I'm surprised nobody mentioned that it could simply still be a normalization phase.
The iPad's growth exploded because everybody thought it was the new iPhone. Analysts started analyzing it like if it WAS the new iPhone.
But it's a very different product, with a lifecycle much more akin to that of a laptop. In this regard the iPad is indeed a computer. I'm typing this on a late 2014 MacBook Pro Retina. It's still a great machine, why change it? I can do everything with it. Even video editing to a very good extent.
The same for my iPad Air, bought in 2014. Still rocking.
I might be swapping it for a new iPad in 2 years maybe, but so far, why bother?
My mom's iPad is my old short-lived iPad 3. She gets Pinterest, she browses the web, she does her email, we Facetime. My dad borrows it from time to time to buy a rare book online or to look for some obscure Prog Rock band from the '70. He is the typical proudly tech-illiterate son of the fifties, but well, he actually loves to use his iPad 1 as a YouTube Radio when he's painting.
She has a laptop at home, but it's strictly connected to work related task. I.e. spreadsheets. And that's it.
Her laptop and her iPad are perfectly complementary devices she is not really thinking about changing until they will break or become unbearably slow.
There's no mystery: the iPad IS a computer, and its update cycle reflects it.
My mom's iPad is my old short-lived iPad 3. She gets Pinterest, she browses the web, she does her email, we Facetime. My dad borrows it from time to time to buy a rare book online or to look for some obscure Prog Rock band from the '70. He is the typical proudly tech-illiterate son of the fifties, but well, he actually loves to use his iPad 1 as a YouTube Radio when he's painting.
She has a laptop at home, but it's strictly connected to work related task. I.e. spreadsheets. And that's it. Her laptop and her iPad are perfectly complementary devices she is not really thinking about changing until they will break or become unbearably slow.
There's no mystery: the iPad IS a computer, and its update cycle reflects it.