A crucial product change was hiding in Apple’s latest launch

“Apple unveiled product updates on Tuesday, including an updated iPad, new accessories and a red iPhone 7 and 7 Plus,” Anita Balakrishnan writes for CNBC. “But the overlooked expansion of Swift Playgrounds could speak just as much to Apple’s ruthless forward-looking attitude.”

“The numbers show pretty clearly where the future of the iPad growth is: it’s the next generation, it’s overseas, and Apple may be designing with that in mind,” Balakrishnan writes. “Apple said on Tuesday that Swift Playgrounds would be available in Simplified Chinese. Swift Playgrounds is an app, only available on iPads, that helps kids learn to code through games. Not only does Playgrounds help kids learn to code, but it teaches them Apple’s new coding language, Swift, released in 2014.”

“Consider that iPad sales overall fell 22 percent in the holiday quarter — but in mainland China and India, the product had double-digit growth,” Balakrishnan writes. “The growth in China and India, and the rise of the Chromebook, puts Apple’s new price point of $329 — the cheapest ever for a new iPad — into perspective. In the United States, average yearly GDP per capita sat around $56,000, last time the World Bank measured. Mainland China is at $8,000 and India is at just under $1,600.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s playing the long game.

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