I agree with every single point you said and has been stating something similar.
>It probably saves money per-part, which is good. But then Apple is still drowning in cash and immediate term savings really aren't much of a motivator.
The only possible reason I could think of is to lower cost and lower selling price ( While retaining same margin ). A Macbook 12" ( Or will it be Macbook SE? ) that cost $799, the same price as iPad Pro.
It is basically Apple admitting tablet with Touch computing will never take over PC with Keyboard and Mouse. Both will continually coexist for a long time if not indefinitely. And this isn't a far fetch statement. Most enterprise have absolutely no plan to replace their office Desktop Workflow with Tablet. The PC market is actually growing. There are still 1.5B PC in the world, of which only 100M belongs to Apple.
I still dont understand how they will give up x86 compatibility on the Pro market though. They could make the distinction where every Mac product with Pro uses x86. And non-Pro uses ARM. At least that is my hypothesis.
The iPad pro not taking over a PC is a self-fulfilling prophecy as long as Apple does not allow it. With the mandatory App Store and its restricting rules, there are many things you just cannot do on an iPad. I wouldn't consider a MB Air, if the iPad had the same capabilities. That it doesn't have, is purely a software limitation.
For consumers and business users, you have Excel and Email. iPad already does 95% of what most Mac user do on their Desktop If not more and yet it hasn't taken over. It has not taken over by numbers, there isn't even a trend, projection or glimpse of hope anything has started.
The tablet and PC is simply a different paradigm best suited for their own purpose.
It is the same narrative that Smartphone will take over most of your computing needs. At first it seems obvious, Nations not been through PC era will go straight to Smartphone. And yet 5 years later the biggest growth area for PC are these Smartphone nations.
>It probably saves money per-part, which is good. But then Apple is still drowning in cash and immediate term savings really aren't much of a motivator.
The only possible reason I could think of is to lower cost and lower selling price ( While retaining same margin ). A Macbook 12" ( Or will it be Macbook SE? ) that cost $799, the same price as iPad Pro.
It is basically Apple admitting tablet with Touch computing will never take over PC with Keyboard and Mouse. Both will continually coexist for a long time if not indefinitely. And this isn't a far fetch statement. Most enterprise have absolutely no plan to replace their office Desktop Workflow with Tablet. The PC market is actually growing. There are still 1.5B PC in the world, of which only 100M belongs to Apple.
I still dont understand how they will give up x86 compatibility on the Pro market though. They could make the distinction where every Mac product with Pro uses x86. And non-Pro uses ARM. At least that is my hypothesis.