Clear why they are doing it given the price increase coming for the current 12.9
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12.9-Inch iPad Air Display Shipments Reportedly Underway Ahead of March 2024 Launch
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That rubicon has long been crossed. I don't think a company of Apple's current size can expect to sell just one model of smartphone and tablet and expect to meet the needs of their 1+ billion users. The reality is that as your user base grows, their needs will naturally become more diverse, and so Apple will need a larger portfolio of products to cater to them.
Choice can be good, but I also think there's room to shrink the lineup. Something like:
iPad Mini - 9"
iPad - 11"
iPad Pro - 13"
iPad Mini - 9"
iPad - 11"
iPad Pro - 13"
Personally I really like it. Apple has become a global brand under Tim, and that's not bad. It means they are feeling the market pressure and are starting to serve the market needs. Global brands need to serve a diverse range of people and budgets. What you're explaining sounds more like keeping the Pro line and getting rid of everything else, but Air is great for me in most cases. I don't want to pay $1000 for an iPad, for example. And if a product like the iPad Pro was offered without any other options, it would have still cost $1000. Yes, the people on this forum are going to ignore these entry-level products, but the type of products we're interested in exist for us and are priced about the same or better than Steve Jobs-era Apple offered. And especially when adjusted for inflation. What I wish more for is that these lower level offerings don't suck and aren't intentionally lobotomized that much. I also dislike the product configuration ladder that leads you to the next product tier, as that only confuses people on what they need, even me who is on this forum and stays informed, and many times actually fails and ends up bringing you back down several steps.
As for "launching poor products just to fill a box" I find that to be true even with the Pro devices which sit at the maximum price point. For example 8GB of RAM on a MacBook Pro in 2024 at the insane price of 2000 Euros. Simply put - it won't happen. There's no Mac out currently that strikes any sort of sensible balance when it comes to value for me apart from the M1 Air. I thought this is the year I upgrade, but Apple don't want my money even across the Pro lineup and in the end, they end up getting less from me and many others in the same position. I would happily pay about 2000 for the 16GB Pro with the base M3, but in the end their pricing ladder fails and brings me back down to an M1 Air at half the price. I bet it costs them much, much less to upgrade the RAM on the M3 to 16GB in the BOM than it does them losing out on selling me the 2000 EUR device.
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At the current exchange rate, $1599 USD is only $1486 EUR. Why is Apple charging $2000 EUR, which is $2152 USD? Crazy -- I wouldn't buy one either.
on my current M2 iPad Pro 12.9” I use the Logitech Combo Touch. I had an early version that had lots of issues, but the replacement has severed me well…
"Less confusing" doesn't necessarily mean fewer models.
Post Q1 2024 iPad event, it will be:
❌iPad 9th Gen. and Apple Pencil Gen. 1 get cut (All Apple Lightning products will get killed off during 2024, thank God)
✅iPad 10th Gen. (aka iPad Air Counterfeit Edition) gets its first spec bump from A14 to A15. Still incompatible with 2nd Gen. Pencil
✅iPad mini jumps to A16 gets Pencil Hover feature
✅iPad Air 10.9" and a new iPad Air "Plus" 12.9" (Possibly both M2, possibly both get Apple Pencil hover feature)
✅iPads Pro M3 with new OLED displays and new Apple Pencil 3rd Gen.(I'm thinking "Apple Pencil Pro"). The latter is only compatible with iPads Pro M3.
So, apart from the mini, this new line-up matches the iPhone line-up. And each tier has its own Apple Pencil.
I think the "cleaning up" part is just about not having two bottom tier, outdated iPads, but just one.
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It likely until iPad Pro moves to killer OLED display, then maybe Air’s will get ProMotion on their LCD after that.
I personally love the larger screen on my 12.9 iPad Pro but as a MacBook Pro and iPhone Pro owner I don't need or want to pay for all the cameras on an iPad Pro ( In fact I do wonder who uses the cameras at all on an iPad) So a more affordable 12.9 would be welcome for me at least.
For some reason, Apple has always done 1 USD = 1 EUR, unless the Euro gets weaker than the dollar like it did last year and the regular iPhone 14 became 1000 EUR, lol. Needless to say, I haven't seen a 14 out in the wild here. They corrected that a bit with the 15 series after the Euro recovered a bit and the 15 is looking quite popular. The majority out here seems to be getting a used 11/12 to this day and the 12 is the iPhone you see the most out in the wild.
For this Mac, prices here always include the 20% VAT, which adds to 1784 EUR. Where the other 216 EUR is going whem using the real exchange rate... Well, straight to their pockets. Even if you count 1 USD = 1 EUR it still doesn't make sense with VAT incl. although at least that's about 1900.
Apple just wants to rip Europe off, lol. Obviously, Europeans are not really taking it and Macs will never become popular among people who don't *need* a Mac here. Unfortunately, I'm among those who need a Mac to do their work, but I'm looking at alternatives to software I use and at some point when I have to, I'll probably go back to Windows. It's not that I can't afford it, but it's principles. I hate to be one of the people supporting a company who does that and so I won't be.
You're totally right.
Steve Jobs never released different sizes of the same computer at different price points.
Presumably because the Pro starts at 128GB and they want to push you to that
Just Tim Cook stuff
I'll go with most of this. The one difference I feel is that the 10th gen iPad will get a price cut and become the budget iPad with an 11 gen iPad picking up more storage and faster chip.
iPad (10th gen) - $349, only available with 64GB storage, A15 chip
iPad (11th gen) - $449 starting at 128GB, A16 chip