New hardware isn’t going to solve iPad’s issues

Apple’s current 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models
According to a report from HanKyung, Apple will reveal its next-gen iPad Pro series in March 2024 at the earliest. It’s expected to come in two sizes, 11 inches, and 12.9 inches, featuring OLED panels supplied by LG Display and Samsung Display. DIGITIMES reports that Apple is preparing to move some 8.5 million OLED iPad Pro units this year.
But new hardware alone, Ars Technica‘s Andrew Cunningham writes, won’t solve iPad’s issues.
Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:
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We’ll talk about the specifics of these iPad rumors momentarily, but reading about them got me thinking about what it would take to make me consider an upgrade for either of the iPads currently rolling around my house — a third-generation iPad Air that is currently used mostly for watching Octonauts and assembling Super Mario Lego sets, and a fifth-generation M1 Air that I use mostly for reading and browsing.
At least for me, the answer isn’t “new hardware.” After a brief stint a few years ago using the iPad as a focused writing device, I’ve mostly relegated it to tablet-y content consumption, leaving behind the cottage industry of enthusiasts who keep trying to come up with workarounds to make the iPad into a Mac. To replace an iPad at this point, I would either need one of them to break or for Apple to dramatically change what the high-end iPads are capable of.
It’s looking like 2024 will be the biggest year the iPad has had in a while, though after a silent 2023, anything would look like a big year… It’s also an opportunity to make sure that each iPad is clearly defined. The low-end iPad is the one you buy for basic browsing, messaging, gaming, and doodling; the Air is the step up for people who use the iPad as their primary computing device but don’t care about the Pro’s bells and whistles, and the Pro is the model for people with money to spend who just want the best hardware Apple can make…
Even with a less-confusing range of products and Apple’s latest chips, the biggest problem for the iPad is still about software limitations… I don’t really think it’s likely that Apple will allow its high-end iPads to replace iPadOS with macOS or to implement some kind of dual-booting mechanism that would allow easy switching between the two. But it does feel like the kind of dramatic change that could shift the narrative around the iPad and deliver on the never-quite-fully realized promise of these convertible computing devices.

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MacDailyNews Take: New hardware isn’t going to solve iPad’s issues, but new leadership likely would, starting on Day One.
As with great swaths of Apple today, iPad suffers from the same myopic lack of vision, directionless “leadership,” and malignant bloat as the long-suffering Project Titan did before it was belatedly put out of its misery.
Imagine an “iOS Pro” mode.
Turn on iOS Pro on your iPad Pro
1. Tap Settings > General, and make sure iOS Pro is turned on.
2. There is no step two.
Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
— MacDailyNews, December 29, 2015
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