I welcome your take! And thanks for adding it here so people can contrast them.
One thing I think it’s important to remember is that Apple today isn’t the same small, quirky company it was in 2007 when the iPhone came out.
It’s now one of the largest companies on the planet with a global customer base of over a billion people in hundreds of countries. They need to run a different strategy and they need to have more product choice at different price points. I think they’re navigating it the best they can - and obviously no business is without mistakes. They will make mistakes (iPhone 5C) and that’s OK.
However, trying to pattern match Apple’s decisions from the 90s and comparing them to decisions today is just poor thinking imo. That’s what people in this thread (not you @tolmasky, I’m just on a tangent now) seem to be trying to do. The Ballmer comparisons are poor as well, imo.
I certainly agree that a larger company requires different decisions, but I think that they fail to even state their case correctly. Perhaps they have a reached a size where a hyper-simplified product line would be leaving an unacceptable amount of money on the table as they successfully saturate their normal customer base. Even in that world, it doesn't mean that the product line has to be so fundamentally confusing and lacking in narrative. These same products could be pitched similar to how I said in my comment: tell me why I want these aside from their price differentiation. Don't make me feel that I'm fundamentally choosing an iPad over an iPad Pro because the better chip doesn't fit in my budget. An iPad comparison matrix shouldn't be necessary with proper story telling: https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/. That page is right out of the Dell playbook of comparing 17 different monitors that have obscure and highly technical differences.
But, going back to the stories affecting the product design, I feel that increasingly Apple products rely on incidental and manufactured differentiation vs. essential differentiation. I can tell that they have refrained from putting the better chip into a certain model (since that better chip fits into an iPhone just fine), instead of the very nature of that model of course not allowing that sort of chip. I know this is harder, but fundamentally what I'm saying is "take the low end seriously". Like I mentioned in my other comment, if the "iPad mini" was more like an "iPad Active", and perhaps was more resistant to wear and tear (could survive being dropped if you're skateboarding for example), then all of a sudden the model takes on a personality. It is less powered, but more rugged, there is a tradeoff that feels earned. Instead, the tradeoff feels entirely driven by budget windows.
I think I agree with you on both points. More-so the former point than the latter.
On the former, I do think they’ve lost the product/customer narrative in the last couple years and I think it’ll take another WWDC and another iOS update for them to find their way. They’re just now re-focusing on both iPad hardware AND software. For a few years (mid 2010s?) they doled out a few hardware updates that moved the needle moderately but the software didn’t (and you can argue still doesn’t to the fullest extent) take advantage of iPad to provide the functionality leaps it needs to have a compelling narrative. We’re just now in the past year or two starting to see the narrative develop with iPad Pro, Pencil, and iOS 11/12. A similar strong narrative probably needs to develop for the lower end iPads though I’m sure they’ll continue to sell simply because everyone else in the market is either asleep or incapable.
On the latter point, I agree with the spirit and I love how you phrased it. However, I’m not actually sure how much it matters in this case. I’m not completely convinced it matters to the extent you seem to think it does. I think the supply chain optimization is fine and the whole point is that it’s not crazy different from last-year’s iPad but it’s a lower price point and meaningfully more capable (think schools buying in bulk, etc). It would be nice if they FOCUSED on the lower end but that has never been Apple’s style and they are very very deliberate about what things they choose to focus on. It’s both the greatest strength of the company and one of the weaknesses - two sides of the same coin as things tend to be.
Wow, this really resonates with me. For a while now it has felt like Apple has based everything on price points instead of usability/purpose. And you're right, that's something that I expect "Dell" to do; "all of these things are exactly, slightly different in ways that you probably can't tell".
A ruggedized iPad mini is a great example of a differentiation that I can get behind and use. Right now, if I had to purchase a new iPad for my Mother I'm not sure which one I would get, and it almost wouldn't matter. Almost. But I'm not 100% positive which would be the best value+performance+portability+convenience combination. If there were "only" 3 the decision would be much easier. Heck, I could even tell her to "go to the Apple store at the mall and tell them you want the iPad Active (or whatever)". At this point I don't think I could guide her even if I was on the phone with her while she was standing in the Apple store surrounded by iPads. :(
One thing I think it’s important to remember is that Apple today isn’t the same small, quirky company it was in 2007 when the iPhone came out.
It’s now one of the largest companies on the planet with a global customer base of over a billion people in hundreds of countries. They need to run a different strategy and they need to have more product choice at different price points. I think they’re navigating it the best they can - and obviously no business is without mistakes. They will make mistakes (iPhone 5C) and that’s OK.
However, trying to pattern match Apple’s decisions from the 90s and comparing them to decisions today is just poor thinking imo. That’s what people in this thread (not you @tolmasky, I’m just on a tangent now) seem to be trying to do. The Ballmer comparisons are poor as well, imo.