The big news you may have missed today is all price increases! The new iPad is released; Taobao supports double 11 full price guarantee; Iron Man is expected to return to "Avengers 6"…
Without a little bit of defense, Apple suddenly updated a wave of iPad series products last night.
If you missed this "mini conference" last night because you went to bed early, you can click here to watch the content summary compiled by Ai Faner for you.
To put it simply, Apple has updated a total of two iPads, namely the iPad 10, which is positioned as an entry-level device, and the iPad Pro, which is positioned as a flagship.
Among them, the iPad 10 has changed from the round body shape of the past, and replaced it with the same square frame and full-screen design as other family members, while the new iPad Pro has replaced it with a more powerful M2 core. go further.
It is worth noting that in addition to the big change in shape of the iPad 10, its interface has also been replaced by a USB-C interface from Wannian Lightning. This change marks the official withdrawal of the Lightning interface used by the iPad family from 2013. The iPad 9 also uses Lightning).
At this time, friends who love to draw with Apple Pencil may be curious after seeing the combination of "square frame + USB-C", can the entry-level iPad finally use the 2nd generation of Apple Pencil?
However, Apple's product logic once again surpassed the imagination of users.
Apple said that the iPad 10 still only supports the 1st generation of Apple Pencil. In order to "forcibly pair" products with two incompatible interfaces, Apple even launched a dual-port converter priced at 67 yuan.
Now, many iPad users who have been looking forward to the support of the update 2 for a long time can no longer sit still.
Pencil is old, can I still eat?
Frankly speaking, users don't have much malice towards the Apple Pencil 1 generation.
Released in 2015, this flat-panel stylus has pixel-level precision and can sensitively change the thickness of the stroke and the shade of color according to the tilt angle and pressure. It is still one of the best-performing stylus today.
Sunny, a loyal user of the first generation of Apple Pencil, said that drawing with Apple Pencil and iPad has become a part of her life. Whenever she is free in life, she always picks up a brush to draw a sketch for her cat.
In most usage scenarios, Sunny is satisfied with the performance of the Apple Pencil 1 generation, except for one annoying moment – charging the Apple Pencil.
Users need to pull out the protective cover on the pen and insert the hidden Lightning interface into the bottom of the iPad, which is like a fan.
This is also one of the most incomprehensible designs of the first generation of Apple Pencil: it has elegant shape, excellent function and an eye-popping charging method.
It is also for this reason that when Sunny encounters the Apple Pencil running out of power in the coffee shop, she basically chooses to take it home and recharge it, because she does not want to attract attention because of this strange charging method.
Image via: MacRumors
In MacRumors' list of Apple's most unreliable designs, the Apple Pencil 1 was included due to its strange charging posture, alongside the infamous butterfly keyboard and the Magic Mouse that "turns over its belly".
John Ternus bathed in endless applause
Perhaps this charging method is too weird. When John Ternus, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, announced at the 2018 conference that the Apple Pencil 2 will use magnetic wireless charging, there was a 10-second applause at the conference. and cheers.
From the point of view of writing performance, there is actually not much difference between the 2nd generation of Apple Pencil and the 1st generation, but just the leap from Lightning charging to magnetic charging on-the-go can bring users an era-like experience. Use boost. This is the magic of design.
iPad mini 6 + Apple Pencil 2
Subsequently, the iPad family began a "handwriting revolution" from top to bottom. The upper borders of iPad Air and iPad mini were slowly replaced to adapt to the magnetic charging of Apple Pencil 2, and the excellent "Pad + Pencil" experience was decentralized. to the growing number of iPad members.
Just when iPad users thought that the 2nd generation of Apple Pencil would gradually replace the 1st generation after its release, and become the first choice for iPad stylus in the future, Apple once again used a mature sales model to teach users a lesson: the entry-level iPad can only With the Apple Pencil 1st generation, two generations of stylus are sold at the same time.
Not only that, in order to adapt to the new USB-C interface of the iPad 10, Apple will also considerately add a Lightning to USB-C converter to the 1st generation of Apple Pencil sold in the future, and its cost will be directly reflected in the price: Apple Pencil 1st generation Adjusted from the original price of 728 yuan to 799 yuan.
Only then did people suddenly realize that good design is never for everyone.
Accurate price anchor point
After the release of the iPad 10, many netizens speculated about Apple's motivation for sticking with the Apple Pencil 1 generation.
A more reasonable explanation is that the iPad 10 is the first iPad to switch to a horizontal camera. The camera module conflicts with the magnetic assembly of the Apple Pencil 2, so the Apple Pencil 2 was abandoned.
Before the release of the actual teardown report, this point of view does have some truth, but from the perspective of product function positioning, this explanation is a bit far-fetched.
Apple said that the reason for switching to the horizontal camera is to respond to people's needs for video calls, and the imaging effect of the camera in the center is better.
So the question is, since the horizontal camera is better, why not apply it to the higher-end Air or even the newly released Pro? If Apple really can't resolve the conflict between the two and must discard one, which one will Apple discard?
The answer is obvious. Therefore, the horizontal camera is not the "cause" of the lack of Apple Pencil 2, but more like the "fruit" of filling the gap after unplugging the magnetic component.
Apple Pencil 1's charging method goes from weird to cumbersome
The iPad 10 does not support Apple Pencil 2, perhaps not because of hardware factors, but because of Apple's product positioning considerations.
People compared the iPad 10 with the previously released iPad Air 4 and found that the body size and core configuration (both using the A14 bionic processor) of the two generations of machines are basically the same, and the iPad Air 4 not only has a better screen , but also perfectly fit with Apple Pencil 2.
In other words, the support for Apple Pencil 2 seems to have become a unique feature of the higher-end iPad, and the entry-level iPad should not be "detached". This is obviously a cruel fact that the entry-level users represented by the student group are unwilling to accept.
The entry-level iPad is like a price anchor set by Apple for iPad Air and iPad mini, encouraging users who need pens to spend more money to buy high-end iPads. This pricing also makes the huge iPad family look clearer .
The entry-level iPad has to become a victim of the family's pricing strategy like McDonald's small French fries-the price is not cheap, and the portion is not enough.
