Game over, losers. The iPad won

Look, if you want, let’s go back to a simpler time. A time when the Macalope columns were mainly concerned with attacking people who said ridiculous things about Apple or Apple products.

What happened then, Carol? We were so young. So full of life. Have you finished creating this dating app yet? It was for people in open relationships in closed communities. What a terrible idea. But such was our wild optimism! The future lay before us like a cruise ship buffet, but without the botulism.

And we didn’t have to talk about AI all day long.

Maybe it was all the AI ​​commercials that the Macalope was forced to watch during the Super Bowl, featuring real actors embarrassing themselves and the AI-rendered likenesses of actors virtually embarrassing themselves, that put the Macalope in a nostalgic frame of mind. Or maybe it was this breaking news story: iPad demand is increasing as Apple strengthens its grip on the tablet market.

Here we are, 16 years into the existence of the iPad, and the Apple device which is “just a big iPhone!” still owns the tablet market which, although not created, has been a reality.

Omdia claims that Apple shipped 19.6 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2025, representing a 16.5% year-over-year increase… The fourth quarter results increased Apple’s market share to 44.9%.

Of course, the usual caveats about the quality of analyst estimates apply (spoiler: not very good), but when you try to think about the last time you saw someone using an Android tablet, you realize that these numbers are at least sensibly correct, if not accurate.

The fact that Apple continues to have the largest market share and surely much more profit share is quite amusing to the excited guy, as he remembers being told point-blank that the iPad was doomed to failure because Android tablets were destined to surpass it, the same way Android phones outperformed the iPhone.

In 2010, one company said the iPad “failed to convince buyers” after its unveiling, as the number of people saying they were not interested in the iPad nearly doubled. A quick footnote to this survey that somehow didn’t make the headlines: the number of people who said they _would_ like to buy an iPad tripled.

Macalope’s favorite pundit gag from 2011 praised the Motorola Xoom because it had 4G connectivity and the iPad 2 didn’t. Case closed! Advantage: Xoom! Oh, well, except, ha-ha, side note, just a tiny thing, really: the Xoom didn’t have it either. It was simply promised that at some point in the future you could mail your Xoom to add 4G. And that didn’t happen for another seven months.

Foundry

Somehow, despite being clearly a better product in the eyes of experts, Motorola unfortunately no longer makes the Xoom. Or exist, because the company was sold for parts to Google and Lenovo.

In 2012, we were told that Android tablets were “surpassing the iPad in business and computing.” Oh no! How did Android fans know? Among businesses that had not yet purchased an iPad, 44% said they would purchase Android-based tablets.

It’s… uh… okay. It’s a true faith-based mathematical analysis, but… You do it. Aside from the fact that these people are simply reading what they wanted to see in the survey results, it’s important to point out that purchase intent surveys are notoriously bullshit. So there is that too.

The Macalope could go on for hours about how wrong the experts were about the iPad (and they often are, be glad you don’t know him in real life). But as the numbers above show, that battle is largely over. And the iPad won. This year’s updates will likely be incremental because tablets as a whole are a mature market, and while Apple will wow us every few years by making them even thinner and better, the company is unlikely to see huge category growth in the future.

Don’t worry, though. If you want real tablet innovation — all sloppy and wet with weird results, like when Chicago invented deep-dish pizza — there are a host of wacky companies doing crazy things with e-ink screens. None are likely to be as successful as the iPad, but the Macalope has found it fun to look at.