(upbeat music)
- Hey, what's up? MKBHD here.
Okay, there's a book called "The Myth of Fair Value."
And in that book, it's all about pricing,
strategies for different products and things like that,
and in that there's a study
that they go over about purchasing patterns.
So in test number one,
a company selling a product offers a regular option
and a premium option.
And four outta five people picked the more premium one.
So then in test number two,
they added a third cheaper option
to see if they could maybe increase revenue
by looping in an audience
that's looking for a cheaper, lowest possible price.
Turned out the cheapest option was kind of just ignored,
but it completely flipped the ratio
of standard to premium purchases
because now people would assume
that the middle one was the appropriate value.
So then in test number three,
they took away the cheap option
but then added an ultra premium option over the top.
And this ended up flipping the ratio right back
to the original premium one,
but also, some portion of people just went
with the more expensive one
just because that's what they want.
So this ended up with the highest overall revenue generated.
Pricing ladders are very real and very much designed
to get you to spend as much as possible
and make those companies as much money as they can.
This is the new 2022 iPad Air with the new M1 chip inside.
You can tell 'cause it's a nice, shiny, deeper blue color.
It's nice, but it is one of the stranger Apple products
that I've seen in a long time because of its price
and where it sits in the lineup.
'Cause it kind of messes with the ladder a little bit.
So look, it's actually very simple to understand
what you're getting here with this spec bump,
which is an even more powerful version
of the iPad we already know.
I already reviewed the 2020 iPad Air,
and I'll link that below the like button,
so you already know what you're getting on the outside.
And then I've already reviewed several computers
with the M1 chip, including the iPad Pro with this M1,
so you know what you're getting on the inside too.
This is a thin 11-inch tablet,
same exact dimensions as the last iPad Air
so those cases all still work.
Your single camera on the back, USB Type-C at the bottom,
the Touch ID fingerprint reader
in the power button up in the corner
and the 11-inch, 60-hertz display up front,
running the exact same iPadOS as every other iPad.
The reason it's so strange is,
this is the most I've ever seen one Apple product
seem to overlap another,
that other product being the iPad Pro.
So the last iPad Air was already very close
to the iPad Pro, right?
It had basically the same dimensions,
same exact camera, same battery life,
and the same software features
of all the other most expensive iPads.
It works with the same second gen Apple Pencil.
It's just as thin.
In my review, I called it the one true iPad Pro killer
because it's 80% of the tablet for 200 less dollars.
So this year,
now that the new iPad Air also gets the incredible
massively overkill new M1 chip inside,
it's one more thing that they do exactly the same.
So the iPad Air starts at 599,
and the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at 799.
But let's take a closer look at this pricing.
See, this is a pricing ladder after all
so it's designed to have something available at every price.
And then every time you arrive at one price,
there's something a little higher to try to nudge you up
and try to get you as high in that ladder as they can.
So the base price iPad Air is only a 64-gigabyte iPad.
For 600 bucks in 2022, that's not really great.
I mean, we got 20-gig games today.
So, of course, the only available storage option
is straight up to 256 gigs, which is 150 extra dollars.
So now you're playing in the $750 territory,
which is a lot of money to spend on an Air
when for just $50 more, you can get a Pro, right?
So now you might as well just bump up to the iPad Pro.
So you can see what they're doing, right?
They're nudging you up a little bit by a little bit.
But the thing is, the iPad Pro is more expensive
but it's almost the same tablet in so many ways.
So they're already practically the same dimensions
to the point where the iPad Air works
in all the same cases and keyboards
that the iPad Pro works in.
They're the same primary camera on the back,
the same USB-C port, the same battery life,
and now the same M1 chip.
So you have to think extra hard about spending extra money
on an iPad Pro when the list of reasons to do so
is smaller than ever before.
Now, as someone who's used both tablets, honestly,
one of those reasons is pretty huge
and then the rest are all pretty minor.
But let's just go through each of them.
So the only reason I still pick an iPad Pro
as a better overall experience,
a better tablet than the Air is the Pro Motion display.
So they're about the same size and resolution
but the faster 120 hertz refresh rate is one of those things
that just makes everything about using the Pro smoother
and snappier and more responsive.
And that's the thing that makes the M1 chip
in this iPad Air so funny, which is,
it theoretically closes the gap in performance
versus the Pro with rendering and exporting
and compiling and things like that,
but it does not feel as fast because of the 60 hertz.
So those big animations
where your hand moves across the entire screen,
the unlock animation, the multitasking gestures,
the big stuff like that.
You could put a 3090 in here,
and it wouldn't feel as smooth as the Pro Motion iPad.
Now, sure, some people need to see them side by side
and even then they barely see a difference,
in which case, yeah,
that person should just get the iPad Air.
But I'm telling you, for me, if you're like me,
that's something I would spend the extra money for.
But then the iPad Pro has one extra camera,
the 10-megapixel ultrawide,
plus a LIDAR scanner and a flash.
The iPad Air just has a single camera, no flash.
So, for the occasional video call or document scanning,
that's totally fine for me.
And like I said, it's the same main camera as the iPad Pro,
so there isn't even a quality difference here.
Then the iPad Pro has quad speaker audio
instead of the dual speakers of the iPad Air.
They're both very solid speakers,
and it's definitely a bit fuller and louder from the Pro,
but that's not something you're going out
and spending extra money on specifically.
And then the Pro has a higher max storage.
So you can go up to 2 terabytes instead of just 256 gigs.
And the USB-C port is Thunderbolt on the Pro
instead of just faster USB-C on the Air.
So that might open up some potential peripheral options
for actual pros plugging in drives, et cetera.
And then of course you have Face ID on the iPad Pro
where you've got the Touch ID fingerprint reader
on the iPad Air.
Honestly, at this point, it's kind of preference.
You get used to having Face ID
on the tablet very quickly when you have it.
But also, the good old-fashioned two fingers registered
on the iPad Air works really well, too.
So in portrait it's the right index finger that unlocks,
and then in landscape it's the left index finger, great.
You know what's funny though?
The only other update to the Air
besides the M1 chip being inside is the selfie camera
is now the ultrawide with Center Stage.
So it's got the newer selfie camera.
And it's convenient.
It follow you around the room.
It's kind of in an awkward location,
but it's decently smooth
with FaceTime, Zoom calls, et cetera.
But because the iPad Pro has the Face ID sensors and stuff,
technically, only that older selfie camera
will support Animojis and Memojis and things like that.
So there's that.
But that's basically it, right?
That's the differences.
So now hearing that list, you probably already know
if you would be tempted to move up one more rung
on that ladder.
Maybe 50 extra bucks for Pro Motion does it for you
like it does it for me,
or maybe you just want a larger tablet
'cause you do have the 13-inch iPad Pro with mini-LED
if you're tempted to go large.
But other than that, the extra camera, LIDAR,
Face ID, the speakers, all pretty minor things.
But then the funniest part,
usually, the ladders are designed to try to nudge you up
to try to get you to spend more and more money.
Putting one of the features from the more expensive model
in the less expensive model
just removes one reason to upgrade
and may actually encourage a small number of people
to move down.
Because now that theoretical person
who would've spent the extra money
to get the hugely improved processing power of the M1,
now just has one less reason to get the Pro.
They can get it in the Air.
Well, that is until the M2 version comes out anyway.
Either way, it's fascinating.
It's always interesting to see these new products come out
at these different various price ranges.
I think in that example from the beginning of the video,
Apple clearly has a baseline iPad, an iPad Air,
and an iPad Pro.
And most people don't need to spend the extra money
to get the most premium iPad Pro.
I think the Pro Motion is enough just for me,
and a lot of people would too,
but there's also gonna be a bunch of people
that just spend the extra money
just 'cause they want the most premium thing.
Fine, but this iPad Air is another great spec bump
that actually makes me even more frustrated
that iPadOS is not evolving to fully take advantage of it.
But that's another of rant for another video.
Either way, that's been it.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you out in the next one.
Peace!
(upbeat music)