The only real exception is the new Smart Connector I mentioned earlier. Apple introduced it in 2015 as a way to magnetically attach accessories to the original iPad Pro, and since then, the connector has been slowly working its way down into more reasonably priced tablets like the iPad Air. That means for the first time, you can snap one of Apple's $160 Smart Keyboards onto the cheap iPad. Despite the hate it tends to get, I had no trouble bashing out my review on it. It's not an ideal keyboard -- its keys aren't backlit and the short travel will feel weird for some people -- but the fact that it doubles as a screen cover makes it more valuable than a Bluetooth keyboard.

I'm glad the Smart Connector is here; I'm less glad that few companies have bothered to do anything with it. Apple has that keyboard case. Logitech has a charging base and a handful of slim connector keyboards complete with backlit keys, and... well, that's about it. Maybe now that the Smart Connector is available on nearly every new iPad, its ecosystem of accessories will start to blossom. Until then, there's a decent chance you're never actually going to use this thing.

I have to say, I wish the iPad came with more storage. For $329 you get you a tablet with 32GB of space, which might be perfectly manageable if your music library lives in services like Spotify and if you mostly stream your movies instead of downloading them. But let's say you're buying into Apple's new vision of itself as a services company and want to download a bunch of Apple Arcade games or save a few episodes of a TV show for a flight. That's when extra storage would come in handy. Now that the iPhone 7 has been discontinued, you can't buy a new phone with less than 64GB of space. In 2019, that should apply to iPads too.