On the evening of June 20, Gree Electric released the “Phase 1 Employee Stock Ownership Plan (Draft)”. This announcement shows that the total number of employees participating in Gree’s employee stock ownership plan does not exceed 12,000, involving company executives, middle-level cadres and employees in key positions. It is the largest employee stock ownership plan in Gree’s history. According to Gree’s plan , There will be several rounds of shareholding plans in the future.

The source of the shares held by the plan is the shares that have been repurchased in the special repurchase account of Gree, and the size of the shares does not exceed 108,365,800 shares. Moreover, employees participating in the shareholding plan will subscribe for shares at a price of 27.68 yuan per share. If calculated according to Gree Electric’s closing price of 53.68 yuan per share on June 18, the employee’s share price is about 51.56% of the current closing price.

This means that Gree employees participating in this shareholding plan can buy shares at half price. However, with the introduction of this plan, some people have also questioned this. In addition to the ups and downs of Gree during this period, Miss Dong is in What are the calculations?

Gree Electric, keen to give employees “benefits”

A few days ago, Dong Mingzhu announced that the first batch of 3,700 houses in the “Gree Pearl Plaza” in Zhuhai will soon be delivered. For a time, Gree was in the limelight. The news that “Gree wants to divide the house” was reported by major media, and many people believed that Dong Mingzhu did what he said.

In fact, as early as 2018, Dong Mingzhu publicly stated: “Gree will provide 80,000 employees with two bedrooms and one living room. As long as employees work until they retire, they don’t have to worry about housing prices.” At that time, the Zhuhai municipal government encouraged Gree Electric Appliances. , Promised to provide 10,000 sets of housing land.

In February of this year, Dong Mingzhu said in an interview with the media that Gree will be able to put out 3,700 houses immediately, with one set of scientific research personnel. As long as they can work in Gree until they retire, the house belongs to him. However, Dong Mingzhu also talked about Gree’s house allocation in an interview with the media on June 16th: “I originally wanted to retire and this house will belong to you, but many of our young people said that it has been too long. I can’t give the house now or sell it at half the market price. I finally decided to sell it to them at cost.”

Picture from Gree’s official website

Although there are many restrictions, it is normal. After all, there will be no free pies in the sky. Compared with the division of houses, Gree’s employee shareholding plan this time has received a lot of doubts once it was announced. Among them, the most concerned is Dong Mingzhu’s shareholding ratio.

According to the plan in the plan, Gree Electric’s chairman Dong Mingzhu plans to subscribe for 30 million shares, accounting for 27.68% of the shareholding plan, and plans to invest 830 million yuan. Six executives including Zhang Wei and Zhuang Pei will subscribe for 600,000 shares. The employee supervisor Wang Fawen subscribed for 80,000 shares. As for the remaining 74,685,800 shares, 1,1992 middle-level cadres and core employees plan to invest 2.067 billion yuan to subscribe.

To put it simply, Dong Mingzhu invested 830 million yuan and subscribed for 27% of the shares of this shareholding plan. From the stock price point of view, Dong Mingzhu made a “small profit” of 800 million, and most of the remaining shares were among middle-level cadres. The backbone of the enterprise subscribes. In other words, this employee stock ownership plan and the previous employee housing may be Gree Electric’s intention to “stabilize the military” and want to deeply bundle the company’s core talents by “distributing benefits” to employees. After all, Miss Dong once said: “ Talent is Gree’s greatest wealth.”

Gree’s disintegrating “iron triangle”

From a market perspective, the subscription price of Gree’s employee stock ownership plan is very low. The employee subscription price is only half of the market price, which is obviously unacceptable for investors who buy stocks from the secondary market. . After the announcement, Gree Electric’s share price fell 4.79% at the close of trading on June 21. At the risk of being attacked by the market, Gree Electric will also implement this plan, naturally because of the problem of brain drain. Perhaps the most famous of these is the disintegration of Gree’s “Iron Triangle”. On the evening of February 21, Gree Electric issued an announcement stating that it had received a written resignation report from Director and CEO Huang Hui and resigned from Gree Electric’s director and CEO positions. After Huang Hui resigned, he no longer held any position in Gree. In the three and a half years as the CEO, Huang Hui has been Gree’s second-in-command. Together with Chairman Dong Mingzhu and Chief Financial Officer Wang Jingdong, he was known as the “iron triangle” of Gree Electric. Before Huang Hui, Gree Electric’s director, vice president and secretary of the board Wang Jingdong also resigned from all positions in Gree in August last year due to personal reasons. Regarding the resignation of the two, some people in the industry believe: “The two of them have been in Gree for so many years and have been very loyal to Gree, but now they have left. This means that both Wang and Huang are in agreement with Dong Dong’s current development ideas for Gree. Mingzhu has a disagreement.” Moreover, Huang Hui joined Gree Electric in 1992 and is a senior executive of Gree Electric. The outside world once believed that Huang Hui was expected to succeed Dong Mingzhu as the next head of Gree Electric. In addition to the departure of the two core executives, according to media reports, Gree Electric’s personnel flow is also very large. Gree Electric, where the executives left, is in an eventful period. In the past 2020, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the financial report of Gree, which mainly attacked offline channels, was not very good, and it was precisely because of the impact of the epidemic on offline channels that Gree’s “air-conditioning king” throne was once taken away by Midea. The financial report shows that Gree Electric’s 2020 revenue fell by 14.97% to 170.497 billion yuan, achieving a net profit of 22.175 billion yuan attributable to the parent, a year-on-year decrease of 10.21%. From the perspective of revenue, Gree’s 2020 results are obviously not good. Although Gree has been carrying out transformation and reforms in recent years, many people’s first impression of Gree is still “selling air conditioners.” In a sense, it is true. Gree’s transformation and reform did not help Gree cultivate a high-quality business like air conditioners. According to Gree’s 2020 mid-year report, Gree accounted for the bulk of the air-conditioning business, accounting for nearly 60% of its revenue, and household appliances and smart equipment accounting for 3% and 0.3%, respectively. In the same period, Midea’s air-conditioning revenue accounted for 46%, and consumer appliances accounted for 38%.

Is it good to rely on stocks to win people’s hearts?

The dilemma of Gree Electric Appliances made Dong Mingzhu begin to seek change, and began to reform the sales channels that have not been lost. From the previous offline model, to the new Gree retail model of “simultaneous online and offline sales and integrated service”. Even if the provincial agency dealers are unwilling, the channel transformation has become an irresistible trend. Dong Mingzhu even went into battle himself and held more than a dozen live broadcasts to bring the goods. However, the low revenue performance in 2020 has also made the requirements of this equity incentive plan aroused by investors. Many investors believe that the incentive conditions this time are too simple, almost equivalent to nothing. Gree has requirements for company-level and personal-level performance in this employee stock ownership plan. As for employees, the individual performance appraisal results are required to reach level B or above in order to get all the shares. The level C can only get 80%, and the shares below the C level cannot get the shares. Gree will also return the corresponding original funds. At the company level, if the company’s performance evaluation fails to meet the standards after the expiration of the second evaluation vesting period, the management committee will make a decision to dispose of it, including canceling or selling stocks at an opportunity. The amount will be limited to the amount of disposal, and the corresponding holders will be refunded. The original capital contribution and the remaining income (if any) are returned to the company. Picture from Canva, ready made It should be noted that Gree’s assessment indicators for this plan are based on 2020 performance as a reference, but according to the financial report, Gree’s revenue in the first quarter of this year was 33.189 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62.73%. Net profit was 3.443 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 120.98%. If this level can be maintained, the implementation of Gree’s shareholding plan will obviously not be particularly difficult compared to the results of 2020. However, similar to employee housing, Gree employees’ stocks can only be sold after retirement, and they can only enjoy dividends before retirement. For employees, this regulation largely restricts the behavior of employees selling stocks. For investors in the secondary market, it is obviously unacceptable for investors in the secondary market to spend real money to buy stocks in full, and now others only need to spend half of it to buy, and there is almost no risk. The selling restrictions may also be to cater for the emotions of investors. For Gree Electric, this approach of pulling in the backbone of the company may be compelling, but for Gree employees, this subscription is too far away from the perspective of time when the ban is lifted after retirement

Article丨Online Travel, Author丨Wang Yi, Editor丨Li Xin Article丨Online Travel, Author丨Wang Yi, Editor丨Li Xin Apple has begun to negotiate a new car partner. June 8, According to Reuters, Apple is in preliminary discussions with CATL and BYD on battery supply for electric vehicle projects. Apple, CATL and BYD did not comment on the Reuters report. As we all know, power batteries are the “heart” of new energy vehicles, accounting for nearly 40% of the total vehicle cost. Earlier, Reuters pointed out in a report that Apple prefers lower-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries because they use lithium rather than the more expensive nickel and cobalt. After looking for a circle of Japanese and Korean manufacturers, Apple chose to negotiate with BYD and CATL, or perhaps it was related to the lithium iron phosphate battery technology of these two giants. Prior to this, Apple was reported to have negotiated cooperation with traditional car companies such as Hyundai and Nissan, but they all broke up in the end. Although as early as 2015, Apple started the Titan Project and wanted to build a complete car, but this plan has been shelved for many times, and there has been no movement of Apple cars to this day. In the absence of top car companies willing to cooperate, will Apple take the second place and choose to cooperate with Foxconn, Magna and other foundry companies that have been “scandalized” before?

Between shelving and restarting, rumors and facts, Apple, with its brand and technology, is still looking for long-term cooperation and suitable foundry partners.

At present, for Apple, only the car is built before it is eligible to stand on the poker table.

Traditional car companies do not want to be Apple’s “Foxconn”

If Apple has enough experience in the mobile phone industry, then in the automotive field, Apple is just a fledgling “primary school student”.

For this reason, since the beginning of this year, Apple has been casting a net for “Foxconn”, which builds its own cars.

At the beginning, Apple was reported to be negotiating with Hyundai Motor, which directly boosted Hyundai’s share price, which rose by 20% that day.

It can be seen that becoming an Apple foundry is indeed a story that is favored by capital, but Hyundai Motor does not care about this stock price fluctuation, and the negotiation between the two parties ended in failure.

Hyundai Motor, picture source Hyundai Motor’s official website

In addition, according to “China Business News” report, Apple is not only negotiating with Hyundai, but initially also found companies such as Mercedes-Benz and Daimler. There are also rumors that Nissan is also within the scope of Apple’s OEM negotiations.

Such rumors are not groundless, and both sides are largely taking what they need. Hyundai-Kia and Nissan, as traditional car companies, are facing declining sales and overcapacity. They are seeking to utilize some of the vacant production capacity through OEMs. For Apple, it also needs a partner with a complete supply chain in North America and the world to help it produce for the local market.

However, Apple has yet to find a suitable OEM car company. According to Japan’s Nikkei Shimbun, Apple has negotiated with at least six automakers in order to build a car, but these automakers, without exception, have rejected Apple’s olive branch.

It is worth noting that according to foreign media reports, when Apple’s “Project Titan” ran aground in 2016, part of the reason was because Apple had closed doors with giants such as BMW, Daimler, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

Compared with overcapacity, most traditional car companies are more worried about cultivating a strong competitor.

In the era of the dominance of fuel vehicles, traditional cars have an absolute advantage. But an indisputable fact that lies ahead is that in the era of new energy vehicles, the market has given ultra-high expectations and valuations for new energy vehicles. As the “big brother of electric cars” Tesla, a total of 500,000 vehicles were sold in 2020, only 1/20 of Toyota’s sales in the same period, and the market value is several times that of Toyota.

After seeing the obvious changes in the market, traditional car companies are also trying to keep up with the pace of new energy vehicles. Last month, Hyundai Motor announced that it is accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles, with the ultimate goal of achieving a complete electrification transformation by 2040. In the same month, at the Shanghai Auto Show, Honda plans to launch 10 Honda brand pure electric vehicles in China within five years. Toyota has released a new pure electric exclusive series “TOYOTA bZ”, which is expected to achieve global sales by mid-2022.

This means that traditional car companies have begun to fully turn to electrification. If they are OEMs for Apple at this time, it is equivalent to working for their competitors.

Five years later, the problems facing Apple’s car manufacturing have not changed. On the contrary, it seems to have become more difficult.

Cars are different from mobile phones. The higher threshold means that there will not be too many companies that can meet Apple’s high standards and have the ability to be included in the “fruit chain” in the future.

Obviously, the wealthy Apple did not realize that strict control of the supply chain would become the biggest stumbling block in the car-building plan. For traditional car companies, they want to be Apple’s partners, not foundries.

Although foundry is ubiquitous in the car industry, the OEM model (original equipment manufacturer model) has not been able to take the stage. Traditional car companies that already have many products and technologies do not want to work for Apple.

What’s more, in Apple’s supply chain system, it occupies most of the profits, and suppliers can only obtain a small portion of the profits. Under this circumstance, why do traditional car companies need to do the drudgery that is thankless and can not make much money.

At the same time, if the logic of Apple’s iPhone production is the same, once the supplier is determined, Apple will let the supplier rebuild a production line that meets Apple’s requirements. For suppliers, once they are included in Apple’s supply chain, they can only serve Apple. At the same time, Apple’s control of suppliers is also notoriously strict in the industry.

In a sense, being included in the “fruit chain” is a supplier’s gambling contract, and the referee is an apple that can be “determined for life”.

In March of this year, Ou Feiguang, a manufacturer of camera modules for Apple, was kicked out of the supply chain team by Apple, resulting in an asset impairment loss of approximately 2.5 billion yuan. Coincidentally, the manufacturer that was asked to produce sapphire screens for the iPhone was extremely advanced. Apple temporarily worried about the fragility of the sapphire screens and adopted glass screens. The stock price has doubled to nearly 90%.

OFILM lens, picture source OFILM’s official website

Due to various factors, traditional car companies are unwilling to be Apple’s “Foxconn”, which also makes it difficult for Apple to find OEMs.

Plans to build cars for many years, Apple cars are still PPT

In fact, Apple has not stopped making cars. In 2008, Jobs had planned to develop its own car brand iCar.

Seven years ago, Apple launched the “Project Titan” with a high profile. It can be said that, to a certain extent, “Project Titan” is the “last wish” of Apple’s soul Steve Jobs.

When the Titan Project was established, it was once considered a plan to subvert the automotive industry because it aimed at the most advanced driverless technology at the time. At the same time, in appearance, Apple cars pursue the ultimate sense of design, the same as the original design of Mac and iPhone.

The Titan Project was originally intended to build a complete vehicle. For this plan, Apple hired Doug Field, an engineer at Tesla at the time, and also recruited outstanding engineers from Ford, Chrysler, Tesla and other companies, and hired companies such as Tesla, Google, and Mercedes-Benz with high salaries. Of engineers to form the automotive R&D team.

In its heyday, the entire “Project Titan” had a team of nearly 1,000 people. However, the complexity of the automotive supply chain far exceeds that of mobile phones, and the autonomous driving technology at that time was not mature enough, and there were also great internal differences.

This plan, which was intended to compete with Tesla, was announced in 2016 and shelved in less than a year after experiencing a wave of employee turnover. Apple’s car manufacturing direction has also been adjusted from manufacturing complete vehicles to developing autonomous driving. system.

In fact, “Project Titan” has always been as mysterious as a code name. It was not until March 2019 that Apple publicly confirmed the existence of the “Project Titan” for the first time. But the good times did not last long. A month later, Apple confirmed that it would lay off more than 200 employees from its self-driving car team.

After experiencing “ones and threes”, Apple is still not reconciled to give up vehicle manufacturing.

In December last year, Reuters revealed that Apple is planning to produce a passenger car that may be equipped with breakthrough battery technology in 2024, which once again aroused the industry’s attention and expectations for the technology giant’s cross-border car building.

At the same time, in January this year, Apple restarted the “Project Titan.” This means that Apple’s car building plan has made new progress, and at the same time this is regarded by the outside as an important force for Apple’s car building. This time, Apple returned to its original intention-vehicle manufacturing.

Today is different. With the changes in the market environment, new energy vehicle-related technologies have matured, and autonomous driving technologies have also made major breakthroughs. At this time, building new energy vehicles has become a consensus project for global companies. Both traditional car companies and Internet companies are trying to get a share in the field of new energy vehicles.

At the same time, another problem facing Apple is that since this year, Apple’s self-driving team has continuously had a brain drain, and most of them are team executives.

In February, Benjamin Lyon, a veteran member of Apple’s autonomous driving, officially left. It is reported that Benjamin Lyon is one of the founders of Apple’s self-driving car project and served as the senior director of Apple’s self-driving hardware.

During the 21 years of working at Apple, he has been engaged in the research and development of Touch ID, the fingerprint recognition technology of the iPhone, and has since joined the Apple self-driving car team. In the same month, Jaime Waydo, who is in charge of the safety and supervision team of self-driving cars, left Apple, and this engineer was praised by Apple CEO Cook as the “mother of all artificial intelligence projects.”

After missing two “generals”. The changes at the top level continue. Recently, according to foreign media reports, after Apple announced its cooperation with the OEMs, three executives have left within a few months.

Externally, Apple has not yet received the support of top car companies; internally, high-level turmoil will cast another shadow for its car manufacturing. Whether Apple will be launched in 2024 is still unknown. But what is certain is that when other companies are running at high speed, if Apple puts aside its car-building plan again, it will be difficult to obtain a ticket in the field of smart cars in the future.

Apple builds cars, will it take second place?

Today, Apple, which is already obviously “slowly making cars”, has yet to find a suitable OEM car company. Under this circumstance, will Apple take the second place and choose companies that it “didn’t see” before?

Like well-known traditional car companies, professional contract manufacturers have repeatedly reported “scandals” about making cars with Apple. Among them, Foxconn and Magna have both been exposed before and may reach an foundry cooperation with Apple.

Foxconn and Apple want to build a car in the same logic, it has seen the ceiling of the mobile phone market. As the new smart terminal growth point, Foxconn tries to embrace Apple’s thighs again. Earlier, Foxconn Chairman Liu Yangwei once said, “Foxconn will enter the field of electric vehicles, and the goal is to seize 10% of the electric vehicle market in 5 years.”

Foxconn is not without accumulation in the automotive field.

In 2010, Foxconn became the main supplier of Tesla’s central control touch screen, connectors and lithium batteries; in 2013, it became a supplier of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other brands, responsible for in-vehicle entertainment equipment, automotive electronic equipment, etc.; in 2017, Foxconn successively Invested in Didi, Xiaopeng Motors and Ningde Times, a leading power battery company.

Interestingly, after the breakdown of Apple’s negotiations with Hyundai, Foxconn began to make efforts to enter the automobile manufacturing industry. In January of this year, Foxconn also signed a manufacturing agreement with Byton Motors. The goal is to start mass production of M-Byte models in the first quarter of 2022, and plans to invest US$200 million in Byton Motors.

Eleven days later, Foxconn and Geely established a joint venture to provide third-party automobile production services and provide consulting services related to electric vehicles. Recently, according to a report by the Financial Associated Press, Foxconn will assist Geely in the production of its foundry chips. It is worth mentioning that Foxconn and Geely’s cooperation is not to build a brand together, but to focus on foundry. Therefore, speculation about whether to manufacture for Baidu, Byton, or Apple is aroused by the outside world.

You know, for Apple, Foxconn is its partner for more than ten years, with a production network of more than 1 million employees and more than ten years of mobile phone foundry experience. But on the other hand, although Foxconn has reached cooperation with different car companies, it still lacks experience in the field of automotive foundry.

If you throw away car companies and Foxconn, Apple is looking for top-tier car companies as OEMs are not working. Finding professional car OEMs may be Apple’s only option to continue to complete the “Titan” plan.

From the perspective of the professionalism of OEM automobiles, Magna, the world’s third-largest automotive supplier, has been making complete vehicle models and OEM production for car companies, and has cooperated with BMW and Jaguar Land Rover. High degree of professionalism. Moreover, Magna was the first target of the Apple Titan Project, but when Apple decided to limit the goal to “software only” development, the cooperation between the two parties was also shelved.

Magna OEM vehicle manufacturing, picture source Magna official website

Obviously, Magna, who has served multiple brands, does not want to miss the “money cow” of Apple. In fact, in order to meet the requirements of Apple’s foundry, Magna has taken many positive measures. On the one hand, the company established a joint venture with LG to produce powertrain systems for electric vehicles; on the other hand, Magna has expanded its production capacity in China by focusing on manufacturing zero-emission vehicles.

I have to admit that foundries like Foxconn and Magna have all taken aim at the sexy enough story of Apple making cars. After all, for a company as large as Apple, orders for making cars will surely make them a lot of money. In addition, they may also become the world’s top car foundry if they catch the ride of Apple’s car.

To a large extent, if 2025 to 2030 are regarded as five years of real mutations in the global electric vehicle industry, then there is not much time left for Apple. Therefore, Apple may also choose small car companies and professional OEMs to do OEMs.

After all, everything has to be built first.

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Head image source: Apple

Text: Tencent Technology

According to news on April 23, Apple’s vice president of global marketing Greg Joswiak (Greg Joswiak) said on Wednesday that although the latest iPad Pro uses the M1 processor like the Mac, Apple has not merged the iPad and Mac. Business plan.

Since Apple released the first generation of iPad in 2010, people have been worrying about the identity of this new product category. The history of the iPad has witnessed that it is constantly criticized for being like other products. When the first generation of products was released, the iPad looked like just a bigger iPhone, just a content-consuming device that has become too big; now, it is more often accused of being just a flash-memory Mac as part of Apple’s plan. When the iPad becomes large enough and computing performance is good enough, it will replace more traditional computers.

Many people who follow the latter story believe that Apple’s real plan is not to keep these two devices, but to mix them into one device: a touch-screen Apple Mac, or an iPad that can run macOS, or both. Apple has repeatedly denied this. Craig Federighi, the company’s senior vice president of software engineering, told media at the end of last year that he was surprised by reports that the new desktop operating system design was truly ready.

On Tuesday, Apple released new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros with M1 processors, and a 24-inch iMac that clearly looks like an oversized iPad. This naturally leads people to speculate that the two product lines may merge in the future, but Apple again denies this statement.

In an exclusive interview with foreign media, Joswick and Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus once again emphasized that Apple’s position is that the iPad and Mac are two separate product lines and will continue to do so. Joswick said that Apple has no plans to merge these products. On the contrary, adding Apple-centric processors is one of the company’s continuous efforts to make each product the best product in its own category.

“About iPad and Mac, people like to tell two contradictory stories. On the one hand, people say they conflict with each other. Someone has to decide whether he wants a Mac or an iPad. Or people say we are putting them together. Merging into one: We really have a big conspiracy to eliminate these two categories and make them into one. The reality is not true. We are very proud that we are really very, very hard working in their respective fields Create the best product.”

Tenos added that Apple will not “get into” the theory of mergers. “We are trying to make the best Mac we can make; we are trying to make the best iPad we can make,” he said. When asked why Apple decided to equip the new iPad Pro with the M1 processor instead of the latest A-series processor, Tenos said that the iPad Pro has always been equipped with the best Apple processor. The M1 is currently the “best” processor. Joswick and Tenus also said that installing a new Mini LED display in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a “huge undertaking.”

Source: Tencent Technology

Original title: Apple executives reiterate again: no plan to merge the two major products of iPad and Mac

Recently, Apple’s vice president of global marketing Greg Joswiak and senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus accepted an interview with The Independent. The two executives revealed a lot of information about the company’s future development direction and product planning.

Regarding speculation about the integration of the iPad and Mac product lines, Joswiak responded, At present, Apple does not have the idea of ​​merging the two product lines, they are just trying to make the two products the best products in their respective categories, and will not fall into the “merger” discussion.

When asked why the new iPad Pro uses the M1 chip instead of the A series chip, Ternus said: “ We have been using the best chip for the iPad Pro, and now the best Apple chip is the M1 chip. “The two also discussed the behind-the-scenes story of the new screen for ‌iPad Pro‌.

This is by far the best iPad screen, comparable to Pro Display XDR. The manufacturing team has spent a lot of effort to reduce the thickness of the mini-LED screen, which is a difficult task for Apple. This is by far the best iPad screen, comparable to Pro Display XDR. The manufacturing team has spent a lot of effort to reduce the thickness of the mini-LED screen, which is a difficult task for Apple. In fact, as early as the 2018 WWDC conference, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, explained at the meeting that Apple will not integrate the two product lines. If you consider it from a business perspective, Apple certainly hopes that users can buy iPhone, iPad and Mac at the same time. If there is a competitive relationship between the iPad and the Mac series in product positioning, then users can only buy one device to meet all their needs, which is obviously not in Apple’s commercial interests.

Although Apple has made it clear that it will not merge, Xiao Lei believes that the powerful performance of the iPad Pro will make it more like a “computer” in the future. This year’s new iPad Pro uses up to 16G of running memory and 2T of hard drive. The greater performance of the iPad will definitely drive developers to launch more productive software, and people can use it to complete more daily tasks in the future.

The iPad Pro with a more powerful configuration has also made its product prices higher and higher. Today, the price of the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro is as low as RMB 8,499 and as high as RMB 18,499. In contrast, the lowest price of the MacBook Air is only 7,999 yuan, and the lowest price of the new 24-inch iMac is 9,999 yuan.

For ordinary consumers, the current so high price of the iPad Pro makes it difficult to start. Many people might think why not choose a computer since it’s all at this price? Apple officially said that the iPad Pro will not be merged with the MacBook, but the iPad Pro seems to have “merged” with the price of the computer.

Head image source: Apple

Text: Tencent Technology

According to news on April 23, Apple’s vice president of global marketing Greg Joswiak (Greg Joswiak) said on Wednesday that although the latest iPad Pro uses the M1 processor like the Mac, Apple has not merged the iPad and Mac. Business plan.

Since Apple released the first generation of iPad in 2010, people have been worrying about the identity of this new product category. The history of the iPad has witnessed that it is constantly criticized for being like other products. When the first generation of products was released, the iPad seemed to be just a bigger iPhone, just a content-consuming device that has become too big; now, it is more often accused of being just a flash-memory Mac as part of Apple’s plan. When the iPad becomes large enough and computing performance is good enough, it will replace more traditional computers.

Many people who follow the latter story believe that Apple’s real plan is not to keep these two devices, but to mix them into one device: a touch-screen Apple Mac, or an iPad that can run macOS, or both. Apple has repeatedly denied this, and Craig Federighi, the company’s senior vice president of software engineering, told media at the end of last year that he was surprised by reports that the new desktop operating system design was truly ready.

On Tuesday, Apple released new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros with M1 processors, and a 24-inch iMac that clearly looks like an oversized iPad. This naturally leads people to speculate that the two product lines may merge in the future, but Apple again denies this statement.

In an exclusive interview with foreign media, Joswick and Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus once again emphasized that Apple’s position is that the iPad and Mac are two separate product lines and will continue to do so. Joswick said that Apple has no plans to merge these products. On the contrary, adding Apple-centric processors is one of the company’s continuous efforts to make each product the best product in its own category.

“Regarding iPad and Mac, people like to tell two conflicting stories. On the one hand, people say they conflict with each other. Someone has to decide whether he wants a Mac or an iPad. Or people say we are putting them together. Merging into one: we really have a big conspiracy to eliminate these two categories and make them into one. The reality is not true. We are very proud that we are really very, very hard working in their respective fields Create the best product.”

Tenos added that Apple will not “get into” the theory of mergers. “We are trying to make the best Mac we can make; we are trying to make the best iPad we can make,” he said. When asked why Apple decided to equip the new iPad Pro with the M1 processor instead of the latest A-series processor, Tenos said that the iPad Pro has always been equipped with the best Apple processor. The M1 is currently the “best” processor. Joswick and Tenus also said that installing a new Mini LED display in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a “huge undertaking.”

Source: Tencent Technology

Original title: Apple executives reiterate again: no plan to merge the two major products of iPad and Mac