I’ve been quiet here for twenty days or so because I’m working on a very long piece, and it’s taking me more time than anticipated. Then there is my usual weird audience to appease where by weird I mean people who take the time to email or message me privately to urge me to publish new stuff, but when I do they never ever give me any kind of feedback or spread the word about what I write. Yes, guys, let me go on the record here: you’re weird.

New iPads — or rather, more iPads

A few days ago, Apple introduced two ‘new’ iPads: a 10.5‑inch iPad Air, and a fifth-generation iPad mini. Some wondered aloud: Uh, no event to announce them? No, no event because there is nothing here worth of an event. The 10.5‑inch iPad Air is more of a rehashed 10.5‑inch iPad Pro than a genuine third-generation iPad Air. The new iPad mini is like the iPad mini it replaces, but with better internals, pencil support, and a new 256 GB storage option.

When I first learnt about these ‘new’ iPads, a couple of things baffled me:

• Why revive the Air designation? There seem to be some sort of parallel with the MacBook line here. It’s like Apple wants to establish an intermediate category between regular and Pro in its laptops and tablets, and it’s calling it Air. But it makes little sense to me. Why not have two regular iPads (9.7- and 10.5‑inch) and two Pro iPads (11- and 12.9‑inch), instead? In the end, the story behind the current 9.7‑inch iPad and 10.5‑inch iPad Air is the same: both are ex-iPad Pros.
• Why refresh the iPad mini at all? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the smaller iPad. There was even a time I considered ‘upgrading’ to it from my old 9.7‑inch iPad. But it’s peculiar that Apple has refreshed it if you look at the iPad mini as the tablet equivalent of the iPhone SE. I know there are iPad mini users and iPhone SE users who truly love the smaller footprint of these devices, and I sympathise with them. (I would have upgraded to an iPhone SE from my iPhone 5 if the SE had had more updated internals). But I’d wager that the people out there who would love an updated 4‑inch iPhone are a greater number than those who wanted an updated iPad mini. Yet Apple seems to think that no, everybody wants big phones, there’s no place for a smaller iPhone today; but there sure is for a smaller iPad. 

iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad, iPad mini… the iPad lineup is getting crowded. From a consumer’s standpoint, the ‘new’ iPad Air and the refreshed iPad mini are welcome additions, because they represent what in smartphone parlance would be called ‘midrange’ devices (premium midrange, since it’s Apple). They are both powerful-enough devices at a price that isn’t a bargain but it’s not outrageous either. The 10.5‑inch iPad Air is especially attractive for those who’d love to upgrade but find the iPad Pros too expensive and the entry-level iPad too outdated, with a CPU that’s now almost three generations old. Here, the 64 GB iPad Air (Wi-Fi) costs €549, while the 64 GB 11-inch iPad Pro is €879, and the regular iPad (32 GB) is €349. The pricing is perfect. Imagine someone who just wants an iPad, but 32 GB isn’t enough storage space. They would have to get the 128 GB iPad, which costs €439, which is just €110 away from the 64 GB iPad Air, and maybe 128 GB are too much but 64 GB are enough, and you get a better device for just €110 more. 

It makes sense. I’ve read many positive comments about this updated iPad lineup, that is more organic and feels more complete. And again, as a customer, more fine-grained choices are indeed a good thing. At the same time, I keep looking at all the current Apple product lines and they all feel somewhat overwhelming. Five different iPads, six different MacBooks^[1], and three iMac models, where the entry-level non-retina iMac is just old and redundant (there, I said it). There are ‘only’ three iPhone models (XS, XS Max, XR), but at the time of writing Apple still sells the iPhone 8 and 7, and even the X in some places. The Watch is being sold in a variety of models and flavours (Series 4, Nike+, Hermès, Series 3) to achieve a surprisingly encompassing price range (you can spend as little as €299 for a Series 3, and as much as €1,549 for a Hermès Series 4 with GPS and Cellular).

All this, to me, looks like bottom trawling. It’s a product offering that has a distinctive commercial smell — the strategy feels like Let’s throw the widest net possible to catch the highest number of different consumer categories. All sizes fit all.

Sorry, I can’t help comparing and contrasting

I’m not saying it’s wrong for Apple to want to make money, but I can’t help looking at Apple today and seeing a marketing-driven company that knows a thing or two about design, whereas the Apple I knew and loved was a design-driven company that knew a thing or two about marketing. The more time passes, the more this Apple looks like just another tech company making hardware and software products. The Apple of the 1980s and 1997–2011 Apple felt like unique companies in their respective contexts. Innovation was something that characterised Apple not only in what the company did, but also in what the company was. Today, it still has some edge over the competition in what it does and is, but again, the gap isn’t that huge anymore; the distinction is less and less marked.

I can only share what I feel from the outside, but for me, Apple is becoming a new Sony. Interested in being present in so many different categories both in the tech and entertainment business, keeping a lot of options open ‘just in case’, forgetting about saying a thousand no’s for every yes, crowding their product lines with model variants that aren’t that different from one another^[2] and generally displaying an attitude that seems to prioritise the money-making part over being a truly distinctive design company that cares for the needs of their users. 

You can fight me over this all you want, but I firmly believe Steve Jobs was a genuine catalyst inside Apple. If you look at design, marketing, commercial concerns, and respect for the user as separate substances, Jobs’s presence and direction allowed these substances to create an incredible, powerful mix that was apparent in every product (with exceptions, naturally; no one is perfect). After his passing, these substances have separated and now sometimes their mixes feel unbalanced or unrefined. The hardware design of the MacBook line post-2015 looks extremely design-first with little concern for usability or for the “design is how it works” concept, making the MacBooks beautiful but impractical products, like other products conceived by designers for designers. Other decisions — like all this redundancy in product offerings in an attempt to ‘cover all the bases’ — feel extremely commercial and marketing-driven, and make Apple look as if it has lost much of its focus and vision, and it’s now only capable of masterful iteration. I used to look to Apple to introduce ‘what’s next’. Today, the company doesn’t seem less clueless than the competition about the ‘what’s next’, so to speak.

Addressing an objection

Before publishing this article, I shared these thoughts with an acquaintance. He told me that even under Steve Jobs Apple had many different MacBooks in its laptop lineup. Yes. In 2010, for example, there was the white polycarbonate MacBook; the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air models; the 13‑, 15‑, and 17-inch MacBook Pro models. Six different MacBooks, just like today. But what strikes me about those MacBooks of ten years ago is how clearer their purpose and intended audience were. 

• The white MacBook — clearly the cheap entry-level model, at $999, but robust and capable enough for consumers like students or people who didn’t need it to do ‘pro’ stuff.
• The big and small MacBook Air models — reduced in price ($999 for the base 11-inch, $1,299 for the base 13-inch), they were more capable than the white MacBook and more portable than the other MacBooks. Aimed at users who wanted portability + astounding battery life before everything else, but also powerful-enough machines.
• The MacBook Pros — more capable Macs, with clear price and feature differentiators. The 13-inch model, for those who needed a powerful Mac, but also compact and portable. The 15-inch model, the sweet spot of power, available ports, and screen real estate. The 17-inch model, for those who essentially needed a desktop replacement.

All these MacBooks were priced according to what they offered and following a generally calibrated curve from affordable to high-end, and while built-to-order options could make your choice more expensive, the available configurations went from the reasonable $999 for a MacBook to the equally reasonable $2,299 for a 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Today you have a pricey, premium-looking but underpowered 12-inch MacBook; the old-design MacBook Air which is virtually filling the shoes of the white MacBook of ten years ago; the new-design MacBook Air which is a bit less powerful than the non-Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pro, but since it’s only $100 less, why not get the Pro? But then you have a useful feature like Touch ID that is present on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and on the new Air, but not on the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro. (Even writing this paragraph is confusing.) Then you have the powerful 15-inch MacBook Pro which you must get with the Touch Bar whether you like it or not, whether it’s useful to you or not. The current MacBook line is somehow less differentiated, both in prices — the 12-inch MacBook and the base 13-inch non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro cost the same! — and in features (in everyday use, there isn’t that huge a gap between the new MacBook Air and the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro). 

Steve Jobs, from what I saw, preferred to keep things a bit more separated. One key occurrence which hopefully illustrates the point happened in late 2008, when the aluminium unibody design was introduced for the MacBooks. Jobs presented a new aluminium unibody 15-inch MacBook Pro, and a new aluminium unibody 13-inch non Pro MacBook. The idea was perhaps to upgrade both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro line to an aluminium design, but that wouldn’t have helped differentiate the machines enough. And the 13-inch aluminium MacBook, at $1,299 for its base model, would have been too pricey as an entry-level laptop. So, instead of being retired, the white polycarbonate MacBook was refreshed as soon as January 2009, the aluminium 13-inch MacBook was promoted to ‘MacBook Pro’ status in June 2009, and the product line readjusted to regain clarity and differentiation in its tiers.