After iPad Air, will Apple make an iPad Pro?

SAN FRANCISCO -- The biggest news from Apple's product launch event Tuesday was the new name for the company's flagship 9.7-inch tablet, the iPad Air.

The name is fueling speculation that Apple may be developing a high-end tablet called an iPad Pro for work tasks that are currently performed on PCs.

"The name change is likely intentional. Everything that Apple articulates it does for a reason," says Will Power, an analyst at RW Baird. "Developing an iPad that is better designed for productivity is something that could very well make sense."

Apple already makes this distinction with its line of laptop and notebook computers, calling the slimmer version the MacBook Air and the more expensive, heavier-duty model the MacBook Pro. It also offers a Mac mini, a small desktop computer, and uses that word to describe the 7.9-inch iPad.

"This would seem to leave room for a 'Pro' model at some point if a market for a higher performance tablet exists," Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, wrote in a note to investors after Apple unveiled the iPad Air Tuesday.

There may well be a huge market for a tablet that can do most of the tasks office workers need to get done, such as word processing, creating presentations and crunching numbers in spreadsheets.

This year, more than 300 million PCs are expected to ship, compared to just over 180 million tablets, according to Gartner estimates.

Apple has sold 170 million iPads so far and most of these devices are used for "consumptive purposes" such as playing games and watching video, rather than productivity, RW Baird's Power noted.

"Put that 170 million number in the context of the number of PCs out there," the analyst said. "There's still a significant growth opportunity for tablets and Apple is trying to find ways to further segment the market."

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays, reckons Apple may launch a larger, 13 inch iPad for the enterprise market. Such a move may be crucial for Apple to avoid being considered a one-product company, he argued in a note to investors recently.

When Apple unveiled new iPhones in September, the devices came with a 64-bit processor and free versions of the company's iWork suite of business software, including the Keynote presentation app and Pages and Numbers apps.

On Tuesday, Apple said iWork would be free with the purchase of every new Mac and iOS device, including iPads. The productivity suite is also available as a free download for many existing Apple gadgets. And the same 64-bit processor powers the new iPads unveiled this week.

"64-bit is really only required in devices that carry 4-5GB of RAM. What are the chances iPhone users really need either of these features?" Reitzes wrote in his recent note. "They don't but iPad users do -- and will."

64-bit architecture has a higher level of security that will make it easier for business to move to Apple products, Munster noted.

Apple is "seeding" its iOS install base for a real second run at the PC market with an iPad or convertible type product that does what Microsoft's Surface tablet was supposed to do, Barclays' Reitzes explained.

Apple executive Bob Mansfield was put in charge of special projects earlier this year and he may be working on this enterprise push, the analyst added.

During Tuesday's launch event, Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to poke fun at Microsoft and its Surface tablets, saying that some Apple rivals want to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs.

Those comments suggest that a higher-end iPad from Apple may not be a complete replacement for PCs, according to Tony Sacconaghi of Sanford C. Bernstein.

He thinks a "converged device" -- a notebook with a touch screen that can seamlessly fold into a tablet and weighs 2 lbs or less -- is more likely.

"A a successful converged device offered by Apple could be a huge opportunity, adding tens of billions of dollars in net incremental revenues," the analyst wrote in a note to investors Wednesday.

It would also be a big threat to standalone tablet and PC growth going forward, he added.

Follow Alistair Barr on Twitter: @alistairmbarr.