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Become a Six Colors member to read exclusive posts, get our weekly podcast, join our community, and more!By Jason Snell for Macworld
Apple may be about to shake up its naming scheme
Apple’s general approach to naming its products is refreshing in an industry filled with products with complicated names and model numbers. Macs have model numbers, but nobody really uses them: I own an iPad Air 3 and a 2014 5K iMac and a 2012 11-inch MacBook Air, and between the model name, the release year, and maybe a screen size, that’s all any of us needs to know.
Still, the ebb and flow of technology and fashion means that sometimes Apple needs to take a breath and adjust how it presents its products to the world. The PowerBook became the MacBook, the Power Mac became the Mac Pro, the MacBook Air appears to be diminished and headed for the west in favor of the new (adjectiveless) MacBook. So it goes.
Which brings us to the report from 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman that Apple is about to announce a new, updated iPad with the same 9.7-inch screen size as the iPad Air 2—but rather than calling it the iPad Air 3, Apple will consider it a smaller version of the iPad Pro.