Panic, one of the most respected OS X/iOS developer houses, published their yearly report, this time covering 2015, obviously. This paragraph is intriguing:
iOS Revenue. I brought this up last year and we still haven’t licked it. We had a change of heart – well, an experimental change of heart – and reduced the price of our iOS apps in 2015 to normalize them at $9.99 or less, thinking that was the upper limit and/or sweet spot for iOS app pricing. But it didn’t have a meaningful impact on sales.
More and more I’m beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS – we made professional tools that aren’t really “in demand” on that platform – and that price isn’t our problem, but interest is.
This obviously ties into the previous news item, and Panic hits the nail on the head. They are, of course, specifically talking about iOS, but the same applies to competing platforms like Android: nobody wants to do anything even remotely resembling serious work on a “post-PC” device, regardless of platform. Both Apple and Google are really trying to posit their platforms for work (iPad Pro, Pixel C), but just as Microsoft is having a hard time scaling Windows down for consumption, Apple and Google are having trouble scaling their operating systems up for work.
It is no surprise, then, that Panic’s upcoming great project for 2016 isn’t a big new application… But a videogame.
I develop and administer websites so I actually did buy Coda for iOS and I have it installed on my iPad. But it just stays there completely unused. Even with a bluetooth keyboard that I do have for the iPad. BUT, in any situation I would want to use Coda for iOS, I’ve found out that instead I can just pop out the MacBook Air and get the job actually done and in a fraction of the time, not to mention frustration free. Every single time.
So no, the iPads are not for work, not for my kind of work anyway.
Most of my users walk around job sites, classrooms, do inspections, audits, and have to generate reports on-site with no network handy.
This is *real work* – the kind that keyboard jockeys like us don’t ever do. For that kind of real work, iPads are 20X better than any desktop or laptop, assuming they are programmed correctly.
I agree that Thom is often overly negative and has topics that he never gives a balanced view on, such as tablets, wearables, and privacy. Still, I like his posts on other topics enough that I keep coming back and have been doing so for years.
I also see people using iPads and other tablets often for “real” work in the context you describe. I had a guy in my house recently who was taking measurements and entering them into a pretty arcane iPad app. But he showed me a demo of how it worked and it was obviously a huge time saver for what he was doing (installing cabinets). It basically made an accurate 3D model of the room on the fly. Combined with a laser measurement tool it probably reduced two hours of work into ten minutes.
But I think that Panic’s and Thom’s point stands: A lot of these professional iPad apps fill niches in relatively small vertical markets. I’m sure they’re nice, profitable businesses, but they’re not mass market enterprise apps. So eventually every cabinet installer is going to have an iPad. Maybe almost all of them already do. It’s not necessarily going to drive huge growth of tablet devices or create big new opportunities for app developers.
I also agree with most of the other commenters: from a personal standpoint, I own both an iPad and a Kindle Fire (that cost me $50). What do I use them for? Watching movies, browsing the web. But for every hour I spend on a tablet, I probably spend 100 hours on my laptop and 200 on my phone. I do more “real” work on my phone than on my tablet, because it has the advantage of always being there.
I thumbed you up but had to randomly decide between informative and insightful.
There are/is plenty of scope for iOS/Android apps – targeted at tablets.
But they are usually highly specialist – and probably need to be. That means the price will need to be _high_ to cover costs (and make a small profit).
A company handing over (up to!) 1000 pounds for tech kit is now understood. I assume that comes with software too.
The basics are provided by the platform AKA web and mail and mobile networking (messages/BBM as platform extras).
The screens are good and the touch input is OK. With appropriate, domain specific, peripherals even typing is kept to a minimum.
600 pounds for the tablet, 400 for the software, additional hardware 100->400.
For a builder/decorator that’s not too shabby – even a second hand van fitted for your needs (and filled with tools) is going to cost you 10K+.
Therefore – perhaps the expense is justified – additionally, maybe it is these sorts of people (non-tech professionals and artisans) who are also those who can do without a laptop.
If a piece of kit can save me a lot of time then it is worth it. And tablets, with semi-custom apps (and possibly semi-custom hardware) can fill that niche. Specifications, requirements, measurements, quotes, customer communications can all be handled from the device – on the fly.
I’m always amazed at how much time is spent on communications. I’m always amazed how much time is spent converting A to B.
Anyway – waffling a bit.
I think another aspect of the work you describe seems to be primarily data gathering to generate the report. Are they authoring the report from scratch using the iPads?
I agree that mobile devices are perfect for this type of work, as has been any of the myriad of data collection devices over the years. The good thing about devices today is that they are generic devices that has software that can easily customize it to a tailored specific task oriented solution.
Yes, most are generating a report of violations or site conditions, student test results, peer reviews, audits, inventory in and out, that kind of thing. Send PDF through email is the usual reporting. Often times they need to sync back to a server when online and get their next batch of jobs.
There are a lot of us information workers but we are still outnumbered by people outdoors or out of the office. Even if their numbers dwindle most of them perform mission critical tasks and their software revolution is just beginning. iPad is a big part of this.
I love lone survivor/mystery type games, so this is right up my alley. The devs have all worked on great projects in the past, and Panic seems to be an awesome company. This will be one to watch.
Professionals, on any platform, number significantly less than consumers. This, coupled with Apple’s lack of upgrade pricing structure means that professionals buy the app once, then have no additional revenue gains for the company from then on.
Yeah, it will be interesting if Google’s app subscription model will take off.
https://developer.android.com/distribute/monetize/subscriptions.html
That seems better for app developers, imho. Continued development and investment gets rewarded.
As a user it kind of sucks, and you’d have to be much better than the 9.99 one time purchase in order for me to consider it. But then again, As noted in my other comment, none of their apps appeals to me as a good solution.
I build business database apps for iOS clients and demand is high – as high as it’s been in 10 years.. Any sort of job that requires an inspection, an on-site visit, or going around classrooms or work sites is a prime market for a vertical app with an iPad client.
Also our apps cost a lot more than $9 per user. But way less than most custom software.
And every new ‘power-feature’ added to iOS has been helpful for those working on iPads – multi-finger gestures, split-screen, side-view, custom keyboards, etc..
It’s like Apple is a democrat and Thom is FoxNews. There’s gotta be a negative angle here!
Most people don’t work on an iPad “all day” but it might be the only device they use during their day. This doesn’t mean it’s in their hands from 9-5. It just means they have to be able to perform their tasks and generate their reports without ever using a laptop or the network.
Even if the office and the administrators have laptops, lots of companies are giving the inspectors an iPad only.
Microsoft was there fifteen years ago, taking them from Workstation OS.
They’re just physical impersonators.
Shouldn’t be confused with the real issues here: Network and Computing philosophy.
Could be an exchange with a ‘HAL 9000’ interface.
Looking at their products they seem to have:
1) A Text editor
2) A status board
3) A file manager/sftp/aws transfer client
I’m not sure any of those are really worth paying for. There are a million text editors out there, what makes theirs better than anyone elses? Status boards should really just be web pages, no real reason to have those app specific and not web vieable.
Also, these are all ios/mac ecosystem specific. I would never choose a platform specific solution for those types of apps. I thought BYOD was the rule of the land.
Well, BYOD means I’m free to use apps on my iDevice, too. As for products I mostly agree with you, however there is one that I use regularly: Prompt2. It’s the nicest SSH client for iOS I’ve so far found. The rest though… yeah. Maybe they are better than others, but with no ability to try before I buy I’ll not find out.
The file manager is great, not for being a file manager, but because it is also a document provider. This means that all iOS apps get the ability to read/write files over sftp, and all the other methods it provides, without doing any extra work themselves.
I didn’t realize it also had a provider in it. If so, that changes things quite a bit.
It has a bug or two at the moment which limit sftp a little, but hopefully that will be fixed in the next release.