Apple updates iPad line, cuts prices

Apple has updated its iPad line, with the core 9.7-inch iPad now on offer for $329, which comes as a huge price cut. The 32GB device comes with wifi only while a 128 GB model priced at $459 comes with 4G. 

According to commentators, the price cuts come after years of falling sales. They say the cuts were something highly uncharacteristic for the company that had for years treated price cuts as a game of diminishing returns. 

One reason for the languishing iPad sales was schools were increasingly abandoning the iPad and were turning to Chromebooks, and one of the major reasons for this was price.

According to commentators whether the price cut would pay off was a big question.

iPad sales started slowing in late 2012 and early 2013, but the big decline came in 2014, and it was only now that Apple was addressing one of the main reasons for the fall in sales - prices.

Another problem facing the iPad was that since the release of the Plus version of the iPhone6 with the larger 5.5-inch display, there was less of a need for the iPad.

Meanwhile, The Register quoted Volker Weber, Europe's leading hardware journalist as saying, "The iPad is done." The comment comes in the aftermath of Apple's annual revamp of its tablet line.

He said that the revamped iPads contained no new features, only price cuts, making it a "clearance sale".

"Apple is just refining the components, but there isn't much they can do these days to make yet another super duper earth-shattering innovation here. They are making it better, they are bringing the price down, and that puts tremendous pressure on all other tablet makers," Volker adds.

Meanwhile, even as iPad sales had fallen, tablet penetration in the home had risen. According to Ofcom's Communications Market survey last year 5 per cent more households owned a tablet than in 2015, at 59 per cent.