The iPad isn’t Apple’s most innovative or popular piece of hardware. But even before the long-awaited new editions are officially announced on May 7th, the iPad is arguably the company’s best device. And yet, without dramatic changes, the iconic tablet could easily still follow in the iPod’s footsteps.
Tucker Bowe
The iPad has had a rough time lately. It’s been two years since Apple introduced the new iPad, which is officially the longest time the world has ever had to wait for new models. iPad revenue also declined 25% year over year in the December quarter.
The good news is that on May 7th, Apple is finally set to unveil its latest batch of iPads. Plenty of rumors have swirled around what we should expect. The highlights include improved OLED displays on both sizes of the iPad Pro as well as new versions of the iPad Air, including a larger 12.9-inch addition.
Collectively, it sounds like Apple is doing the typical Apple thing, introducing a slew of changes big and small that’ll make the next generation of iPads even better and help put tablets back in the popular limelight.
However, neither the buzz around slumping sales nor the excitement over what’s to come should distract from an immediate truth: the iPad is already Apple’s most successful hardware line.
Before you retort with the obvious, I know that the iPhone as a business dwarfs the iPad, not to mention the total economies of many nations. From a pure revenue perspective, the iPhone literally generated close to 10x the revenue ($69.7 billion) that iPads generated ($7.02 billion) for the quarter ending on December 30th, 2023.
I’m also well aware that the iPad wouldn’t exist without the iPhone, given that even to this day, much of the iPad’s appeal stems from it being just an iOS device with a bigger screen. And I realize the Mac is a more significant business than the iPad, not to mention the product line that started it all for Apple.
But when you cut the Wall Street and nostalgia perspectives out of the conversation and think about the characteristics that separate the ordinary products from the great, the case for the iPad’s unique success becomes evident.
The iPad lineup hits on almost all of the qualities I ascribe to successful products.
With deep respect to Dieter Rams, I can’t encapsulate everything that defines a great consumer product into 10 succinct rules. But there are at least a few general characteristics that I believe most successful products share, at least in part.
They do what they are designed to do well.
They function reliably and consistently.
They’re intuitive to use – or at least easy to master after a relatively minimal hands-on experience.
They have long functional lifespans, at least relative to the expectations of their category.
They are obtainable enough to positively impact a broad subset of consumers instead of a fortunate few.
They blaze new trails in manufacturing or design.
They have as minimal impact on the natural environment as possible.
Enough of them are sold to create a sustainable business.
They are widely recognizable, and in some cases, their name may one day function as shorthand for the entire product category.
Plenty of highly successful products barely hit on more than a few of these criteria. The iPad line quickly checks off most of these points though, and even a few more than other Apple products.
During the original iPad launch on January 27, 2010, Steve Jobs emphasized the tablet form factor as an ideal device for personal and leisure computing activities. Matt Buchanan via Wikimedia Commons
Just consider these thought exercises.
What other personal gadget do you know of that’s as easily used and loved by consumers of nearly any age, including four-year-olds? (Let’s just put aside debates about whether iPad Kids are the beginning of the end for humanity or not.)
Now, name another tablet off the top of your head. Even if you muttered “the Samsung or Amazon one,” it proves the point. And consider that even as early as 2012, a mere two years after the first iPad launched, stories were already floating around about the iPad becoming a generic term for tablet.
And what about longevity? iPadOS 17 is the most current edition of the iPad’s operating system. According to Apple, the oldest iPad capable of running the latest OS is the second generation of the iPad Pro, which launched in June 2017, meaning it’ll have had software support for at least seven years. That’s a whole year longer than the oldest iPhone capable of running the latest version of iOS 17, and even slightly longer than the oldest Mac capable of running MacOS Sonoma.
In terms of obtainability, plenty of tablets cost far less than the cheapest 9th gen iPad, which sells for $329. But they also can’t match the iPad’s capabilities. The 10th generation’s MSRP costs a little over a hundred more at $449 but routinely gets discounted for less. The Mini jumps up to $499. Then there’s the iPad Air at $599, and onto the iPad Pros, which can cost as much as $2,399 fully loaded.
That’s the widest range of price entry points for any Apple product line. And while it makes shopping for an iPad more confusing, the upside is there’s an iPad option for nearly everyone who might want one.
A few hardware tweaks can improve the line, but software remains the real issue moving forward.
As much love as I have for the iPad, it’s also far from a perfect product line. When it comes to the iPad’s hardware specifically, though, my list of beefs is short these days.
The front-facing camera should be the longer side of all iPad models, except perhaps the Mini. The robust rear cameras on the iPad Pro line have never seemed worth the added expense, at least for mine and the use cases of everyone I know. I wish all models had better, brighter screens at this stage in their evolution. And understanding which models are compatible with various versions of the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard seems to require a Ph.D.
But these hardware gripes are nothing compared to the iPad’s current software conundrum.
Apple’s decision to hitch the iPad’s wagon to iOS made enormous sense initially, especially before the iPad Pro line was introduced in September 2015. iOS was tailor-made for touch interactions. The screen was bigger than an iPhone but still small compared to a laptop. And it was also powered by versions of the iPhone’s mobile processor.
The iPad Pro combined with Apple’s own Magic Keyboard accessory look an awful lot like a small laptop. Apple
More importantly, the decision also gave the iPad an instant advantage over every other tablet in the form of tens of thousands of iOS apps that could also run on the device from day one of launch.
Over the years, the original iPad‘s thread of purpose has systematically unraveled or evolved, depending on your POV.
It’s a device that’s no longer limited by small screens. The 12.9-inch screen of the iPad Pro is only 0.4 inches smaller than many generations of the MacBook Air.
It’s a device that’s no longer content to just be great at browsing the web or playing movies or games. As Apple’s ads in 2018 bluntly stated, at least new iterations of the iPad Pro had their sights on being “your next computer.”
It’s a device whose performance is no longer throttled by a mobile processor. For the last three years, the iPad Pro line have shared the same M series of processors powering some of Apple’s Mac desktops and laptops.
On the software front, over the last five years, the iPad has gained everything from a “desktop-class” browser to improved file management, to support for accessories like mice, external monitors, and USB-C devices, to even resizable windows through Stage Manager. Most models even pair nicely with a keyboard and a stylus, a thing Steve Jobs famously stated was something that “nobody wants.”
Apple has essentially done everything it could to transform the iPad into the ultimate tablet and laptop computer, short of the one extremely obvious thing to do – allowing the iPad to run MacOS.
Despite its enormous versatility and success today, the iPad could easily be killed by other Apple products to come, just like the iPod.
Despite the iPad’s successful product characteristics today, it feels more likely to disappear than thrive over the next 10 years without further evolution.
From a purely cynical business vantage point, it’s clear that Apple doesn’t have immediate incentives to let the iPad run MacOS. At least until the company can transition to making more money from services revenue than hardware sales.
The idea of an iPad running MacOS may be a pipe dream. But then again, believing that the iPad will persist as Apple’s preeminent personal entertainment device feels equally foolish now.
Many reviewers have already described the Apple Vision Pro as an “iPad for Your Face” for both laughs and as an astute observation about the kind of computing tasks the Vision Pro seems poised to excel at.
Likewise, a folding iPhone in the vein of Google’s Pixel Fold or Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, coming to market in the near future, could also erode the iPad’s value in Apple’s product line as a larger screened iOS device.
For now, though, in the words of Apple CEO Tim Cook, the iPad seems content to remain as “the most versatile, capable, and elegant tablet on the market today.”
We’ll see just how long that can last, starting with the new iPad releases ahead.