[ajzinsbwbs]

Wow, iPad revenue up 31% YoY after being down ~10% in the last few quarters. Similar numbers to a Q1 (holiday season). I guess it makes sense that the tablet form factor is popular when so many people are indoors.

Also, services revenue grew YoY but it’s the first time it didn’t grow QoQ in a long time, so it seems to have stagnated. Services include a lot of recurring revenue so they should be consistently growing QoQ.

Wearables growth also slowed, this may be the other side of the coin when people are indoors and don’t want to buy a watch for fitness tracking.

[gboss]

My partner and I bought our God Daughter an iPad for her sixth birthday because we were worried about her not being in school. We installed a bunch of educational apps for her. She loves it. We also get to FaceTime with her and our relatives which is fun. I’m sure a lot of iPads were bought for kids stuck at home. (Edit typo)

[scarface74]

I just shipped my parents my 2016 iPad with cellular with my unlimited T-mobile data plan. I removed all of the unneeded apps, installed all of the streaming apps that either I had a log in to, they had a log in to with their cable subscription, and the free streaming apps. I put both of their email addresses in Mail. I also put Office 365. My mom already has one of my six accounts.

Since I can’t see them because of Covid, I can now Facetime them. It was frustrating talking to my dad since he is losing his hearing. He can understand me a lot better when he can see me and FaceTime audio is much clearer than phone calls.

I bought an iPad Air and a pencil to take notes.

[davidbarker]

Have you considered earphones for your dad? I only ask because my grandmother was quite hard of hearing before she passed away recently and would often miss a lot of the conversation on FaceTime, but once I bought just some standard EarPods for her iPad, she could hear much better.

Sounds like FaceTime alone is a big improvement over the regular phone, but I thought maybe earphones might be even better.

[scarface74]

They won’t go near earphones. They think it will make his hearing worse. Whether that is true or not, that’s a hill I don’t want to die on. iOS has a live listen mode too that will pipe sounds from the iPhone (and maybe iPad?) to AirPods.

[davidbarker]

Ah, that’s a shame. I wouldn’t be surprised if FaceTime gets closed captions in a future iOS release (with all recognition done on device, of course), which I can see being very useful.

[spideymans]

Got my nephew the $329 iPad, and its been great. No major complaints. We initially got him a similarly priced Chromebook, as they’re education targeted, but quickly returned. The Chromebook was unexpectedly sluggish and cumbersome.

Any educational apps you can recommend?

[spideymans]

>Wow, iPad revenue up 31% YoY after being down ~10% in the last few quarters. Similar numbers to a Q1 (holiday season). I guess it makes sense that the tablet form factor is popular when so many people are indoors.

I wonder how much this has to do with the release of iPadOS 13, which has made the iPad a significantly more capable "computer" than previous versions of the operating system. For the majority of users (you don't fall into this category, fellow Hacker News reader), the capabilities of iPadOS are quickly approaching that of macOS.

[wwright]

Personally I regret the new OS features; I find them clumsy and bothersome. I love the iPad overall though. (I’ve been all in on Apple since ‘08 for context.)

[read_if_gay_]

iPadOS 13, the new keyboard with trackpad and a cloud VPS mean even for typical HNers the capabilities of iPadOS are quickly approaching that of macOS. For me, it’s totally replaced my laptop. I still need a desktop because a fair number of very specific things are a PITA on the iPad but in general it offers a much nicer UX than my previous ThinkPad.

[flatiron]

I dunno man. I spend my life in the command line. I don’t think anything could replace a Linux laptop right now for sheer flexibility and power.

[shmoogy]

With Blink you've got an amazing terminal that supports Mosh. Rarely use my MacBook anymore.

[danielheath]

You get considerably more power per dollar out of a VPS (at the cost of needing an internet connection to use it)

[read_if_gay_]

Me too, that's what the VPS is for.

[wutbrodo]

> For the majority of users (you don't fall into this category, fellow Hacker News reader), the capabilities of iPadOS are quickly approaching that of macOS.

Huh wow, I haven't thought about iPads for a while, but apparently they even added multiple windows (predictably, 5 years late). That's probably the biggest blocker I considered that made tablets a toy even for laymen users (you hardly need to be a leet haxorz to use multiple windows)

[mrpippy]

On iPadOS you pretty much do need to be a leet haxor to use multiple windows, it’s a complicated mess involving swipes that’s totally undiscoverable

[wutbrodo]

Ah, thanks for the info. An unintuitive UI is also entirely predictable for Apple, but I was actually saying that you don't need to be a leet haxor to use multiple windows on a desktop; ie even laymen wouldn't find a window-less mobile/tablet OS to be a replacement without that feature.

[alwillis]

Not so much any more, especially if you get a keyboard and mouse.

[jackson1442]

The pandemic definitely pushed me to get an iPad. Since my primary source of income is in tutoring in math/CS, being able to draw diagrams with accuracy and share those drawings live with my students has been extremely valuable. Before all this, most of my income was from in-person clients where I could simply grab a piece of paper and pen and draw, now I'm 100% online.

[nawwal]

What iPad app are you using for this? And do you also have an Apple Pencil? I also do some math online tutoring, and what I’ve been doing is connecting my iPhone to my Mac, mirroring the iPhone screen on the Mac, and sharing that screen during a Skype call. Then I can use the camera app on the iPhone (mounted on a little tripod) to look down on a piece of paper that I write/draw on. I considered getting an iPad, but even with an Apple Pencil I imagine I wouldn’t feel as free as when drawing on a real piece of paper with a real pen, I’m curious as to what your thoughts on this are

[jackson1442]

I use Flow on the iPad by Moleskine Studios, it's priced on a subscription (reasonably priced, albeit a little annoying) but a wonderful drawing app. I use an Apple Pencil with it.

I like the ability to easily export documents and send them to my students, as well as the freedom you get with a digital whiteboard––you can drag and manipulate individual pieces of your sketch as if they were magnets on the board in a traditional setting.

The Pencil definitely does not feel like using a regular pen, but it's rather similar to writing on a whiteboard and is rather comfortable to use (you get palm-blocking and everything). If you use the first-party Notes app, you also get automatic handwriting recognition and indexing in iPadOS 14.

Assuming they're currently accepting returns given the pandemic, Apple has a relatively reasonable return policy – 14 days for a full refund provided you repackage everything, so if you find you don't like it you can just return it.

[hboon]

Is that Computer Science at tertiary/undergraduate level? Or something else? If it is, is that common?

[jackson1442]

Most of my students are in high school (9-12 grade, age 14-18) during the school year. In the summer, I see more 1st and 2nd year college students since a lot of summer classes are at 2x speed and right now they're predominantly online.

Many high school students have access to CollegeBoard's AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science A programs, which expose students to fundamentals of computing and Java respectively (Principles is more focused on the _concepts_ of programming–sequential instructions, working in teams, etc., while CS A is focused on writing working Java). I've worked with students who do not have access to these classes at their school as well, working with them through a self-study curriculum.

Occasionally, I'll also see middle school students (6-8 grade, age 11-14) who have (or whose parents have) expressed interest in learning to code. I usually work with these students in Scratch then Python, depending on their skill levels, as some schools are even teaching programming classes.

I also get some requests from elementary students, but generally decline those.

[hboon]

Thanks!

[coziestSoup]

My guess for this is the fact that they have a fantastic entry level iPad at a very low price. It's basically the cheapest entry point into the Apple ecosystem at ~$300 (often discounted to $250). And they've shown they're happy to hold this price with the new iPad they released last year as well. Considering iPadOS and support for Pencil, it's a pretty good deal, and I can imagine its bringing a lot of people in.

[SllX]

Picked up this exact one, maxed out the storage but WiFi-only, with an Apple Pencil. It hasn’t obviated my laptop which I do entirely different work on, but it has almost completely obviated my phone since I can route calls through it. I was planning to buy a new phone this year, but seeing as how it gets about 5 minutes of weekly active usage on average since I bought this iPad, which is like 99% camera and 1% Apple Pay, don’t think there would be much point in that.

This has also replaced paper notebooks for me which is what I bought it to do, and I had a pretty sizable book collection on my phone which has been shunted over.

[ksec]

>Services include a lot of recurring revenue so they should be consistently growing QoQ.

You will need to examine Apple's Services Revenue more closely. Apple puts $10/ unit to Services as OS / Map / Siri usage. Considering Apple had record iPhone / iPad / Mac Shipment per quarter.

Google paid Apple roughly $10 per year per Active User as default search placement. Or Roughly $10B per year.

App Store is by far the largest source of Services Revenue.

Considering Apple said in the conference call all of their Apple Services users are growing ( Referring to TV+, Music and News, but we dont know if those are paying members because the TV+ membership could easily be skewed. ). The only variable in QoQ decline is likely App Store Revenue.

80% of App Store Revenue are Gaming. So this suggest people are buying less in game items.

[scarface74]

This also might be by design. Apple has to know that Apple Arcade is going to cause less people to spend money on pay to win games. If Apple Arcade encourages more hardware sells, they would be okay with that.

If every single pay to win an advertiser supported game disappeared, nothing of value would be loss.

[kalleboo]

AppleCare+ is also in Services

[kwijibob]

My guess for increased iPad sales: Zoom conferencing during COVID

[shmoogy]

If that's the case, I wonder if webcam sales would affect revenue for Logitech or another big manufacturer.

[ekianjo]

This is probably the largest driver.

[ogre_codes]

iPad had a spring product launch last quarter which makes a big difference. The previous generation of iPad Pro was more than 18 months prior. iPad sales are pretty weird in terms of cyclicality since launch dates are so random between models.

[chrsstrm]

Tim specifically addressed the wearables decline as a result of store closures during the pandemic. He pointed to the fact that potential new watch customers prefer to try on the watch and view the band options in person before purchasing, and closed stores means this is not possible.

[threatofrain]

I doubt this is sufficiently explanatory, but Apple has been giving away 1 year of Apple TV with their iPad purchases. That's arguably the most valued among all their services.