iPad Pro Capabilities and Buyer Paralysis

11 Nov 2015

The iPad Pro is officially on sale today, and the reviews are out:

A common theme that is emerging is how capable the iPad Pro is and how many are considering its suitability as a laptop replacement. For me, it’s a slightly different twist: with Apple blurring the line between iPads and MacBooks, the buying decision is no longer simple.

I’m starting to get the feeling that Apple has too many models within their iPad and MacBook product lines. They now offer five different iPads and six different laptops. Choosing one of these devices requires a little too much deliberation not only within either product line but across both product lines, given how the capabilities of the iPad overlap with the MacBook. The matrix for making decisions has expanded.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has sort of his own take on this:

Anyone tying themselves in knots looking for a specific target audience for the iPad Pro is going about it the wrong way. There is no single target audience. Is the iPad Pro meant for office workers in the enterprise? Professional artists creating content? Casual users playing games, watching movies, and reading? The answer is simply “Yes”.

Consider a person who is looking for a target audience as a potential buyer, and you get my situation.

I am in the market to replace my first generation iPad Mini. This is mostly due to not being able to run content blockers — many websites now simply crash when I’m browsing as they load all the cruft and additional content to capture my attention and track me. Plus, I sorely miss having a Retina screen given that I work on a MacBook Pro and iPhone 6s every day. But I am also considering the unique capabilities of the iPad Pro. So, do I get a new iPad Mini? Or maybe the iPad Air is now light and thin enough for me to consider that? Or would the iPad Pro be useful if in fact I am going to take advantage of its new capabilities?

And then, having a super lightweight laptop to write on – something with a decent keyboard – is another desire. Can the iPad Pro with the keyboard accommodate me? Or would the new MacBook be a smarter choice than any of the iPads? And in that case, wouldn’t a MacBook Air be better in a lot of ways — in every way except some weight and that it doesn’t have a Retina display? But I do travel with my MacBook Pro (used for writing as well as coding), and the little iPad Mini is a great companion…

Part of the answer — as I’m sure Apple loves — is that I am driven to consider and possibly purchase more than one device. So I keep mulling all this stuff. Apple has now made the simple buying decision complex. The bad thing for them is that, as someone like me is finding, this weighing of options is delaying my purchase.

Categories Apple