I have a feeling there is a very large number of people just waiting for the shoe to drop

Of course. Backwards compatibility for Nintendo died with the original Wii. That’s almost certainly never coming back.

For legal reasons I am required to inform you that I am not a financial advisor. In fact, I am not real.

Now you have the time to actually write up a design document and let your half-baked idea become a fully cooked one before you drop a bunch of cash on it

It isn’t a waste if people buy it. Putting M4s in the iPad lets them market it to rubes who think bigger number is better without reading the spec sheet or understanding their own requirements, and if they’re already manufacturing M4s to put in other things, that’s one less production line that needs to run. Sure, they could release an iPad Cheapass Edition with an M1 in it and sell it comfortably at a profit for like $80, but the market for those is likely to be small, they won’t make nearly the overhead profit that the M4 iPad will, it requires an entire extra production line setup, and most importantly it isn’t flashy enough for Apple. They don’t want to release a product that feels cheap, even if it was specifically intended to be cheap. It’s bad brand optics and they care about that a lot. Let China sell a bunch of bootleg tablets to people that want them, they’re gonna do that anyway regardless if Apple gets in the train or not, and this way Apple isn’t tarnishing their product lineup with a PoorPad^TM

Plenty of room in the back

who was against interracial marriage until his own

No, he’s still on record voting against interracial marriage while being actively in one.

Also a market there. Especially among programmers. You might be onto something.

Haven’t seen a new car that can play tapes in nearly 20 years. Got bad news, boss.

I don’t know what “right” key wording you want if not the exact model and part number.