Last week , Apple introduce a new Penciland the reaction was what you ’d expect if the company showed up intoxicated at your son ’s prevention mitsvah .
First of all , an intact company at your Logos ’s ginmill mitsvah ? You do n’t have the food for that . Second , how are they all drunk ? Many of them assuredly do n’t even salute . This makes as much sense as the current Pencil lineup .
Looking atthe current note of Apple Pencils , it ’s less “ good , better , best ” and more like “ gurd , blatter , best ” . The 2d - generation Apple Pencil is clearly the good , having all the feature of the other two , although it comes at a premium . At first glance , the other two make no sense . One is call the 1st - generation Apple Pencil and the other is the USB - C Apple Pencil . The 1st - generation Pencil has atmospheric pressure sensitivity but lacks the magnetic attaching and hover feature of the USB - C Pencil . What bloodless nonsense is this ?
Part of the somewhat negative reaction is also certainly due to the fact that Apple did not enter raw iPads as many expected it would do . They say timing is everything , but this is more a case of Timming . And for Apple , Timming is everything .
( And verily thou shalt jazz me by the seeing of what I hath done there . )
Jason Snell rightly called this“The price of Apple ’s old - production scheme ” , pointing out that Tim Cook ’s Apple does n’t mind shipping a slightly off premix of products if it ’ll help the company ’s margin .
If Apple had wanted a card that made everlasting sense , Snell pronounce , it would have ship the 10th generation iPad with the USB - C Pencil and set off the ninth multiplication iPad and first generation Pencil . But it did n’t do that . Why ? Because it want to sell more of those sure-enough iPads and Pencils .
Now , at some point , itwillstop shipping the 9th generation iPad and the 1st generation Pencil . That ’s when a cheap , magnetised Pencil with brood but without brush sensitiveness , a feature more suited to professional , will be a better fit for the gloomy end than the 1st generation Pencil , which had to be all things to all mass .
IDG
So , is there a trouble here ? Yes , the card is confusing … for now . And so is the iPad card itself , for that subject . Is Apple slipping back into the mental confusion of thePerforma era ?
No .
First , it ’s not exactly like Apple ’s pain . Comparisons to the Performa days are easy . Also playfulness . Humorous ? Sure . Nostalgic ? intelligibly . If you think about them long enough , will they finally fill you with a sensation of loss over the passing of clip , old age gone that you ’ll never get back ? Sadly , it ’s potential . Will you start thinking of Gail and that flat you deal together in Brooklyn in the summer of ’ 96 and question what might have been if you had n’t moved to the west coast for grad shoal ? Well , okay , maybe , but we ’re kind of getting off track . The point is , such comparisons are not exact .
( Also Gail has long since moved on . allow it go . )
Snell note that Cook keep products around to hit particular price points . This can make things look weird from sentence to time , but over sentence thing end up making more sense .
Another old saw it feels compelling to displume out is “ Steve Jobs would never … ” After all , one of Jobs ’ most famous moves upon return to Apple was implementing an easy - to - sympathize product quarter-circle . But he did so in social club to set up a job . The Performa problem . You might think there ’s a problem with Apple ’s lineup now , but the ship’s company ’s continued flume ride on a river of hard currency would incline to belay that whimsy .
Also , smaller comparing of the iPad card , for example , make a lot more sentiency and are believably more likely what the mediocre vendee calculate at . Pull upa comparisonof the 9th - generation iPad , tenth - generation iPad , and the fifth - propagation iPad Air and you ’ll see a relatively easy - to - realise set of monetary value and feature option .
So , there ’s no motivation to worry that Apple has slipped back into the Performa - tive error it ’s made in the past times .
Also , now is probably as good a time as any for the Macalope to tell you that Gail has a novel come out soon . It ’s been very well - encounter and one of the characters is a selfish passion interestingness who spends most of his time act as Super Nintendo and then motivate to the west coast to go to grad school . So , uh , yeah . There ’s that .
