Let’s face it, the iPad line up is a little bloated if not confusing at the moment.
You have the 9th Gen iPad which carries all of the baggage of that generation’s iPad, the 10th generation iPad which overlaps so much with the iPad Air, the iPad Air itself which has lost all meanings thanks to the 10th Gen iPad, the iPad mini which can serve whole other categories of functions due to its diminutive size, and finally the iPad Pro that comes in two sizes.
Sebastiaan de With’s proposal here tries to align the product closer to the less confusing iPhone line up. While it doesn’t change the number of models, it gets rid of the 9th Gen and the original Pencil, introduces a low end iPad and adds a Plus model to the regular range.
I can agree with that and my details would be as follows:
When Apple introduces the 11th Gen regular iPad, the 9th Gen would be gone along with the original Pencil and any other lighting iPad accessory. That clears that table.
Let the low end iPad be the previous generation model with one or two color options, no cellular, and just one storage size because it’s meant to be the most accessible iPad that also serves the education market.
The standard iPad would include the mini and the Plus, all carrying the previous generation chipsets, obviously lower tech specs compared to the Pro, no high speed charging or connector just the widely acceptable one, and a single camera.
As for TouchID vs FaceID on the regular iPads, I lean towards TouchID unless they can lower the cost on that component.
The Pro will obviously be the flagship model with all the bells and whistles.
What about the Air? Right now the Air nomenclature is just that, a nomenclature. Functionally it serves as a confusing spot on the line up because the 10th gen iPad is too close to it but it carries a previous generation Pro chipset and features. They can keep the name for the regular iPad like how they kept the MacBook Air and Pro and got rid of the vanilla MacBook. That way they can have the iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad Plus all under the “regular iPad” class.
The Pencil will have two options, regular or Pro but there will be a hard separation. Only the Pro iPads can use either Pencil models while the non Pro iPad have to stick to the regular Pencil. That takes away the customer confusion. You want Pro features, get the Pro iPad.
Although maybe the Pro Pencil can work with the regular iPads but it just won’t have the Pro features enabled. It’ll be like a high speed charging or data cable delivering at low speed because the host or target device doesn’t support high speed.
I’m not addressing the nearly Apple Watch level overwhelming range of SKUs here because there’s going to be multiple colors, storage sizes, and cellular vs WiFi models to worry about.
The important element is is addressing the fundamental differences between the different iPad categories. Streamlining the product range this way will present a much more coherent set of options to the consumers.
People will have an easier time deciding which model to get especially those figuring out if they should get the 10th gen iPad, the Air, or the smaller Pro model, and retail staff won’t be tearing their hair out helping customers figure it out.
AuliaSays 