I never had the same feeling about tablets. If anything, I am still somewhat surprised that they have (in relative terms) flopped. I was really expecting much more widespread use given it is quite a sweet-spot form factor (small and lightweight to carry around to far more places than a laptop yet offering a good fraction of the laptop functionality)

I was listening to a famous shoe designer give a talk today. While telling a story, he mentioned in passing that he no longer uses paper but does all his design work with a stylus on an iPad. This guy has to be in his 60s or 70s. I was kind of surprised.

> I am still somewhat surprised that they have (in relative terms) flopped.

I am not - Apple's "Post-PC" vision was clearly not viable to me, despite initially out-selling the entire desktop industry initially. The "What is a computer" ads were cringe.

They never stopped their PC lines so I don’t think they believed it either.

In my view it's the opposite: the worst of both worlds.

If I need to do work involving lots of typing, precise clicking or sitting for a long amount of time, I'd rather use a laptop (or desktop). And for less demanding stuff, the smartphone (which I'm already carrying everywhere by default) is enough.

The tablet sits in an awkward middle and I don't really find much use for it.

I think the tablet market share agrees with you. We've also got touch sensitive notebook screens that removed the edge from a pure tablet experience.

Which is something important to keep in mind when discussing VR adoption. A few people getting overly excited (or overly dismissive) is not necessarily a good predictor.

Tablet is for playing touch based games and watching Youtube

Phones got larger. 6" or 7" phones are normal now, they are always with us, no need to also buy a 8" or 10" tablet.

As a data point, I do own a tablet. It's mostly a mobile TV screen: a TV Headend client for broadcast TV, NewPipe for YouTube and VLC to a shared disk on a server at Home. Not having to sit in front of a fixed TV set it great. My TV is mostly forgotten in a corner of the living room.

I rarely bring the tablet with me outside home. When I do it's with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Example: I'm on vacation but I need some sort of work connectivity in case nasty things happen. Ssh works better on a 8.4" screen than on a phone. That doesn't happen every year luckily. My laptop is larger, weights more and I'll cry if it breaks or gets stolen. Damage to the tablet will only piss me off a bit.

I thought that about tablets too! I still don't really use them myself, but they just seemed like a dumb interface to me. I do understand their appeal now, though.

They didn't really live up to the hype, though. It was said that they would replace laptops. While they have their space in the market, sales are in a declining trend, and considerably behind laptops.

(I was like you and still am, by the way... I don't find tablets comfortable. I only bought one once, and I think the number of times I actually used it can be counted with both hands).

They surely replaced laptops for artists, digital note taking, journalists, travelling and mobile terminals.

For some people, some of the time.

Many journalists will have their MacBooks prized out of the cold dead hands.

I travel with my laptop and my iPad Pro never leaves the couch.

And how close to most working artists’ realities are those slick Apple keynotes showing sexy young people drawing with their Apple Pencil? I don’t know. Artist is a broad term.

Depends if we are talking about US journalists, and countries with similar income, or the rest of the world with more down to earth possibilities.

Yes, artists is a broad term, just like developer isn't a UNIX guy doing containers.

>It was said that they would replace laptops.

By who?

The iPad introduction explicitly presented the iPad as a complementary device situated between the smartphone and the laptop.

That’s true. But it was also Apple who kept calling it a “post PC” device. Which at face value always sounded like it aimed to replace a PC.

Kids love tablets and parents on trips love that kids love tablets!

They’re convenient consumption devices. I’d never work on one but I can watch something on it. Personally I have a phone full that niche but I get that having a giant phone is nice to some people. But keeping kids calm during a plane ride is a great use case

The iPad did replace laptops. At the time the iPad came out netbooks were popular and it was believed by many that Apple was in trouble because they didn’t have a netbook. Apple came out with the iPad and killed the netbook market.

Netbooks died because they were terrible products, and for "I just need to check my email" phones were infinitely better.

Can’t reply to OPs comment under this.

But no, iPads did not replace laptops for the majority of people. Phones maybe, but not so much tablets.

Again if unless you are very young or old, and/or your profession significantly benefits from a portable touch devices (artistry, home remodeling, etc.) it’s a niche.

They're still fairly rare.

For all intensive purposes tablets became normalized but are far from widely accepted or bought,

Part of the reason it’s only kids and old people often seen using them.

Haven’t been on an airplane recently?