All the news, rumors, and tips you missed last week.
Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.Simple is as simple does
One of the first things they teach you at tech journalist school is to put yourself in the shoes of the casual reader. I’m immersed in the world of Apple products on a daily basis, but many of those who visit Macworld stubbornly insist on having a life. And things that might seem obvious to me, and to Apple’s head-in-the-clouds hipster marketing team, are baffling to them.
It’s worrying for all concerned, then, when I’m the one finding Apple’s product range baffling. But that’s been the case with the iPad for years: between staggered launches, inconsistent naming conventions, and an excess of choice, the line-up at the start of this year was an absolute mess. Ripe, we all assumed, for a cool glass of “keep it simple, stupid.” But last week’s Let Loose event was disappointedly short of that particular beverage.
First of all, Apple resolutely refused to prune the range to any significant degree. Yes, the 9th-gen iPad was dropped from sale and the 10th-gen model got a price cut, but Apple added another iPad Air to fill the void. So there are still six iPad models on sale, each with further choices of color, storage capacity, cellular connectivity, screen size… and now screen finish, as if the buying decision wasn’t complicated enough already.
Neither was any attempt made to untangle the iPad’s odd naming conventions. The cheapest model is still called simply “iPad,” making any attempt to discuss it a thoroughly Abbott and Costello experience. (“I’m going to buy an iPad.” “Which iPad?” “The iPad.” “But which iPad?” etc.) Then there’s the iPad Air, which counterintuitively isn’t the smallest or lightest model. The smallest Mac uses the “mini” branding, while the slenderest MacBook uses “Air;” only the iPad feels the need to have both.
