There are way too many iPads, iPhones and Apple Watches

I made the decision last week to purchase a new iPad.

There’s nothing It is wrong with the sixth-gen iPad I currently have, except it’s heavier than I’d like. I just want to watch my stupid dramas in bed, and to feel less pain when I hit myself in the forehead while drifting away. To sleep. It’d be nice to have a faster tablet for odd tasks where my iPhone screen is too small and my laptop is too large — especially on vacation. It’s not fair to expect a faster, more colorful version of the device you have now.

I continued my journey to the Apple website. The ninth-gen iPad was there, as well as the 10th-gen. There was also an iPad Mini and an iPad Air. I’m not a Pro, but there were Two of these — an 11-inch and a 12.9-inch model. I’m a gadget reviewer. I am a gadget reviewer. You’d think I’d have been able to suss this out. No.

Monica Chin, my colleague put it well. the new iPad doesn’t make sense. At $449, it’s too expensive to be entry level — especially when, as my editor Dan Seifert points out in his ReviewThe Air is easily available on sale. Plus, I’m not buying a silly USB-C adapter to Lightning PencilJust to digitize my analog calligraphy hobby. If I was really concerned about the price, it would be impossible to justify an iPad Pro. Okay, whatever. I wanted something lighter and faster. You can find more colors here iPad. The result was the iPad. AirOr Mini. I’m in my purple era right now — purple iPhone, purple Beats Fit ProPurple keyboard, purple backpack, and purple water bottle. You could use either a mini or purple Air. Except they’re both more expensive than the 10th-gen iPad, and price was a big reason I was looking at the colorful entry-level iPad to begin with. That left the ninth-gen iPad, which at that point, didn’t feel like a big enough change from my sixth-gen iPad.

In the end, however, I didn’t buy anything.

The same problem occurred to me when I upgraded my iPhone last year. There were four iPhone 14 models. I hesitated. I felt nostalgic for the days before there was one. One iPhone. The only reason I’m not tearing my hair out over the ThreeApple Watches, which were released this year, I reviewed All Of These are them. (Plus, I’m still doing some extra Ultra testing.)

I wouldn’t have had this problem 10 years ago. There weren’t seven iPhones, six iPads, five MacBooks, three Apple Watches, three AirPods, and a HomePod in a pear tree. You can also throw a few Macs there. Android and Windows have always had lots of choices. The whole appeal of Apple’s portfolio was its simplicity.

You could probably place almost every product we offer. [make]You can see the table. You can see that we have four iPods. Two main iPhones are available. We have two main iPads. That’s it. And we argue and debate like crazy about what we’re going to do, because we know that we can only do a few things great. This means that we can’t do a lot of great things.

That’s a part of our base principle, that we will only do a few things. And we’ll only do things where we can make a significant contribution.

It was because of this simplicity that I decided to switch to Apple products. I put up with the things I didn’t like because it streamlined my workflow and made my life easier — even if a big part of me bristled at Apple’s heavy-handedness. I didn’t have to do as much research every product season. The only question that I needed to answer was “Do I upgrade or wait for another year?”

I don’t think Apple is likely to pare down its catalog anytime soon. This means that I must either learn to accept this upgrade calculation or re-acquaint myself with the green bubble. In any case, I’m pretty sure you can’t fit every Apple product on a single table anymore. Seriously, though, if Apple was going to have to sell six iPad models, wouldn’t it be a shame to offer the 10th-gen iPad with purple skin?