I hope and pray (to the extent that an atheist can pray) that this is what will happen. There is zero question in my mind that Apple can do what you say, for t

I hope and pray (to the extent that an atheist can pray) that this is what will happen. There is zero question in my mind that Apple can do what you say, for the reasons you say. The only potential obstacle is institutional will. You would now have a larger overlap between low-end Macs and the higher-end iPads. In my opinion, this is not a problem because I don't view those product lines as conflicting. But does Apple?