Is Apple really killing off the iPad Air?
Speculation is mounting over whether Apple may discontinue the iPad Air product line.
Aside from the usual rumors, why would Apple want to discontinue the iPad Air?
Let's take a look at both the iPad Air 2 and the 9.7 inch iPad Pro released this year: the most noticeable difference between the two tablets is $200 between their respective price tags, being the 9.7 inch iPad Pro the more expensive tablet.
The 9.7 inch version of the iPad Pro retails at $599 in its 32 gigabytes version. The 128 gigabytes version retails for $749, and the 256 gigabytes version retails for $899. The iPad Air 2 is noticeably more affordable starting at $399 in its 16 gigabytes iteration, moving up to its 64 gigabytes version which retails at $499. Aside from more storage space and the additional rose gold color option, what justified the price difference?
It has been argued that existing owners of the iPad Air 2 might be more resilient to switching to an iPad Pro of similar screen size. However the faster A9x processor makes the case for more storage as one of the incentives to upgrade to the iPad Pro.
More processing power means the ability to play advanced games from the Apps store and make use of more advanced applications that require better hardware resources.
Compared to the A7 processor found in the iPad Mini 2, the A9X processor on the iPad Pro is 2.4 times faster than the A7, while the A8X processor on the iPad Air 2 is only 1.4 times faster than the A7. The graphic processing on board of the end 9.7 inch iPad Pro is also more advanced than the iPad Air 2, 4.3 times faster than the A7, in fact.
As a multimedia device for entertainment the 9.7 inch iPad Pro borrows from its bigger brother, the 12.9 inch iPad Pro, with its speaker audio system. as a matter of fact the quality of the sound on the 9.7 inch iPad Pro is far better than any other iPad ever designed.
The 1.7 inch iPad Pro also features 4K HD video recording at a resolution of 3840 X 2160 pixels which dwarves the 1080p HD video recording on the iPad Air 2.
The Smart connector on board of the 9.7 inch iPad Pro also allows to use multiple accessories aside from the existing Lightning connector.
The interesting thing about both tablets is that the height width and depth are exactly identical down to the weight of 0.96 pound.
Back to the question on whether Apple really is killing off the iPad Air we have to take into account the existing market share of the iPad Air 2 which is still substantial. with that said the 9.7 inch iPad Pro is a considerably better product, with a faster processor, Better quality sound, better display quality, and better storage options then the iPad Air 2. It's easy to see how the iPad Air 2 and the MacBook Air are on a similar playing field. both are excellent products and they had a great run, however those products have had sluggish upgrade cycles, which keeps slowing down.
One thing that's important to understand about Apple is that as it nears the end of line for a product, the typical pattern is: 1) a discount in the existing product line and 2) a slowing down in supply to retailers.
Neither scenarios have occurred yet, however this is still the second quarter of 2016 which means that we have still six months to potentially see two or more brand new product announcements from Apple in any given category, before the year ends.
The fact that Microsoft is rumored to plan the release of an updated version of Surface Pro tablet Possibly coinciding with back to school sales could be an incentive for Apple to focus on brand new product lines rather than products less likely to be updated in the future.