Which phone is "the android"? My mom doesn't think she has an android phone, she thinks she has an LG and that Android is a different thing. People buy a low end Android phone and hate the entire ecosystem because the phone performs like crap. I have a friend who thinks the Galaxy S7 would be a crappy upgrade because they already have a "Galaxy Core Prime".
When there was just the iPhone, it was really easy. It was expensive compared to other options, but you knew it was the best iPhone, and the one with a higher number was better than one with a lower number. Yet an LG G5 is better than a Samsung Galaxy S6, they are somehow both "Android", and Marshmallow is better than Jelly Bean.
Now the iPhone isn't that bad, but it's not simple anymore. iPhone 7, iPhone 7Plus, iPhone 7S, iPhone 7S Plus, iPhone SE. Which is better?
Now, of course, google perhaps don't want that to happen, since the other big manufacturers will not like it, and that marketing isn't their core business.
Naming schemes are terrible.
Life is imperfect and changing products require a little research. You can't just go to the store and buy the best socks either; if you want the best you got to do research. Thems the breaks.
The person you replied to was trying to make the argument that a vendor can sell more product if they make the hierarchy of quality more clear to the consumer. Saying 'things are imperfect, as a consumer you just have to deal with it' doesn't really address his argument.
Look at the luxury car sector. https://www.audiusa.com/models#sedans/ Can you tell the quality by its naming convention? I can't. I can sort of assume some quality hierarchy by the price though.
The fact that Apple has abandoned the "one phone, one tablet" model indicates to me that it hasn't been a valuable strategy for them.
Other luxury consumer goods use pretty similar schemes, e.g. Audio gear (e.g. bang + olufsen: the higher the number the better, with some number of meaningless zeroes added depending on fashion).
One observation might be that these companies all have halo products that are used to anchor/promote the volume offerings that drive revenue (e.g. The Audi r8 and the a3, the 90k speakers and the 1k set)
You need to already know the brand to know this.
> (quality: 1-cheap, 8-luxury)
How high does it go? If they decide to turn it up to 11 tomorrow, is 8 still "luxury"?
I can't agree that this sort of versioning is any more transparent.
> (e.g. The Audi r8 and the a3, the 90k speakers and the 1k set)
This means nothing unless you already know the brand. There's going to be a minimum set of knowledge required to understand these versioning schemes.
Growing up in Europe seems to be enough wrt to Audi.
I'm not interested in cars but I have still picked this up somehow. Same with BMW.
On the other hand, I think most Android users I know have told me a story about buying the "wrong" Android phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly
heck, mobile phones are the canonical example.
iPad 2
The new iPad (with Retina display)
The new iPad (with Retina display) (again)
iPad Air
iPad Air 2
iPad Pro
iPad (announced today)
The step from Nexus 6 tot Pixel isn't that difficult to understand (and you even forgot the Nexus 6P, the successor of the Nexus 6!). Car manufactures launch new models all the time, without much problems. If someone gets confused by such thing, maybe that person is better of with a feature phone.
Looking back, there were always non-descriptive names, and inconsistencies.
I'd argue that not knowing what 'Android' is actually demonstrates the technology has reached its goal of being universal. It's implicit instead of explicit. People buy it without needing to know what it is. Why would most consumers care about the name of an operating system? It's unimportant. It's not like I remember the exact model of my TV or car, the important thing is that I can watch one and drive the other.
I'm just waiting for "iPhone 10, iPhone 10 Plus, iPhone 10 Air, iPhone 10 Air Plus, iPhone 10 Pro, iPhone 10 Pro Plus, iPhone SE 3, iPhone SE 3G"
> It's not like I remember the exact model of my TV or car
I really hope you know the make, model and year of your car, you need that for basic repairs. My 2004 Corolla takes parts of a 2003-2007 Corolla for most repairs, and runs best with a certain type of oil. Why would you not know this for an expensive device requiring maintenance?
Your TV isn't the same. It doesn't matter if it's 720p, 1080p, or 4k, or what the color resolution is, if it has an HDMI cable that will work.
Your phone is more like a car in that comparison. Things change so frequently, new software, updates (lack of updates), new wireless or hardware standards... An iPhone 5 in 2012 is a very different experience than an iPhone 5 in 2017. But I'm still using the same cheap Dynex "HD" TV for a decade. I can plug in a disk player or streaming device that weren't even conceived of when my TV was sold.
Because when it breaks or needs maintenance they take it to a garage like any normal person.
I'm 36, and I didn't know this. I thought there was a universal scale of goodness for oil. I bought a new car last summer, and I couldn't tell you the exact model either. I think this is fairly common.
There's always a clear progression, a higher number is always better than a lower number, and adding an S is an incremental upgrade over the non-S version. The Plus is always a larger size than normal.
The G series and C series have complicated things, but generally speaking you just have to pick a number and then pick one of ~3 options at that level.
Bigger numbers are still better. "Plus" means the big screen. S is off year version, incremental upgrade on the previous number. Agreed SE is the odd one out, but don't think it's too hard for consumers to figure out "its the cheap one".
Because new iPhone models are introduced only once a year to great global fanfare, I bet a lot of consumers actually know the meaning of the version conventions very well.
Agreed on iPad and Mac versions, though, those are a mess.
It's always a version number (ex., 7), the following version they add an 'S' (ex., 7S), then the following version they will increase the version number (ex., 8). "Plus" means bigger, and you can regognize it because it's bigger, "SE" means lower-end, you can recognize it because it costs a lot less.
I currently own a Huawei Y6II, which I read is a clone of the P9. No idea what it means, what the following version will be called, or what the previous version was called.
It's also a smaller phone, just like how the Plus is larger and costs more, but isn't any faster. The name or price of SE doesn't imply lower end at all, they've even removed the number so you don't know which one it's comparable to.
I agree it's not awful, just that it's slipping.
I mean, where do you even begin to try to figure this out: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/
Of course I'm sure it's better if you use the blessed OS and version pair, but I've never found a reason to use windows before....
Having one manufacturer and fewer models usually means longer and more consistent product support.
Also, why do they ask me if my laptop is for work or home? What if I use it for both (which I do)? It doesn't make any sense.
I bought the new MacBook Pro mostly because of macOS, but also because I couldn't figure out how PC name their products, nor why they have to have 50 different barely-different models.
To me that's not half as frustrating as the companies that sell a, let's say 755cx and then create a new model a few years later and call that 755cx ... how bloody annoying [like hey, this review is from 7 years before the thing was made, and it's a completely different system]. Or worse still, not have a model number to refer to. I think the worst I had was trying to find parts for a Toshiba laptop, IIRC, there were about 5 different models in 10 years with the same designation, like lets just call all our new laptops the "Laptop New" what could possibly be wrong with that.
1. Define: You first decide what you actually want 2. Search: Your search is entirely based on value for money (you have defined value before) 3. Decide: You read reviews and decide which one to take 4. Buy: Find the cheapest offer
Not once should you have to care about the name of the product, it simply does not matter.
There should be more than enough databases that let you sort and filter the latest notebooks.
They lost at least myself as a customer. I doubt I'm the only one on the planet who didn't buy a PC because he couldn't figure out the offer.
So apple could release the iPhone 8 with the same specs as the 3GS, and you'd get bamboozled because you can't be bothered to do your research before purchasing something.
If you want to play real pc games get a desktop or a console unless you have a lot of money to spend.
How do you deal with the rest of the consumer universe? I'm betting you get along just fine.
Yes, because I couldn't care less. I do care about my laptop, though. If anything because it's 1,500 or more.
I put in a solid hour of research at least before buying a new pair of boots. It took me many hours over many days to choose a camera. Took me weeks to build my PC. Each of those products I put in an amount of research that's at least somehow correlated with the price I paid for them (boots -> 100$ -> camera 600$ -> PC $1300)
So, yea, research is a bit tricky, but that's good because the reason it's tricky is because you aren't depending on the company to tell you the real value of their product.
What annoy me are the people that are supposed to make researching easy (for their own good) but make it a lot harder than it should be.
... by reading the subtitles?
I like lenovo laptops and I agree that they have too many model lines, but apart from a couple of subtitles, most of them are descriptive of that particular line.
Now, don't Apple Executives know this already? I guess they do, but what Tim Cook has done so far has been stabilizing the company and increasing the profit (by building various versions of the same product and targeting a broader range of people).
This came at a cost though: making the organization more and more bureaucratic leads to more efficiency, but less creativity and innovation. I think Apple's strategy has changed but in a few years, they're going to need a fresh air in the company or they'll get Nokia-ed.
Yes there are feature differences, if you are a techie or a gamer or into photography, but bigger always means better. It really isn't rocket science.
The iPad and Mac laptop lineups are a bit of a mess at the moment though. I think that's mainly because they're in various stages of technology transitions such as retina displays, wide colour gamut, touch bar and Apple Pencil support. They're pushing aggressively into new technologies and manufacturing processes and I think that's creating problems for them.
The only thing you have to consider is what size you prefer, the color, and the amount of memory.
I had many iPhone devices in the past (ranging from the first to the 5, which was my last) and with the iPhone 6 it went downhill in my opinion. This is where I switched to Xiaomi and never looked back.
So it's not only in developing countries, for example I prefer my Xiaomi Mi5 Pro over any iPhone device that is out there.
They have their flagship every year and so it's pretty easy so know what to pick. The Tablet part is lacking but the MiPad 3 is in the works.
I prefer stock Android but my latest phone has MIUI. It's OK, but I don't want someone else's tailoring I want my own; why can't companies offer their own settings but leave devices open for those who want to change. Yes, "support" but just have a "support and warranty will be limited by changing this setting" with a tick box and an "are you sure?" nag and let me return my device to stock. Grrr. /rant
The pixel is advertised everywhere as a Google phone. Who makes it doesn't really come up in their product communication much.
And the 'flagship' label is literally in the title of the Pixel products on Amazon. And on the website it's called "Pixel, phone by Google".
> People buy a low end Android phone and hate the entire ecosystem because the phone performs like crap.
This seems like an antiquated view of Android. I don't think people see Apple as having a monopoly on luxury/quality devices anymore. And considering the heavy OS modifications made by different companies and the entire UX experience of dealing with a company (customer service, website, accessories, etc), I don't really see why it matters if your mom thinks she has a "Samsung" or an "LG". There's more to Android phones than the base OS.
> I don't really see why it matters if your mom thinks she has a "Samsung" or an "LG".
Because when people ask if she has an Android she says "No."
> There's more to Android phones than the base OS.
I know, that's my complaint. It really adds nothing for the customer to have it be so fragmented.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Flagship_vehicles
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Taurus_(sixth_generation)
Most people would just say 'iphone', not knowing which model is the 'flagship'.
It isn't as bad as it was 2 years ago, where the main google phone would get updates, but was nigh unusable with the latest operating system. I still fully expect my nexus 6 to be basically abandoned by them within a year or so now.
What was the flagship before the Pixel? What was the flagship 2 years ago? The android market probably has a changing flagship every 6 months and even then it isn't obvious what it is.
Try typing "flagship android phone" into Google search. Pixel only comes up in 8-9 results out of 100.
However, I think most Android consumers don't care about whether a phone is flagship. I imagine most tend to be more interested in finding a comfortable balance between price and features.
http://www.sheltonbrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/HO...
You'll find it all around Seattle and at Costco in neighboring states. When you get off a plane at SeaTac they hand you a free sample.
Ok I was kidding about the free sample at SeaTac... Only a little...there is a Beecher's store and cafe there.
> Every purchase contributes to the Global Fund to support HIV/AIDS programs and help deliver an AIDS-free generation.
It is super nice to read that apple does something for those in need ( sorry Apple, the tax evasion techniques are not a good marketing strategy, instead this is great ).
I see, when looking at http://www.apple.com/iphone/ on my phone that the product line is arrayed at the top, with the 7 labeled as "New".
So who cares if the customer owns a device full of security holes, they still get their money.
As much as I like simplicity, if you look around there are tons of cases like this around us, and that's not because these companies are idiots who don't understand simplicity but it's because their products have reached saturation point where making it simple won't get more users. They need to expand horizontally by building variations that appeal to a wider audience.
Sure it's kind of annoying, and you and I may not understand the benefits of the 9.7 inch iPad, but I am sure there are many people who understand exactly the benefits of 9.7 inch iPad vs iPad pro and will rush to buy them.
Products are segmented according to price, not features. There's a different market at each point and this determines what they will get -- not the reverse.
They have money now, but do they have the resources? Apple's software quality has arguably taken a nosedive, and they've started missing deadlines even for hardware.
Assuming a kind time traveler gave 1997 Apple a few billion US$; could Apple simply have bought its way out of its problems?
There was the old Apple II and new Apple II. Seeing as they went past 6 revisions of Apple II there was considerable churn.
There was never much of a 1st party peripheral market. Like we see with iWatch. That nearly exclusively 3rd party.
Depends on how early you go. The II+ was a straightforward upgrade to the ][ that replaced it, but the IIe was sold alongside the II+ for a long time. And then it refused to disappear while they sold the IIc and then IIgs. And don't forget the not-quite-part-of-the-family Apple III!
Up through the early 80's they had a clean lineup. After that there were as many as four different variants on the Apple II in the market at a time.
But there are a couple structural issues with this model that have made it hard to sustain.
The first is that it can represent money left on the table.... a sort of quantization error induced by the product line. Maybe there are worthwhile markets that don't spring for the professional line, but still want something more than the basic consumer line. This creates something of a temptation to try to address those markets.
The second structural issue is that the four quadrant model is based on saying no to ideas that might come from good people (or at least people entrenched in the corporate bureaucracy). Maybe doing this a few times is easy, but the more creative your organization, the more often you'll have ideas that will be difficult to fit into whatever product line strategy you've put together.
- iPad Pro - iPad - iPad Mini
This seems ideal.
If you are a "Pro" you surely don't mind spending a few minutes looking up the differences of the "Pro" model to see if it's something you need.
If you are not a "Pro" your choices are now, Do I want the regular one or the mini one?
Previously non-pros were faced with the conceptually bizarre choice of *Do I want the air one or the mini one?" which sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person.
Like... "Air" and "Mini"... what a weird choice. They both sound like super-portable models. OK. But... super-portable compared to... what, exactly? There were no "regular" models, only "variants." What were they varying from?
So it may be that different times call for different strategies. Perhaps the lesson is that you should focus intensely in the beginning and ship varieties once the product has reached a certain level of maturity?
I'm not in a place to say, but sometimes I wonder if we could go back in time and replay "Apple with Steve Jobs" while believing Steve Jobs to dead how often we would say, "Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave."
The three iPad lines are all fundamentally the same device with differing screen sizes.
The iPad is prett much the same - you need a plain iPad? Ok, mini or 9.7"? You need a pro iPad? Ok, 9.7 or 12.9 inch?
Fundamentally this new 9.7 doesn't hangs anything - the iPad Air 2 is replaced by it in the non-pro, less expensive iPad lineup.
They had about 4 different Macbook variants. Plus some older Macbook Pro models with HDD. Others with non-retina screens.
A few years ago, it was pretty simple: you bought the Macbook Pro for serious work, Macbook Air for portability.
Now it's just confusing. Like Dell or Lenovo.
Options is a of mix connectivity & size:
iPad Pro (12.9") - 3 Colours x 5 Options (15)
iPad Pro (9.7") - 4 Colours x 6 Options (24)
iPad - 3 Colours x 4 Options (12)
iPad 4 Mini - 3 Colours x 2 Options (6)
That's 57 variants, clearly designed by a bean counter judging by the deliberate storage choices (i.e. no 64gb options across the whole line). 32GB seems totally pointless to me unless you are only using it for email & web browsing. Why is the mini 4 - a device that wouldn't appear to appeal to "power users" only available in 128gb? Why would anyone purchase a 12.9" iPad Pro with 32GB of storage?
The iPad line is all over the place - I had re-write the above as I got confused by what base options are available. What's even more baffling is that they all come with regular USB cables which means I can't plug any of them into my new Macbook Pro.
Apple was still selling the MacBook back then so it was never just two models. And they were still selling the non Retina MBP for a while as well.
Same choices too - Macbook/Macbook Air/Macbook Pro
Hardest part for most buyers was determining what the spec differences would mean for them and if the price difference was worth it. Same issue now
Even when he was still alive they had different-sized iPods, iPads, and more.
Computers have always come in different sizes: 13", 15", and 17". What is the difference between a 13" and a 15"? Does it make it harder to buy? Perhaps, but you wouldn't kill the 15" just so people don't get confused.
The difference between the 9.7" iPad and the 9.7" iPad pro is not intuitive, at least to me. If it is not obvious how different products serve different needs, then you aren't actually expanding the market your product appeals to, you are just confusing customers.
Do you need a better screen with the stylus? If yes, iPad Pro, else iPad.
I mean, this is kind of ridiculous. All beers, wines, sodas come from bottles that are exactly the same size, how do you know if you like Budweiser or Heineken.
A good restaurant or non beer-focused bar might have a curated selection of one or two examples of each style. Their customers just want something good to pair with their food.
But go to a good bottle shop or beer bar and you'll find sub-styles within sub-styles. Want an IPA? Will that be West Coast or New England? Double or single? Fruit adjuncts? OK, Which fruits? Beer geeks will seek out places with these choices.
Choice is good, sometimes. :-)
Pro offers:
- Better processing power
- Better sound (more speakers)
- Better resolution cameras (about +4MP on both)
- Thinner (1.4 mm)
- Lighter (.04 lbs)
- Higher storage capacity
- Pencil & Keyboard (the ipad smart KB, bluetooth should work on both) support
And possibly the non-pro does not have P3 wide color gamut support?
If I was buying one for a family member I would buy the iPad, not the pro unless I specifically knew they needed one of these features—of which, the keyboard and pencil support seem most probable, cameras probably second.
Personally, I have the pro with the keyboard and pencil, and I love it for most day to day use. I have not yet tried to code on it, but I am dubious that I will ever be able to rely on it as my primary/only computing device. However, for meetings, classes or speaking engagements I find it highly versatile and fits a niche my laptop never would.
Usually it's not that easy, and tech releases are shockingly hard to understand, and in my opinion most of the ambiguities are pure laziness. Since the topic at hand is Apple, let's pick out some examples from their small'ish product line:
* There's no way to know, without doing extra research, that the iPhone 'S' suffix means "better." 'S' could easily mean "small." The 'C' suffix is even more ambiguous.
* The iPhone SE is probably the most ambiguously named product they've released in years. Now it's even worse, because once you know that the SE stands for "Special Edition," releases like the iPhone 7 (RED) Special Edition make it even harder to understand where the SE fits in.
* Apple still sells MacBook Airs, except they made the MacBook do what the Air used to do and they've all but discontinued Airs.
* They're advertising the iPad 9.7", which is just the newest version of the iPad, except they already have an iPad Pro 9.7", so if you search for 9.7" on Google or look around Apple's store you mostly see mostly results for the Pro 9.7". In fact on the buy iPad 9.7" page doesn't even say 9.7" anywhere except when referencing the Pro.
Of course Apple isn't the only tech company that does this; they just used to be one of the better ones, and now they're slowly giving up that advantage. The more technical a company thinks its userbase is, the lazier it gets with naming. Computer components, for example, have names that are so useless you basically have to infer their positioning by their MSRP. (Spec sheets are only marginally helpful; your only real option is to search for benchmarks.) This is not a good thing; everyone benefits from clearer naming conventions. Many companies just don't think it's important, for some reason.
Dunno if there are other fogeys like me who remember the days going back to the Imagewriters, Stylewriters and Laserwriters -- those were fantastic printers in the pre-USB era where third party printer pickings were quite slim for Apple users.
In the late 80s, you could even get a third party scanner in the shape ink cartridge called a Thunderscan for the Imagewriter.
That was indeed very cool. The much lower complexity of the technology involved is what made these kind of feats possible tho- there's no way you could pull off something like that in this age of hyper miniaturized, specialized hardware components- that's why something like Project Ara was doomed from the start.
There are now 3 iPads: the iPad, the iPad Pro, and the iPad Mini. The differences are as clear as they ever have been for Mac lines.
I love Apple. Read my other posts defending the iPad as a productivity device on this discussion, and defending the cleanness if the iPhone lineup, but the current iPad lineup is all over the place.
This is not simply a size difference.
Their market cap is over $700 Billion.
They were never going to continue their growth by offering one phone, one tablet, and one laptop, regardless of what the purists think.
Remember when Google was nothing but search?
Google has nothing to do with Apple. Why even talk about Google as a relevant example of anything regarding consumer hardware production? they aren't.
I've got about 6 tablets and never use any of them anyway. I hate the user experience. I see no case where I'd rather have a tablet than my phone or my 6 year old Macbook Air.
I've got an HP Touchpad I bought during the fire sale for $50 or whatever the going rate was. I think its got Android on it. It was less of a fun project than I expected. Mostly I realized I don't like Android.
I've got a 7" Fire I bought at christmas for $30 but never use.
My wife's got a 7" Nexus she got as a gift but rarely used.
She's also got a Kindle she used to use occasionally.
Plus an iPad Air she uses quite a bit.
I'm pretty sure there's another tablet or two in there somewhere but nothing comes to mind.
Your iPad2 example sounds like a software problem? And regarding slowness, have you tried a factory reset? I have an old iPod Class gen5(?) from 2004ish which became very usable after a system update (6 months ago) and a factory reset. I use it now mostly for streaming radio from various websites, all of which load fast enough.
There are now just four options: big Pro, little Pro, iPad, and mini.
With the larger iPads do some people get smaller space, even though larger display probably means more resources/larger resolution media will need to be stored on the device.
Spitballing but it's quite a few options.
I think the limited product line is an artifact of the time and place Jobs and Apple were in the early 2000s. They had endless Mac models and a underwhelming value proposition. Cutting that down to a single colorful little Mac and a single pro product and their laptop equivalents made sense. Introducing the mobile revolution one simple product at a time also made sense.
Now they need to continue to make sales, so adding more products to address more niche markets is the only way forward. They've probably exhausted their "one size fits all" market at this point. Apple can't accept no or negative growth, so more niche products it is.
Spent a few minutes looking at the site to try to find out, then lost interest.
The rationale being that Apple is not in a position to do the R in R&D and instead will focus just on the D to survive.
In turn he starts slashing the D that won't yield results, while focusing on the ones that will.
And being that he was now single handled in charge the most he can focus on is being in the center of four quadrants, hence putting everything on the table into just four buckets:
1. Consumer 2. Professionals 3. Hardware 4. Software
1 being the thing that Steve gets. 2 being the thing that Steve wants. 3 being what Apple does best and 4 being what adds value.
Now everything Apple does runs off this premise.
The premise worked well enough to pump out the iBook, iMac, iPhone, to then the MacBook and MacBook Pro, to the Mac Pro, Mac mini.
Then he died.
In his place he passed the legacy to an operator. Because the operator's goal is two folds: keep improving things and keep making things efficient.
Tim Cook delivered on the latter and he's working on the former.
The clones being the ones that can take the baton and run with it.
It'll be here soon enough. The next generation is starting to take shape. And there will be leaders that take the stage to lead each quadrant.
PS: Square aped this strategy, that's why Jack Corsey was a favorite of Steve's. Square sells you the hardware at cost and gives the software away free, they scale by latching on to the hack of reselling you points on a merchant account.
By my count, Jobs shepherded the following hit products (I'm giving the Apple ][ to Woz):
- Macintosh (1984)
- iPod (2001)
- iPhone (2007)
- iPad (2010)
I think you're exaggerating how often Apple rolled out new product lines under Jobs. You could even argue that the iPod and iPhone overshadow the other two substantially in terms of cultural impact.
> Their only option now is to start creating variations of existing product lines to keep them "fresh".
Isn't this kind of what you'd expect out of a business? Refreshing and supporting their existing product lines while occasionally trying to establish new ones? The iPhone is looking more and more like a once-in-a-lifetime home run product (Ben Thompson has done a lot of good writing on this), the likes of which Apple (or anybody else, for that matter) may never be able to top. This isn't to say that Apple doesn't miss having a visionary like Jobs at the helm or that their product lineup doesn't have glaring flaws. I just think the massive success of the iPhone set expectations way too high.
Pro should be: - wifi+LTE - more storage - pen and/or cover keyboard included - faster CPU - multiscreen capability (connect to mouse and monitor with "desktop" interface) for truly replacing my desktop
Regular iPad should be wifi only, and not come with a pen.
Honestly, I wish they'd instead make all the iPads "pencil" compatible.
He also said that a mistake they made with Macs was having a price umbrella that let others come in cheaper.
iPad is cheaper and doesn't support the pencil - good enough for most people - and the iPad Pro is more expensive and supports the stylus and has a faster processor.
Most people understand more expensive = better.
On a side note. I hate Apple stopped selling the 3rd Gen AppleTV for $59. It was "good enough" for people who mostly wanted AirPlay functionality and to stream videos using the included app. Now they have nothing that competes in the ChromeCast/Roku stick price range.
I think you mean, "It makes it harder to decide to buy." A hugely important distinction and the point of having few models. (limiting decision points/places to 2nd think do I really need a new ipad)
Back then it was ok to leave bunch of customers to others, as Apple still managed to find quite nice growth by for example entering to new device categories. For couple of years this has not been the case. Apple has been forced to find the growth by selling more of same to the customer base that is not growing so rapidly.
I think the large number of models is simply a result of their attempt to maximize the money pouring with the current set of inventions they have at hand.
It's pretty confusing if you don't catch the causally mentioned "Pro" bit at the very end, after they've gone through a segment on the "feature" that the "iPad" can do. I just hope it'll net them a lot of returned iPads from rightfully frustrated customers.
Unless you're talking about apps specifically requiring Pencil?
> * Word is ready for iPad Pro and looks amazing on the 12.9-inch screen. Read Word documents on iPad Pro for free. To create and edit docs, you need a qualifying Office 365 subscription. Try it for free for 30 days. * The real Microsoft Word app designed for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word/id586447913?m...
* Apple Pencil
* Faster CPU, more memory, more display
* UHD color gamut display (and automatic white balance adjustment)
* Better cameras
I think there are other differences, but those are the big ticket ones.
The ability to add the keyboard and the pencil illustrates the distinction Apple is trying to make between the Pro and the vanilla 9.7 -- creation vs. consumption.
After all these years, they are still persistently trying to position the iPad as a creation tool. Maybe it will work.
Having said that, I do wonder if one of the unspoken stumbling blocks is that even if an iPad is a great portable computer in many respects, it's only a portable computer. A lot of people "dock" their laptops to get work done. (Or to write comments on Hacker News when they should be getting work done.) I love traveling with my 9.7" iPad Pro and keyboard, but even if future releases of iOS address all the nitpicks I have with it, there are times I want to be sitting at a desk in front of a big monitor. I don't see that coming to iOS any time soon.
To your second point, I completely agree. Regardless of the need to focus, causing confusion to consumers doesn't seem the right thing to do.
Maybe, but on the other hand there is a lot of similarity between Apple v. Microsoft/PC-cloned on desktop and Apple v. Google/Android-devices on mobile.
And one similarity would seem to be that Apple is in no position to win on breadth and choice, but they may be in a position to win (at least, create a solid, profitable I market where they have little effective competition) by identifying key niches, and narrowly tailoring offerings to them.
In fact, I'd argue that their path in tablets and smartphones has been pretty similar as in PCs; they developed the market ahead of everyone else with fisrly narrow offerings, a competing platform emerged where the core software was separate from hardware manufacturers offering more choice, and drew them into trying to compete on the kind of choice offered by the competition.
A member of my family was hustled into buying an iPad "Pro" from a sales rep who convinced them it can do everything and more, yet they can't perform simple file management and related email tasks on it, so they still use a Windows PC that cost 1/2 the price of the $800 iPad Pro.
Moral of story: Do not destroy the initial momentum and the sense of denting the world. "To be a part of revolutionary change" is an important feeling to keep in tech industry.
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Wish I could impress upon them about the urgency to kill all models except the iPad Air (9"). Anything else will only kill/subdue the category and lead the focus away from the initial promise that the tablets held -- i.e. disrupt education.
- iPad Pro 12.9"
- iPad Pro 9.7"
- iPad 9.7"
- iPad Mini 4 8" (edit: thanks pdpi/trymas)
It really should just be iPad (9.7) or iPad Pro (12.9) should it not? Now the customer has to decide between two 9.7 models with not so obvious differences between the two? And now there are two (edit: three) different iPad pages on the sales website you have to go through.
This changes the immediate conversation visiting the site for the first time between why I should get the iPad... to what's the difference and available options AND why should I get an iPad?
The Macbook vs Macbook Pro distinction was more obvious because it was basically casual/school vs work. But I don't really see tablets having that work vs casual dichotomy. It's more high-end vs affordable. Which from a mental categorization perspective doesn't fit neatly into the current product line.
I think what we're seeing here is not so complicated: it's that customers have strong size preferences, and that they're often orthogonal to their price sensitivities.
As a 9.7 Pro owner, the differences between the 9.7 Pro and the regular iPad are quite important. I just wish they made the comparison easier, though.
I think that's pretty good comparison.
Reminds me of iPhone SE - make a product from older tech, where all manufacturing is cheap and smooth as ever and sell it as cheapest option (I imagine with still veeery big markup).
the 12.9 inch is the most expensive, but doesnt seem to have the best specs?
Do i need an A9x or will an A9 suffice?
Why does the 9.7 inch pro come in rose gold but not the 12 inch?
the two 9.7 inch tablets are different sizes, how will i know which case to buy or if this ipad will fit into my current case?
do i need a fully laminated display and antireflective coating? because the 9.7 inch ipad does not have these things but all other models do.
Which one will work with my existing data plan? I see that the 9.7 inch pro comes with an embedded sim, does that mean i cant replace it with my own sim? They also all seem to support different LTE bands, am i expected to know which LTE bands my provider uses before i purchase an ipad?
Just my thoughts after looking at this page for two minutes.
All the tech that goes into making the display stylus-compatible is quite complicated, so it makes some sense that there’s a price difference / that they leave those out for the budget model.
The 13" model is basically the same as the 10" “pro” model, except it came out a few months earlier, before some of the new features (a display with more colorful primaries, and better cameras). At the point that new “pro” models come out (later this year sometime), the next version of the 13" iPad will pick up those features.
The lower tier, same-sized items are basically "you couldn't afford an X" models that allow them to monetize a different market.
But the idea is to keep the mystique of the higher tier items as a status symbol. And exposing the specs and highlighting precise differences only leads to people deciding that maybe that feature isn't important to them...
In fact, the only product apple sells that seems to follow that line of reasoning is the Apple Watch.
- iPad/iPhone Mini
- iPad/iPhone
- iPad/iPhone Plus
Drop everything else and keep it simple.
ipad mini still exists
The Lumia lineup started out okay with a flagship device (920) and mid to high range device (820) a mid-range device (620) and a low end device (520) and a nice photographer device (1020). Things started getting really blurry with things like 925, 930, 635, 730 (can't remember them all) and suddenly a lower number device actually had better spec or almost similar to a higher number device, or the specs were so close together that it looked really confusing. Not to mention people begging for certain models to be upgraded and it never happening meant angry customers.
To me, it looks like Apple is slowly making the same mistake albeit a lot slower. You would have thought they were paying attention and wouldn't go down this route.