Should my app support tablets?

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, in 2010 to be exact, Apple introduced iPad and it was game changer. Not long after that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab came and a lot of other Android tablets. Good ones and bad ones. Fast forward a decade and tablets are heading towards extinction. Is that right? Let’s have a quick look.

Whole purpose of a tablet was to use it to consume media, large screen was their biggest strength. But there is a variety of smartphones with large screens right now. That makes playing games, watching videos and reading quite comfortable. People are currently thinking: ‘Do I really need tablet as well? My iPhone hardly fits into my pocket anyway’. Smartphones are killing tablets.

No one could have predicted precisely how smartphones would evolve to be so useful and important they are in our lives right now. On the other hand, tablets were meant to be technological home for newspapers, books, magazines and even grocery flyers. Industries behind all those mentioned things were supposed to thrive thanks to new media infrastructure.

Reality turned out differently as pretty much always. Now everybody wants news immediately on their phones. Now even typical tablet apps are focusing on smartphones.

So right now you might think that there is no need to support apps on tablets, that ‘tablets are dead ’. To be honest, like with a lot of stuff- it depends. Some apps are better received on smartphones while others are great on tablets. Also, the demographic of your users matter. In US tablet users tend to be more highly educated and have a higher household income than U.S. adults overall. In addition, more tablet users are in their 30s and 40s than the public overall, and they are more likely to be employed full time. Therefore you might want to think again if that’s your target demographic.

It’s of course hard to predict the future and there is no doubt that concept of tablets need revision. Very important thing to keep in mind is that between 2017 and 2022, the tablet market share dropped by over 50% globally.

However, let’s remember that not everyone is happy with bigger phones – that’s why iPhone SE was introduced. Such people will consider using tablets at their free time. We think that if target demographic of your app uses tablets more than an average person does, you should consider supporting bigger displays of tablets.