iPad Air 3 vs Pro, iPad mini 4 vs Nano: Apple’s release date plan

By Phil Moore | January 29, 2015

Apple’s tablet sales are sinking, and while it’s part of an industry wide trend, it leaves the company with no choice but to shake up its iPad lineup in order to get sales headed in the right direction again. Apple’s CEO says that he believes people are keeping their tablets longer than their smartphones, which helps explain why iPad sales are down double digit percentage points even as phone sales up up nearly fifty percent. That means major changes when the release date for the iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 4 roll around.

The iPad Air has been positioned as a computer replacement for non-techie users, and do accomplish that, Apple has to shift the iPad Air 3 to be perceived as more of a computing tool. Competitors like Microsoft have attempted to accomplish that by throwing in a stylus or a rubber keyboard, but sales of such tablets have come up far short of the iPad. Instead, Apple’s best bet may simply be one of perception. Instead of using the Air name to say to consumer “Hey, look how thin and light this is,” it may be time to shift the product name to iPad Pro in order to get consumers to think of it as a more professional device.

The iPad mini is selling better than the Air, either because the public has decided they want a smaller tablet or a cheaper tablet or both. But after three years on the market, the average consumer still perceives all three generations as being more or less the same. Once again, the easiest solution for Apple is to change the name. And the roadmap is right there in its own history. Just as the iPad mini became the iPad nano and exploded in popularity, the iPad mini 4 may instead be known as the iPad nano. The catch: the iPod became less than half as thick in the process. Can Apple pull that off with the iPad?

Both products, whether they’re called the iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 4 or something else altogether, have an expected release date of October 2015, in keeping with Apple’s pattern of typically updating the lineup every twelve months.