The new iPhone 7 launched with a bang on September 6th. The launch also included the latest Apple Watch 2, but it didn’t mention the iPad at all. The good news is that Apple doubles the storage for the iPadswith the smallest storage and also drops the price for higher storage ones! Apple is expected to announce major upgrades to the iPad Pro series next year. However, it has already made some important upgrades from a consumer perspective. Apple has long been criticised for offering 16 GB as a storage for its cheapest iPads. The storage requirements have increased in recent years due to 4K video recording, higher resolution photos, and more versatile iOS apps. Hence, 16 GB of storage is deemed to be insufficient for many consumers. Apple has finally realised that more storage is necessary. The recently launched iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus come with 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB of storage. Apple now uniforms storage also for the iPads and it has increased 16 GB storage to 32 GB at no additional cost.

iPad price drops

Apple also reduces the price for the higher storage versions 128 GB and 256 GB models. It’s unclear when these price changes will be noticeable in New Zealand.

New configurations

There are also some configuration changes to the line-up:

• The 64 Gb storage option has been phased out for iPad Mini 4 that’s currently only available in 32 GB and 128 GB.
• iPad Mini 2 is only available with 32 GB storage.
• The storage has doubled for iPad Air 2 that now comes with 32 GB and 128 GB of storage instead of 16 GB and 64 GB.

The below table from Apple’s site summarises the available configuration options.