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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

It wouldn’t be so bad if they were better described. OK so there’s the “iPad” and “iPad Pro”, I guess I can figure that out, the Pro probably has better specs.

Then there’s the “mini”, which implies smaller, but is it a mini iPad or a mini iPad Pro? It turns out that it used to be a mini iPad, but today it is a mini iPad Pro. That’s confusing.

And also there’s an “iPad Air” - what the hell is that? The name implies it is thinner? Lighter? But it’s not either of those things. I have no idea.

The iPhones are just as bad, today you can buy an iPhone 13, 12, and 11. And there’s also an “SE” which doesn’t have a number and I have absolutely no idea why it’s different.

Jobs would be turning in his grave.

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> Jobs would be turning in his grave.

Jobs originated the multiple model strategy at Apple by filling out a wide variety of iPod SKUs. He also originated the idea to keep older iPhones in production to fill out lower price points.

It’s funny how often “Jobs would never allow this” comments refer to things he actually did. And of course Apple’s market performance in the phone and tablet space is obvious.

I was on the site yesterday looking at the watch - the array of options is also confusing

For most people, just buy the cheapest one with the form factor you like the best. Unless there’s something the other models have that you need/really want. I moved from a iPhone 8 to iPhone 12 earlier this year. 12 has faceId instead of touchID and a better camera, but that’s really the only difference I notice. I’m not even sure I like faceId better than touchID.

But yeah, it sucks.

Not sure what's so hard to figure out about the iPhone. Bigger number means newer. SE means budget. If you visited the homepage even for just 1 second, you'd already know as it says so in the very beginning of the page (https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/).

But, if Apple is so bad at naming things, show me one android phone maker that does it better (and has as many products, it's easy to name things if you only have 1 product).

Everyone else being worse is not an excuse for you not to be better.

Edit: For some reason I can’t reply to the following comment so I will reply here:

I didn’t realize that constantly striving for improvement would be controversial? Yes, I do believe that everyone should always be striving for improvement. For me that might even be the closest possible thing to “the meaning of life”.

Without wanting to sound too much like a Star Trek episode, if we are not constantly trying to better ourselves, what is the point of anything?

And so we should complain about everything and everyone then? Surely we can think of SOMETHING to always improve, right? Therefore everyone and everything must always be better!

That's a pretty toxic approach to things. That's like saying I as a person should always strive to be better, and it's not okay being who or what I am right now.

Edit update regarding above edit: My point was merely that always complaining is imo why so much negativity exists in the world. Nobody is happy with anything. Always something wrong / X Y Z doesn't satisfy me / Apple has a new HR person whose face I don't like so I will leave the whole ecosystem now / Touch ID sucks / Face ID sucks / Apple sucks.

I realize HN folk LOOOOVE complaining, and not being happy with anything, and perhaps that is an inherent feature of start-up founders, but would it kill you once think "You know what, this is alright!"?

I don't know why I couldn't reply before but I can now, but I just wanted to say I appreciate your viewpoint and I apologize if I seemed hostile.

They really need to unify the design language across all mobile devices. You need to have one iThing that is available the following sizes:

XS — 6.1" (iPhone) S — 6.8" (iPhone Max) M — 8.3" (iPad Mini) L — 11" (iPad) XL — 12.9" (Big iPad)

That's it. Same design language, same thing. Pick your screen size, storage amount, whether you want cellular or just Wi-Fi, and color, and you're good.

This completely unifies everything—iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones. You could even do a second Pro line alongside this.

I'm sure there are manufacturing difficulties involved here, in addition to having a single chipset that conforms to each size, but this should be getting a bit easier as they move into the M-series architecture. Or you just keep the A-series in the XS and S models and put an M-series chip in the iPad mini eventually.

6.1" counts as XS nowadays? Maybe I really should get the new IPhone mini before its too late...

As a proud owner of an iPhone mini, I agree with you. I wish this trend towards larger screen sizes would turn around.

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