’s future is the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners have pretty much ditched their iPads, according to stats released by read-it-later app Pocket.
The company said it wanted to explore the impact screen size had on when and where people viewed content and used the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to measure it.
According to the company, iPhone 5 and 5s owners consumed 55 percent of content on their iPhone and 45 percent on an iPad. iPhone 6 owner consumed 72 percent of content through the handset, and 28 percent via their iPad. iPad consumption dropped to 20 percent for iPhone 6 Plus owners.
In some ways, the results are not that surprising. As Pocket notes, people with Android phones, which tend to have larger displays, consume 80 percent of their content through a phone and 20 percent on tablets.
The company’s data exercise also found that people with larger screen phones consume more content over all. For example, users with an iPhone 6 open 33 percent more articles and videos inside the app than they do with an iPhone 5s. iPhone 6 Plus owners open even more and have shaved their iPad usage by about a third.
Still, apparently the iPad is a staple nighttime tool. “Regardless of which iPhone they have, users still reach for their iPads around 9pm for some late-night, bedtime reading,” Pocket notes.
The company also found that iPhone 6 Plus owners read 22 percent less on their morning commutes compared with iPhone 5s and 6 owners, suggesting the bigger device has a portability overhead.
Analyst firm IDC reported today a drastic deceleration in year on year growth for tablets, down from 52.5 percent in 2013 to 7.2 percent in 2014.
IDC put the slowdown down to longer than expected replacement cycles, which people initially thought would occur along the same lines as smartphones, at two to three years.
“What has played out instead is that many tablet owners are holding onto their devices for more than 3 years and in some instances more than four years. We believe the two major drivers for longer than expected tablet lifecycles are legacy software support for older products, especially within iOS, and the increased use of smartphones for a variety of computing tasks,” said Ryan Reith, program director with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers.
Apple’s share of the tablet market declined 12.7 percent year on year in 2014 to 64.9 percent, behind Android tablets which represent 67.7 percent of shipments, while growing 16 percent year on year. Windows tablets, meanwhile, grew 67 percent year on year to 4.6 percent.