Apple’s new iPad is out. Before going any further we need to understand the structure of the iPad family. First there’s the iPad-iPad (including the original iPad, iPad 2, New iPad [Apple’s nomenclature disaster began after SJ died], iPad Air, iPad Air 2, and now simply iPad), then there’s iPad mini (which is all but abandoned), and finally iPad Pro, which tries to imagine the future of computing but failed. Well, I just wish to say I have no plan to upgrade my iPad at this moment. I think my iPad Air 2 is the best iPad ever.

iPad mini is too small to be useful. Period.

iPad Pro is a failure in that there’s a camera bulge at the back and it can’t lie flat on the table. SJ said there’s no need for a hard keyboard. The soft keyboard should be good enough. But if it wobbles on a table, how can you type (in SJ’s recommended way)? And then they invented the Smart Keyboard. When you have the Smart Keyboard on the iPad, the screen assumes a normal notebook angle. I remember Phil Schiller said the reason there’s no touch screen MacBook is that the ergonomics is just wrong. Well? iPad in a notebook angle suddenly have the right ergonomics?

This new $329 iPad is 1.4mm (one-fifth) thicker than iPad Air 2, and has a crappy sceeen (no optical lamination). Owners of this new iPad or the iPad Air may think the difference is tiny — only because they can’t admit they have a crap screen. I remember @EugeneY used to say (in 2001/2002) “you think Windows XP is unstable because you don’t have it”. Likewise you think you don’t need an Audi because you don’t have an Audi. You don’t have a good screen and a thin iPad so you think there’s no difference.

So to sum up, iPad Air 2 is still the best iPad ever because 1) it doesn’t have a camera bulge, 2) it has a good screen, 3) it is the thinnest iPad to date.

Footnote: Wow, this is probably the happiest blog post I’ve written for ages. I didn’t force myself to add a poetic touch and use good language in this article, hence the above crappy English. But it’s fun.