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Comment by jeromegv | Hacker News Reader

I follow Apple news a lot and still get confused with the differences between each iPads nowadays. iPad Pro.. iPad Air.. iPad "normal". iPad mini is the only one easy to understand. Some models support Apple Pencil 1st gen... some models support Apple Pencil 2nd gen. WHYYYYYY? It should all be the same.

Which iPad support the smart keyboard? What about the "magic" keyboard?

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In general it makes a lot of sense to me, but I do find it very odd that they’re still using the first-gen pencil all these years later.

And because it charges by lightning, that means the devices that support it have to have lightning and can’t move to USB-C.

I don’t know if it’s cheaper to implement than the second-gen (that’s my guess). But for some reason it lives on.

You just need to update your hardware from time to time, not because the software needs it really, just because Apple needs to keep cash flowing in. I use the same apps on my iPhone 12 that I did on my iPhone 6, the only reason I upgrade is because Apple won't let me update the software without buying their new uneccessary hardware

They are now doing the same thing with iPhones. 12 and 12 Pro were identical phones. 13 and 13 Pro are identical phones. Yes, there are differences in cameras, but that's really about as far as the difference goes.

"These are exactly the same if you ignore the differences."

The "differences" are in some very minor specs that don't matter to the absolute vast majority of people.

If they didn't matter to the vast majority of people then they wouldn't sell them every year in record-breaking numbers.

Could argue they sell more by fashion and desire to have the newest thing than people caring at all about specs, more ram or cpu or x% better resolution etc.

Record-breaking numbers because:

- record-breaking numbers are upgrading from multiple previous models

- smartphone market is still growing

- there's a non-negligible number of people going for the "shiny new thing"

They were selling record-breaking numbers when they only had a "pro" and a "non-pro" model, too

That's irrelevant. People are buying iPhones every year instead of switching to a different phone, repairing their existing phone, or buying the same phone (Apple offers the same models for at least 3 years after initial release). There are enough differences to matter to most people.

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