The last thing the iPad needs is a spec bump

When Apple CEO Tim Cook and a bunch of his deputies take nan virtual shape adjacent week to denote caller iPads, they’re going to walk a batch of clip talking astir specs. If nan rumors are true, we’re going to get caller iPad Pros pinch OLED screens and thinner bodies, caller Airs pinch faster chips and a correctly placed beforehand camera, and a mates of caller accessories. Before they moreover launch, I consciousness assured telling you these are nan champion iPads ever. But aft each these years, I still don’t cognize really to show you whether you should want an iPad. Or what you’d want to do pinch it. 

This has been existent forever, of course. The iPad is nan jack-of-all-trades successful Apple’s lineup, a terrific instrumentality successful galore ways that still feels progressively redundant now that truthful galore group person large phones and long-lasting laptops. Apple seems to person spent nan past decade-plus enamored pinch nan thought of nan iPad arsenic a shapeshifter — a instrumentality that tin beryllium precisely what you request astatine immoderate fixed time. The institution loves that nan iPad’s usage lawsuit is difficult to pin down, that it intends different things to different people. It’s a fun, good, eager idea: The One Gadget To Rule Them All. The measurement to make that happen, though, is not to upgrade nan chips aliases move nan buttons aliases redesign nan rounded corners. It’s to attraction little connected nan iPad itself and much connected nan things you connect to it.

There’s a chance that accessories mightiness beryllium nan prima of nan show adjacent week. Just look astatine nan amazingly unsubtle induce to the “Let Loose” event: usually location are beverage leaves to publication and we’re near trying to decipher vague shapes, but this time, there’s conscionable an Apple Pencil beforehand and center. Reports person indicated that we’re apt to spot a caller Pencil astatine nan event, pinch interchangeable magnetic tips for different uses and a caller “squeeze” motion for quickly adding objects to your artwork.

Focusing connected nan Pencil makes a definite benignant of niche sense: nan iPad is thing if not a large touchscreen, and it’s nan only Apple instrumentality that you tin tie and constitute connected successful this way. Apple’s AI researchers person been moving connected devices to thief artists and animators pinch their activity and connected a strategy for making creation successful tandem pinch an AI exemplary — you prompt, it creates; you edit, it refines. For anyone who does this benignant of ocular art, a super-powered Pencil could beryllium incredibly compelling.

Apple is besides rumored to beryllium launching a caller Magic Keyboard that makes nan iPad moreover much laptop-like. The caller exemplary will apparently beryllium made of aluminum and will person a bigger trackpad. (It hopefully will besides extremity randomly conscionable falling apart.) A amended keyboard won’t instantly make nan iPad a awesome laptop, but I’m not judge a awesome laptop is what Apple is trying to build. It already has a bunch of those! I’m not really connected nan “put macOS connected nan iPad, you cowards” train, either. The MacBook is great. I deliberation nan iPad’s modular imaginable is really overmuch bigger. 

If Apple wants to get there, it needs much accessories — so, truthful galore much accessories. The iPad is simply a surface and a processor, and everything other should beryllium an add-on for whenever you request it. Give nan gamers a controller and an outer GPU. Give nan euphony lovers a speaker dock, and springiness nan smart location fanatics a bunch of buttons that link to various devices. The photographers request lenses; nan spreadsheeters request a keyboard pinch usability keys. The Pencil and nan Magic Keyboard are a start, but Apple needs to do overmuch more. The institution needs to walk little clip worrying astir nan iPad itself — a instrumentality celebrated for really agelong it lasts and that hardly anyone is utilizing to its afloat imaginable — and much clip connected really to make it much than conscionable a tablet. (Plus, prize for Apple: it’s going to beryllium a batch easier to get group to bargain accessories than to person them to upgrade their iPad erstwhile they don’t request to.)

The ultra-modular imagination for nan iPad is enticing, and I dream Apple continues to thin into it, but it’s adjacent intolerable to propulsion off. Just inquire Essential how it went trying to build a device and an accessory ecosystem. Or inquire Google. Or Asus. Or Fairphone aliases Samsung aliases Motorola aliases Blocks aliases Phonebloks aliases immoderate of nan different companies that ne'er pulled it off. It requires building package that tin beryllium each things to each group each nan clip and hardware that is beautiful, thin, light, long-lasting, and wholly remixable. I’m not moreover judge it’s imaginable to do each of that, but I cognize nan iPad and iPadOS ain’t it.

The problem pinch nan iPad’s all-in-one attack truthful acold is that you can’t conscionable build a instrumentality that’s benignant of okay astatine everything and dream that’s enough. The sort-of-okay instrumentality already exists — it’s your smartphone! The iPad has to beryllium much than that: much flexible, much powerful, much long-lasting, much useful. That’s difficult to build into a device, but Apple’s really done a beautiful bully job. The harder portion is building nan ecosystem — and building nan package that tin support it. You request thing that is astatine erstwhile for powerfulness users and newbies, for tinkerers and simpletons, for group who emotion keyboard shortcuts and nan group who would for illustration to ne'er type again. 

Ultimately, nan biggest problem for Apple mightiness conscionable beryllium math. The existent iPad Pro starts astatine $799, which is already much costly than immoderate MacBook Air models. Want cellular connectivity truthful you tin usage nan iPad anywhere? That’s different $200, but a bully modular gadget needs it. The current-gen Pencil is different $129; nan Magic Keyboard, different $299. (I don’t yet cognize what nan caller models will cost, but Apple’s not really successful nan wont of making things cheaper.) That’s $1,328 for nan afloat iPad experience, and we’ve only scratched nan aboveground of what this instrumentality could do pinch nan correct accessories and app support. And truthful far, erstwhile Apple does present caller accessories, it has mostly conscionable made things much confusing.

Where does each of this time off Apple? Stuck. The iPad is great, it’s a smashing success, it’s a terrific device, I emotion nan iPad, but nan iPad seems to beryllium stuck successful an endless upgrade loop without ever really getting better. I fishy we’re going to spot a batch of iPadOS-related news astatine WWDC adjacent period — that’s wherever Apple tends to do its package talking, and each signs constituent to a immense attraction connected AI. The iPad could beryllium a earthy spot to bring a batch of AI features, peculiarly successful image and video editing. As for adjacent week’s announcement, though, we’re apt to perceive an atrocious batch astir OLED screens and spot upgrades. But salary attraction to each nan devices successful nan iPad’s beingness that aren’t nan iPad itself. If Apple wants to make its tablet into nan world-beating instrumentality it could be, it’s going to request to accessorize.