The iPad’s Land of Confusion
With huge hardware updates comes the responsibility of huge software updates
Last week brought the ‘finally’ updates to Apple’s iPad line. And in a world where products are supposed to have purpose, use, and a fit in our everyday lives, I continue to lose faith that Apple knows what it’s doing.
First, the updates. Apple has kept it’s “Good, Better, Best” lineup. They rolled out an updated iPad Air (“Better”), a new M4-debuted chip powering the new iPad Pro (“Best”)… and told everyone the iPad without-a-suffix (“Good”) still exists at a lower price. Oh and there’s the iPad Mini too, which is just there.
This updated lineup is the longest Apple has ever gone between hardware refreshes. It was a mystery before last week, especially when its annual developer conference is only a month away. But given Apple likely needed to finish up the M4 processor to power the iPad Pro, it makes sense. Apple keeps harware announcements at WWDC to a minimum, if not completely off the table. It’s a software-centric event. To announce a full product line update plus new processor would take away from an event that has to promote updates to five platforms.
Even so, Apple has continued to muddy the waters. Software on iPad is one thing (more on that in a moment) but they’ve gone full “WTF are…
