Apple allegedly has a 12.9-inch iPad Air in the works

AppleInsider

A new pending report claims that Apple may be working on a 12.9-inch iPad Air, expanding the lineup similarly to that of the iPad Pro.

iPad Air could come in multiple sizes

Apple's iPad Air has long sat in the space between the budget-friendly base iPad and Apple's professional-geared iPad Pro. A new rumor suggests that Apple may be gearing up to expand the iPad Air with an additional size factor.

In a full report expected on Friday previewed with a headline, DigiTimes claims that a new iPad Air is in the works, this time boasting a 12.9-inch display, much like the larger iPad Pro. However, unlike the iPad Pro, the rumored iPad Air will not feature a mini-LED display.

Currently, there is no speculated release date for the sixth-generation iPad Air 6, let alone any potential size expansions to the lineup.

Another rumor has previously suggested that there could be up to four iPad Air models on the way. However the source for that report hedges by saying that some may only exist for testing purposes.

There's reason to be skeptical about this rumor, given the overlap between iPad models postulated in a lineup already over-stuffed at price points and sizes. The iPad lineup already has a strong pricing ladder, however, there is an appreciable gap. The 10.9-inch iPad, 11-inch iPad Air, and 11-inch iPad Pro run the gamut from $449 to $799, however, there's only one option for the 12.9-inch iPad starting at $1,099 and escalating from there, based on storage.

DigiTimes has decent sources inside Apple's supply chain. It is notably worse at predicting what Apple will do based on those sources. Thursday's preview doesn't the whole tale, obviously, but at a glance it appears to be more the latter than the former.

Read on AppleInsider

jpellino

Mini.  iPad.  Pro.  
$299, $349, $599 to knock-yerself-out. 
Done.
Differentiate by size and power. 
Not 1/10 of an inch difference between the 9, 10 and air... No more air.  
They're in Performa-land with this now.  

canukstorm

jpellino said:

Mini.  iPad.  Pro.  
$299, $349, $599 to knock-yerself-out. 
Done.
Differentiate by size and power. 
Not 1/10 of an inch difference between the 9, 10 and air... No more air.  
They're in Performa-land with this now.  

I prefer:

Good (iPad USB-C model) - $399
Better (iPad Air) - $599 (11") / $799 (12.9")
Best (iPad Pro) - $999 (11") / $1,199 (12.9")

Rogue01

Too many iPad SKUs.  All the iPads run the same software at relatively the same speed, so there is no real difference between the base model and a Pro as far as the software and apps you run on it.  The M processor is wasted in the iPad because of iPadOS and apps are incapable of taking full advantage of the chip.  The base model iPad runs all the same software that the Pro model does.  Too many Macs too, and some have been neglected for years without an update.  

bobolicious

canukstorm said:

jpellino said:

Mini.  iPad.  Pro.  
$299, $349, $599 to knock-yerself-out. 
Done.
Differentiate by size and power. 
Not 1/10 of an inch difference between the 9, 10 and air... No more air.  
They're in Performa-land with this now.  

I prefer:

Good (iPad USB-C model) - $399
Better (iPad Air) - $599 (11") / $799 (12.9")
Best (iPad Pro) - $999 (11") / $1,199 (12.9")

I tend to agree with 12.9" sizes optimizing for:
cost
weight
performance

blastdoor

I hope it’s true — that’s what I want my next iPad to be. Big screen, but no need for fancy camera or fancy pixels.

neilm

The 12.9" iPad form factor is way too big to be held comfortably in the hand, and once you add a keyboard it just turns into an inferior pseudo-laptop. This is all the more true with iPadOS's poor multi-tasking and minimal file system.

If there's market demand for a 12.9" non-Pro iPad I'm sure not seeing it.

blastdoor

neilm said:

The 12.9" iPad form factor is way too big to be held comfortably in the hand, and once you add a keyboard it just turns into an inferior pseudo-laptop. This is all the more true with iPadOS's poor multi-tasking and minimal file system.

If there's market demand for a 12.9" non-Pro iPad I'm sure not seeing it.

Look at the post above yours to see the demand.

I like the big screen for movies and Civ 6, and I have two hands so can hold it fine

tht

Rogue01 said:

Too many iPad SKUs.  All the iPads run the same software at relatively the same speed, so there is no real difference between the base model and a Pro as far as the software and apps you run on it.  The M processor is wasted in the iPad because of iPadOS and apps are incapable of taking full advantage of the chip.  The base model iPad runs all the same software that the Pro model does.  Too many Macs too, and some have been neglected for years without an update.  

You know, I think I can argue the opposite. There aren't enough SKUs of Macs and iPads.

If you think of an iPad as a media tablet, then yes, there are too many SKUs. However, an iPad is part of a touch computing market, which also includes the iPhone btw. It's a computer capable of specializing in many things, whose dominant feature is the screen size, and that means there should be more SKUs, not less.

Apple basically abandoned the book reader niche for the iPad after they lost the court case. Books.app is now a perfunctory effort by Apple. At one point in time, they thought they would be able get both the reader side with Books.app+iPads and the authoring side with iBooks Author. If this effort was successful, I think you'd see a couple of iPads in 6, 7, 8 inch range. The iPad mini fills this role, but like all things with displays, I think it will head towards 9" if it stays in the lineup. If Apple had a good share of ebook readers, they'd make an iPad that is light with a long battery life.

Then, there is room on the high end with 14, 15, 16 displays. This is held back by iPadOS and Apple's ultra-slow creep towards adding features. Once those features are there, more people will use iPads for various computing purposes. The folding iPad is the last bit with 18+ inch displays. There is basically a niche of users and uses every 1 or 2 inches of display size for tablets.

dewme

Rogue01 said:

Too many iPad SKUs.  All the iPads run the same software at relatively the same speed, so there is no real difference between the base model and a Pro as far as the software and apps you run on it.  The M processor is wasted in the iPad because of iPadOS and apps are incapable of taking full advantage of the chip.  The base model iPad runs all the same software that the Pro model does.  Too many Macs too, and some have been neglected for years without an update.  

It’s a tough call, but I do think Apple is getting close to the saturation point when it comes to the number of variants. Some of this may be due to the locked down nature of most Apple products. You can’t sneak into an Apple product at a lower price point and then spec it up in ways that make the most sense for you. 

This leaves it up to Apple to come up with combinations that it believes will hit their target markets in as optimal a way as they can. The iPad Air is a prime example of a product that pulls in just enough of the sweetness from the Pro line to make it attractive to buyers who don’t mind spending a little more than the base models but don’t need the whole enchilada that the Pro delivers at a much higher price point. 

One of the things that makes Apple products so desirable for me is that I don’t have to crawl through huge volumes of spec sheets and product reviews to find something I won’t regret buying in a few months. When I walk into a MicroCenter I’m totally overwhelmed with the volume and variety of choices. That puts me in a position of having to separate the wheat from the chaff. When I was assembling my own PCs it was a challenge I kind of enjoyed. 

But now I just want to get something that I know I’ll be happy with. Apple makes this very easy, in part because they don’t sell chaff. As long as they don’t break this beautiful model by adding too much variation, I’m happy.