Apple devices are the best Black Friday sellers at Target

Cyber Monday 2015 shoppers looking to save some money on Microsoft’s Surface family of Windows 2-in-1s and convertibles are in for a treat. Microsoft’s retail and online stores have a few deals on the tablets that Microsoft thinks can replace a notebook PC. Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is offering the base iMac available for $949.99, $150 off the regular price, or a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Yes, Apple’s relationship with Target is a successful one.

That’s not to say that the iPad Pro is a crummy device. This decision reaffirms the country’s importance to Apple’s go-to-market strategy, with China offering Apple much-needed volume and growth potential. The iPad Air 2 had used a triple-core CPU rather than Apple’s traditional dual-core, and many expected that the manufacturer would continue this with the iPad Pro, assuming it didn’t move to a quad-core.

Apple Watch and iPad positioned themselves in the top-ten ranking of Target’s best-selling products list on this holiday.

“But more recently”, Huang adds, “consumers have shown a growing preference for smartphones with relatively large screen sizes (for example, phablets)”. This development affected tablet sales in 2014, which led to questions around the product category’s relevance and use cases. Both of those devices arrived on store shelves this past October.

But with iPad sales flagging, Apple has decided that the device needs to be much more than it has been.

Speaking of screens, the one on the new iPad Pro is lovely and sharp. To put this in perspective, that’s twice as many graphics cores as are located in the iPhone 6s’ A9 chip. In fact, Apple products did very well during Black Friday at the stores.

Tablet market revenue worldwide is expected to decline because of intensified competition, demand from lower-income segments, government contracts with volume discounts and a preference for affordable Wi-Fi tablets.

There appeared to be an increase in sales of Apple Watch in Target as well as elsewhere. Bidness Etc’s first impression of the iPad Pro was that the gadget had a strong, unprecedented class that other tablets do not possess. The iPad Pro can make up any resultant performance deficiencies through a combination of higher efficiency, thanks to the new architecture, as well as the large clock speed boost compared to the A8 designs. Furthermore, it will need to better support accessories from partners, in addition to its two new accessories: the stylus pen and keyboard. Hardware features such as a USB port, display port, and other options are possibly missing because Apple did not want to make the tablet any heavier than it already is.