Just when you start suspecting Apple might permanently retire the classic iPad, together with its thick bezels, the iPhone maker remembers it also cornered the low-end tablet market and releases yet another generation of entry-level slates.
That is the story of the new, eighth generation of the iPad which is official as of today. It starts at $329, so it is bound to be popular in education. That price is still enough to buy you the A12 Bionic chip, the one that debuted just under two years ago inside the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and the iPhone XR. Which still offers better performance than the vast majority of the Android tablet alternatives, and even those that outshine it tend to command a price tag that’s at least twice as hefty.
Which keeps the eighth-gen iPad models in a class of their own, so Apple will probably sell as many of these as it can actually get manufactured for the foreseeable future. Any other year and this would just mean “a lot” but there has been much uncertainty looming over tech supply chains this year. So, it is still hard to predict how well the new iPad does, especially domestically as its largest potential clients – schools and universities – are still uncertain about the specifics of their upcoming academic calendars, starting with, you know, some actual, non-provisional dates.
