Apple just unveiled the iPad Pro. Yesterday, the Verge reported thus:
Apple has unveiled its latest addition to the iPad tablet lineup during a special press event in San Francisco this morning. Like the rumors suggested, the iPad Pro is a larger version of the traditional iPad. Apple CEO Tim Cook says it’s the “biggest news in iPad since the iPad.”
I’ve moaned about this before, but Apple has succumb to the very disease Steve Jobs cured it of: Over segmentation. If you’re looking to buy an iPad and go to the Apple home page, this is what you see:
Say what? I just want an iPad. They should only be offering two versions, Air and mini. Instead they have four and I have no idea what the difference is.
Steve Jobs’ biography tells the story of how he took the reins of a failing Apple in the late nineties and cut the product segmentation to only four categories: Desktop pro, desktop home, laptop pro, laptop home.
Don’t get me wrong, the iPad Pro sounds sexy. Especially because it blurs the lines between a laptop and a pad, even though previous predictions about how the iPad would disrupt the PC seem ridiculous in retrospect. But sexy or not, it smells of over segmentation – they should drop at least one air and one mini to clarify things for the consumer. At this rate, we’ll have ten different iPads within ten years. Which means I’ll be even more paralyzed by choice when it comes to upgrading my 2nd generation iPad than I am already.
