Apple ’s not a ship’s company that ’s ever been afraid to kill off its product . At the acme of the iPod mini ’s popularity , Steve Jobs magnificently ax it for insert the iPod nano . The underperformingiPod Hi - Figot the sweetener , and in late years we ’ve said goodbye to both theAirPortline and most of the iPods .
But when a intersection lie fallow for many years , sit without an update , it hangs in that liminal space between life and death , leading many to inquire whether it still has a future . Is it ready to shuffle off this mortal coil or could it be rescued from the bound of the abyss ? TheMac miniskirt , MacBook Air , and even theMac Prohave seen this kind of revival in late months , and just in the last week , two Apple product thought to have run out of sentence have been the topic of rumored yield , hinting that perhaps death is n’t what it used to be for the companionship .
Minis are back in style?
The diminiutive iPad mini , first launched in 2012 and most recently updated in 2015 , could be on the verge of a riposte . Reports suggest that it could seem as before long as the first one-half of this twelvemonth , sporting a better processor and possibly novel display panel .
The current iPad miniskirt was released in 2015 .
TheiPad miniskirt 4 , the last interpretation to go on sales event , ladder on an A8 processor — the same chip that power the Apple TV , the HomePod , and another one of Apple ’s other presumed - drained devices ( more on which in a mo ) . The A8 was the irregular of Apple ’s 64 - bit processors in its nomadic machine , first shipping in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus . At almost six year onetime , the A8 may not be the oldest chip supported by iOS — that honour go to the company ’s first 64 - bit processor , the A7 — but it ’s the old one in devices that Apple is still sell .
Why revive the iPad miniskirt ? Nobody but Apple knows how well the gimmick really sell , but presumably if it ’s considering a new edition , it sells well enough to justify the expense . The smaller form agent has its fans , particularly in education and for kids in general .
The real question is whether it will control a price premium or will somehow come in in under the $ 329 Mary Leontyne Price of the sixth - genesis iPad . If it is cheaper , bear it to trace the iPhone SE track : upgrade internals , but not much changed on the outside . If , on the other hand , it pay off a satisfying revamp to play it more in transmission line with the rest of Apple ’s tablets , I anticipate a higher price .
The touch, the feel of iPod
Weirdly enough , the last update for the iPod touch sensation — which is itself the last product to bear the august brand name — alsohails from 2015 . ( Perhaps Apple has a four - year cycle for some of its products — the Mac mini also got revamped after four years , though the Mac Pro will likely ferment six before its replacement come along . ) Like the iPad miniskirt , it ’s latterly been the discipline of rumors suggest that its seeming demise may have been exaggerated , though it sounds less likely to be in line for an close at hand revival .
Like the iPad mini , the current iPod touch was released in 2015 .
The iPod touch was always a bridge ware , connect the iPod trade name to the new iOS future . It was more iPhone than iPod , more often than not lacking only the cellular wireless capabilities of its telephonic sibling . Yet it found a home as a pocket-sized twist for kid who were n’t quick for an iPhone , was touted by Apple as idealistic for playing games , and generally subsisted in the corners of the market where the iPhone was too pricey and the iPads were too large .
Again , Apple is n’t sharing with mere mortals how well the iPod touch sold , but the simple fact that , as with the iPad miniskirt 4 , it remains a product in the company ’s card indicate that it continues to do some patronage .
And iPhone makes three?
All of this of track lead to the question of whether there are other Apple products that are onlymostlydead ? The iPhone SE seems a premier campaigner , having been discontinue in September of last yr without a worthy successor . Despite its atavism grade constituent , the SE bank on an A9 fleck that was new than the A8 in the iPad mini 4 and iPod contact , making it in theory more able than those older devices .
And yet , Apple seems to have doubled down on its larger , novel phones . Cynics will impute that to a desire to raise the mediocre selling toll of its phones , whose sales are level off , while the more generous will be prompt to argue that the SE simply may not have betray well enough to justify its continued world . ( This despite the vocal nonage clamor for phones with minor screens . )
But if these iPad mini and iPod trace rumors pay yield , there may be promise yet for the iPhone SE . As new iPhone sales agreement cool , Apple could do worse than offering a abstruse bench of mathematical product for a wider mixture of needs . One possible hereafter for Apple is a long - tail of iOS equipment , and in that futurity , perhaps no mathematical product can evertrulydie .
