To be fair to Tim and Company, Steve died only a couple months after the second generation iPad was introduced, and it is said one of his last acts at Apple was giving the iPad mini the greenlight.
Eddy Cue Worked to Convince Steve Jobs of Need for 7-Inch iPad in Early 2011
Back in October 2010, Steve Jobs appeared on an Apple earnings conference call to address the Android-based iPad competitors that were just then...
www.macrumors.com
Also, almost every product line Steve introduced would later be diversified, including under his leadership.
There was only one iPod for the first two years, then it was joined by an iPod mini, then later an HP iPod, then later an iPod color, then an iPod photo, then an iPod U2, iPod shuffle, Nano and touch, all which became either successful lines of products with future generations, or would be discontinued after the first or second.
The iMac started with just… The iMac, until expanding into the standard iMac, the iMac DV, the iMac DV special edition, the eMac, and decades later the iMac Pro.
But even the iPhone, testimony and legal documents from the early iPhone days have been released within the past several years, showing that even under Steve they were prototyping iPhone nanos and larger iPhones all the time, and that they were interested in eventually diversifying the product line.
It’s just the inevitable solution to keeping a product successful.
Make a standard version that most people can obtain, a smaller version, a mid range version, and a top-of-the-line “Pro Ultra Max Mega” version.
