The Verge: ‘The last thing the iPad needs is a spec bump’

Not to become an iPad blog (see: ‘Where Does iPad Fit?’) but David Pierce has an essay in The Verge about what the platform needs ahead of Tuesday’s event. His take?

I think the iPad’s modular potential is actually much bigger.

If Apple wants to get there, it needs more accessories — so, so many more accessories. The iPad is a screen and a processor, and everything else should be an add-on for whenever you need it.

I agree in principle with this thought and process, but embedded in this idea is the mistaken belief that Apple needs to be the one providing all of these accessories. Third parties should be the ones who are incentivized to build the kinds of extensions to the “Naked Robotic Core” (to use a term from John Siracusa) that make iPad a maximally flexible platform.

That said, Apple needs to do its own work to make that worthwhile — hopefully by getting their entire product line in order to play nice with a broad ecosystem. They started with getting everything onto USB-C as a connector but things like keeping the Smart Connector in the same place or aligning on USB 3 or 4 would be welcome enhancements.