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Messy branding is now par for the course at Apple. The iPad line alone is something out of a Dell catalog: iPad, iPad 10thgen, iPad Air, iPad Mini, iPad Pro.
by rchaud 3y ago
Messy branding is now par for the course at Apple. The iPad line alone is something out of a Dell catalog: iPad, iPad 10thgen, iPad Air, iPad Mini, iPad Pro.
- bee_rider 3y agoThe only one that really sticks out as odd there is the 10th gen. Basic, Air, Pro is also their laptop lineup, right—it has been for quite a while, and nobody has complained. Mini seems like a reasonable and easy to interpret addition give tablet use-cases. I’m guessing the 10th gen is the one with the super long support lifetime or something like that? That’s a slightly weird iPad-ism.
- Kwpolska 3y ago> Basic, Air, Pro is also their laptop lineup In the most recent iteration of this lineup, the 12-inch MacBook was comically underpowered, especially for its price, there was no good reason to purchase that instead of an Air or a Pro. This was also quite short-lived, with an official discontinuation after four years.
- bee_rider 3y agoHuh, I didn’t know they’d dropped the basic model. It always made sense to me, at least: “pro” is premium in a power direction, “air” is premium in a lightness direction, and the base model is just the base model. But I guess it is unsurprising that Apple doesn’t want to do a base model, haha. Another way of looking at it, I guess, is just that it is an evolutionary process, and every MacBook is a descendent of the Air now.
- Kwpolska 3y agoThe 2015-2019 12-inch MacBooks had zero benefits over MacBook Air, maybe other than the Retina screens, until the release of the 2018 Retina MacBook Air. Other than that, they had CPUs <= 1.4 GHz, a single USB-C port, and even the camera was only 480p. They were never cheaper than the base model of the 13-inch MacBook Air.
- bee_rider 3y agoOh wow. It did seem like an odd device, but I thought they were at least cheaper than the Airs. How strange of them.
- ascagnel_ 3y agoThe issue with the Mini is that you'd usually expect it to be the budget option (since it has a smaller screen), but it's more of an Air with a smaller screen in terms of hardware and features, with a price to match.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoAnd it doesn’t help that the original one was a budget model. (If I remember correctly.) Personally, I like my mini being a mid-tier device. Apple probably positioned it this way to avoid undercutting their cheapest model. It’s also a bit cramped. You’re sacrificing some usability for size and they’d rather people make that trade off because they want it rather than it being cheaper.
- sixothree 3y agoI love my iPad Mini. Its paperback (ish) size makes it my go-everywhere device. The fact that it fits in my pants pocket doesn't hurt either.