Wired just updated its comprehensive iPad buyer's guide for 2025, breaking down Apple's entire tablet lineup to help consumers navigate the company's increasingly complex product matrix. The guide highlights which models deliver the best value and which ones to skip, addressing the confusion created by Apple's four different Apple Pencil variants and overlapping iPad generations.
Wired just published its definitive iPad buying guide for 2025, and it reveals just how complicated Apple's tablet strategy has become. What started as a simple product line now spans multiple generations with confusing compatibility matrices that even tech-savvy consumers struggle to navigate.
The most glaring example? Apple now sells four different Apple Pencil models simultaneously, each with different price points and iPad compatibility. The original Lightning-connector Pencil still sells for $99, while the newer USB-C version drops to $70 but sacrifices pressure sensitivity. The discontinued second-generation model at $129 works with older iPad Pros, but the new $99 Pencil Pro only supports the latest iPad Air and Pro models.
"It's only compatible with the iPad Air (M2 and M3), iPad Pro (M4 and M5), and 7th-gen iPad Mini," Wired's Julian Chokkattu notes about the Pencil Pro. "C'mon, why isn't it backward-compatible?"
This fragmentation reflects Apple's broader challenge in managing a product line that's evolved from a single device into a complex ecosystem. The company discontinued the second-generation Apple Pencil, forcing users with older iPad Pros to either stick with aging hardware or upgrade their entire setup.
Wired's guide goes beyond just iPads, testing everything from the $50 Zugu Case ("our favorite folio case") to the $260 Logitech Combo Touch keyboard. The publication's hands-on approach reveals practical insights that spec sheets miss - like how the Satechi M1 Wireless Mouse lasted four months on a single charge during testing.
The accessories landscape tells its own story about Apple's ecosystem strategy. Third-party manufacturers like Logitech, Twelve South, and Paperlike have built entire product lines around iPad compatibility, creating a secondary market that often delivers better value than Apple's own accessories.
Particularly telling is Wired's praise for the Mageasy CoverBuddy Case, which solves a problem created by allowing users to keep their case on while connecting to the Magic Keyboard. "This case allows you to magnetically connect it to Apple's Magic Keyboard case without having to take off the case each time," the review explains.
