We’ve seen the lists from everyone else, but Wil Gomez lays out the obvious and offers a few obvious fixes for Apple’s first post-PC era product (a point I can argue against all day):
Despite the iPad’s obvious woes, Apple is unlikely to give up on a product that still generates close to $20-billion in revenue, a few billion in profits, and sells upwards of 60-million units a year. Name another manufacturer with such a product line and it would be a stellar success instead of an anemic track record.
What can Apple do?
This is where it gets interesting.
The key to a product’s success is differentiation, and that’s exactly where Apple has a problem. The iPad is little more than a bigger iPhone and bigger iPhones are into three generations already, dating back to iPhone 6 (about when notable iPad’s fall began). Apple needs to make sure the iPad is well differentiated from iPhone and Mac, as well as the competition. As of now, the iPad is not a compelling device to spur new sales.
The iPad just hasn’t grown up. It still does much of what the original did in 2010 and is used much the same way. That needs to change.
First, how about a really good, really thin keyboard? What? A keyboard on an iPad? Sorry. Yes. A keyboard is the best way to enter information into an iPad, so, Apple, make a good one, make it thin and light, and built it in; detachable, of course. Second, just as Apple makes professional level applications for the Mac– Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro– iPad could use a few apps that clearly differentiate it from the iPhone. Pencil? Yep. Throw it into the mix. All iPads should come with Pencil, regardless of size. The idea here is to make iPad a compelling enough device to buy alongside an iPhone and a Mac. That’s what it was in 2010, that’s what it’s missing now.
Good read.