[apparent]

> trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.

[zadikian]

$270-$300 (used to be $350?) for the iPad keyboard. I feel like Apple did a good job targeting a user segment that is just happy to spend extra money on gadgets, aside from whoever really needs this laptop-tablet in-between.

[apparent]

Yeah I feel lucky to have picked one up for $199 back in the day. Still use it, though TBH it's mostly as a second monitor for my MBA, when I'm traveling. I don't work on the iPad itself that much, even though the keyboard is delightful.

[johanvts]

By a wacom bamboo, costs next to nothing and works without charging the stylus. Of course if you are using it on the go it’s inconvenient.

[vladvasiliu]

> TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA.

Right. Which, by my calculations, means it costs half as much as an MBA plus an iPad and their nice keyboard case.

Don't know how much either the iPad or the nice keyboard case cost by themselves, but probably more than 0. So even skipping the nice keyboard case and buying just a naked iPad in addition to the MBA still makes Apple more money.

Why would they forgo this if they're indeed the mustache-twirling capitalists like everyone says?