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Apple's New iPad Lineup Causes Potential Confusion With Inconsistent Features

CheesePuff said:
It's been a confusing lineup for years - even the iPad Pro you have no idea that the 12.9" model has a much better display than the 11".

This is what Jobs did when he returned in 1997 and saw the plethora of same Macintosh models that their product managers couldn't tell him why they existed or what differentiated each one, so he scrapped them all and went with what we knew for years, one consumer and one professional laptop model and one consumer and one professional desktop model
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Exactly. I think the iPad lineup just needs the Pro (in two sizes) and the Air (maybe, in two sizes as well, including the 10.9” and a smaller one). And maybe keep the base iPad for students.
 
I agree it’s a little crazy. What they need to do is get rid of this new iPad, call the current iPad Air, iPad. And call the last gen iPad, the iPad Air.

The “Air” name should signify the base line.

Then you have the iPad (what Apple is currently calling the iPad Air) this iPad should come in 2 sizes; regular and the mini

Then you have the iPad Pro in two sizes.

I honestly think the supply chain issues and other things are causing the marketing to get all out of wack.
 
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There really should be just two tiers of iPads. I’d say get rid of the mini too. Or price it accordingly to the size and features. The mini is just really expensive.
 
mannyvel said:
No, it's because they now have to worry about enterprise customers who want the same configurations for as long as possible.

That's why the iPod Touch was around for so long: because lots of organizations were using it as a handheld scanner. That's probably why the used market for them is so robust.
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You really think they are leaving out mini-LED displays because it would disrupt the enterprise configurations? I’ve managed fleets of enterprise devices for 25 years. This is not a factor and has never stopped them before. They could simply continue offering the previous generations as they have done with the iPhone for years if that were the case.
 
It's their M.O. to confuse you as to what to get, how much of it to get and when to get it. They want you to buy stuff you don't necessarily need and too much of it for what you have to do. They're a business you know.
 
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"it just works" isn't really the Apple of today. you can pick up an ipad, a keyboard case, and pencil...and the keyboard and pencil may very well not work on the ipad because it's the wrong one. the dimensions of the ipad, air, and pro are so similar...yet keyboards are not interchangeable, still 2 pencils...etc. i guess apple really does want differentiation to be more important than simplicity for customers.
 
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The $329 iPad is basically the entry level iOS device that fills the void the iPod Touch used to take.
 
rappr said:
You know, people aren't really as stupid as this article suggests. There's plenty of information on Apple's website for people to make a decision on what they want.
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and yet, they are...
 
opiapr said:
No. But if you can’t get confused making a simple decision between a couple of iPad models how are you capable of making actual important decision. Is not hard just look at what you need, your budget and then check what model fits your need. It isn’t that hard.
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It's not about capability.

My mother is brilliant when it comes to finances and several other topics. Always has been. She's even pretty tech literate for her age, and uses an iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePod daily. If she wanted to by an iPad today, she would need to sit down with a long specs sheet (and still probably not fully understand the differences) or spend 30 minutes having me explain the options. After that, sure, she would be more than capable of choosing a model and buying one.

The point is that the customer shouldn't need expert guidance or an afternoon spent deciphering the differences between various models within the same lineup. This should be especially true of the iPad line, which is marketed as the mass-consumer, PC-replacement device of the future by Apple. They market it as a dead simple to use device where anybody from a child or an elderly person can pick one up and start navigating and using it with ease, but then make the process of understanding the differences between them more complicated than almost any other product lineup they have.

Frankly, I'm sure you understand this. If you truly don't understand the difference, I'm not sure this conversation will be fruitful.
 
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ProfessionalFan said:
It is there, but basically none of us know what to do with it.
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I'm convinced at this point that the only reason lidar is in any current products was internal for Apple's teams to get experience designing, using, and manufacturing lidar implementations in real world scenarios as advanced tests for AR/VR and for cars. I think the consumer features for it are basically just enough to kinda sorta explain in a PR way why it's there but the real reason is purely for Apple's testing for use in completely different product categories (think of it in terms of a captcha's true purpose is to train a recognition algorithm, not gate access to websites)
 
tomtad said:
jobs-grid-6c.jpg


Tim needs one of these
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Tim Cook has become a better organized Gil Amelio. Instead of 20 different Performa computers, we have 20 different iPad SKUs.
 
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rappr said:
You know, people aren't really as stupid as this article suggests. There's plenty of information on Apple's website for people to make a decision on what they want.
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That's not the point. The NEW iPad 10th gen is nearly identical to the 6-month old iPad Air, which supports even more! Makes you wonder why they are investing into an outdated device and calling it new when they already had one with the same specs. It brings literally nothing new to the table.

And why hold onto the iPad 9th gen at all? Just to have someething in that price range. So they are more interested in sales than a clean, confident product lineup that pushes the world forward.
 
JPack said:
But you're not buying an iPod.

At minimum, you're buying an Internet communications and productivity device. It ought to be more complex when buying. Just as buying a cable should be simplier than buying an iPod. An iPad should be more complex.
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True, but it's hard to argue the fact that in the Steve era, Apple sought to do only a handful of things really really well, and now, they sometimes seem more concerned with being all things to all people to keep up with competition. Their current iPad lineup is proof of that.
 
Apple is trying way to hard to artificially segment out features to higher cost models and it just creates a confusing product lineup that also alienates users.

I don’t think it’s a good look for any company, especially one like Apple, to nickel and dime people over things like ethernet ports, charging cables, or charging adapters.
 
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There's too much overlap between the Air, 9th and 10th gen. I get why Apple kept the 9th gen but they want to sell the 10th gen since it's new. Then you look at the 10th gen and it looks like the Air and the Air is a few bucks more.
 
It is a bit of a mess but not that complicated:
-Need the pencil get the air
-Don’t need the pencil get the new iPad 10th gen
-Want a small one get the small one
-Money not an issue get a Pro
-Buying for parents or grandparents on the cheap side get the 9th gen iPad
 
Yeah this lineup is ridiculous. I'm actually considering a new iPad in the near future, haven't followed the lineup for a while and wow there are so many models that it's confusing even for someone who follows tech. I can only imagine how the average consumer feels about this lineup.

Apple needs to trim it down to 3: The Pro, A Regular iPad, and an iPad Mini.
 
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