> Which is the "better edition": $2000 iPad Pro or $2000 Macbook?
The one of the two with a lower profit margin for the manufacturer would usually be the one considered to have more "value" in it.
The usual way to measure this, when software editions are locked to particular hardware, is by looking at the cheapest hardware they sell that'll have the given edition of the software installed.
(Another example of this: managed vs unmanaged routers.)
> Why stop at 2 hardware editions?
You're limited by the willingness of your developer ecosystem to develop different versions of the same third-party software for all your different OSes. Nobody wants a device with no third-party app support.
(But that being said, there is actually a third, even-less-capable hardware ecosystem Apple sells, with its own ecosystem of mostly fungible apps: Apple TV!)
> You're limited by the willingness of your developer ecosystem to develop different versions of the same third-party software for all your different OSes. Nobody wants a device with no third-party app support.
If Apple made an iPad Ultra with Linux terminal/framebuffer long-running background VMs, alongside interactive iPadOS apps, it would sell like hotcakes.
We'll have to wait for Nuvia devices to show the benefits of this use case, before Apple claims credit for a new iPad Pro customer segment.
> Another example of this: managed vs unmanaged routers
Do you mean something like Amazon eero vs generic OpenWRT routers? Eero has a few different hardware editions, usually segmented by WiFi speed. They also have a monthly subscription for additional software features. Presumably they make most of their revenue from subscriptions, with a small margin on the router hardware.
No, I mean like companies like Linksys that have product lines with model names that all just look like "N-port network switch, [un]managed" for different prices, that are only differentiated by the number of ports and what firmware is installed on them.
In these product lines, not only do the managed switches cost more than their unmanaged equivalents, but you also only get the option for a managed switch after a certain number of ports.
The one of the two with a lower profit margin for the manufacturer would usually be the one considered to have more "value" in it.
The usual way to measure this, when software editions are locked to particular hardware, is by looking at the cheapest hardware they sell that'll have the given edition of the software installed.
(Another example of this: managed vs unmanaged routers.)
> Why stop at 2 hardware editions?
You're limited by the willingness of your developer ecosystem to develop different versions of the same third-party software for all your different OSes. Nobody wants a device with no third-party app support.
(But that being said, there is actually a third, even-less-capable hardware ecosystem Apple sells, with its own ecosystem of mostly fungible apps: Apple TV!)