En su Monday Note

…let’s divide tablets into two groups. The smaller devices, such as the iPad mini and inexpensive Android-powered “tablettes”, are used by “lean back” consumers to watch videos, browse the Web, read email. The larger, more muscular tablets are aimed at graphic designers, bloggers, architects, artists, and other content creators.

The problem with all of this lean back contentment is that it doesn’t breed desire. There’s no reason to buy This Year’s New and Improved Model. The iPad’s elongated upgrade cycle, an affliction to which the iPhone appears to be immune, has ravaged sales.

Yes, Tim Cook says he does all of his work on an iPad, and with his record of unimpeachable honesty, we do believe him. But one can honestly doubt he builds Numbers spreadsheets and graphs and incorporates those in Keynote presentations for Apple Board of Directors meetings. Annotations, yes, preparation, no.
In other words, for many people and most uses, an iPad couldn’t replace a Mac. Hence the flagging desire..

The Pro, in name and in organs, is both an admission of error and a proposed solution: The original iPad can’t do enough for content composition/production, but the newer Pros will fill the previously unmet productivity needs.

Meanwhile, Mac numbers are up: Revenue +14%, units +4%.

Follow this line of thinking and you’re led to a quasi-MacBook that has a detachable keyboard, a touch screen, a Pencil 2.0 with a magnet, a somewhat simpler — but not too simple — user interface… To me, this is an uncomfortable contemplation; it could lead to a Swiss Army knife.

What is questionable is the cost advantage for such a device. The Apple-designed Ax processor might cost less than the current Intel hardware in a MacBook, but memory (RAM) size will have to increase in order to support the new, more complex Pro UI.

today’s entry-level MacBook with 8GB RAM and 256GB of disk storage is priced at $1,249. A 12.9” iPad Pro with 256 GB of storage, a Smart Keyboard and a Pencil will cost… $1247. And they weigh just about the same: 2 lbs.)

It will be interesting to see how Apple finds ways to reboot iPad sales without bastardizing the device.