How does reducing customer choice follow from working backwards from the customers’ needs? Doesn’t the variety in product imply a variety in customer needs? There is not one kind of pro, not one kind of consumer. Shouldn’t Apple be able to offer a wide choice of options and rely on marketing and the 100 blueshirts in every store to guide the customer?
It was confusing to have so many options when tablets and smartphones were new, or when a person could say “I don’t really do computers” and have a successful career. None of those are true now; babies can and do use tablets, middle schools have carts of iPads or Chromebooks. My grandma has an iPad. She calls it her “Facebook,” but she has one.
Simplicity has its appeal, but I trust the market analysts at Apple have a plan for market differentiation with a wide lineup.
Because customer needs rarely vary that greatly within one brand. The whole idea behind a general purpose computing device is that it is, well, general purpose, no? If you require minimum 4 "high level product concepts" (iPad,Mini,Air,Pro), then it doesn't seem so general purpose anymore. Especially when you realize that people are actually also often deciding between upgrading to iPhone Max (not that different in size or capability to an iPad Mini), or MacBook/Air/Pro (not that different in size or capability to iPad Pro). So, are you selling a great general purpose tool, or have you degraded back down to screwdrivers vs. hammers? I personally don't believe that the tasks these devices aim to serve merit having 7+ separate "high level product concepts", and that even if they do, these particular products don't clearly delineate those separations. That is to say, maybe there is room for this many different product choices -- but these products in particular actually offer a confusing array of choices due to their, often arbitrary, intersection of capabilities.
It's important to make a distinction here: I think there is certainly more room for configuration within a product line ($x upgrade for a faster version of product X), but this is very different than essential feature axises that define a product line itself. Some of them are unavoidable, sure, like a smaller form factor often needing to have less cpu/ram/whatever. However, that's certainly not the case here -- the iPhone Max is smaller than the iPad mini, yet much much faster. Per your own argument, why is Apple not serving the part of the market that needs the portability of the iPad mini but wants the best CPU? Well, because the real point of the iPad mini is to satisfy some budget window probably, not a deep empathy with the user.
Also -- I keep forgetting to bring this up in these situations, but I would not be surprised if the actual purpose of the iPad mini is point-of-sale terminals, conference room check-ins, and office visit terminals. That's the number one place I see these particular devices, and in fact the number one place I see iPads in general.
It was confusing to have so many options when tablets and smartphones were new, or when a person could say “I don’t really do computers” and have a successful career. None of those are true now; babies can and do use tablets, middle schools have carts of iPads or Chromebooks. My grandma has an iPad. She calls it her “Facebook,” but she has one.
Simplicity has its appeal, but I trust the market analysts at Apple have a plan for market differentiation with a wide lineup.
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