Report: Apple iPad 2 Tablet on Chopping Block

Apple (AAPL) is set to discontinue selling its venerable iPad 2 tablet in favor of shifting sales to its newer iPad Mini and iPad Air models, according to a report in AppleInsider.

The vendor’s plans to put the popular, three-year-old tablet on the chopping block stem from sales data showing customers are migrating to its newer Retina display-equipped iPad Mini and iPad Air models, with the former selling for the same $399 price as the iPad 2 in its base configuration and the latter priced at $100 more. The non-Retina iPad Mini sells for $299.

Apple’s iPad 2, which runs on an A5 processor and does not feature a Retina display, has outlasted both the poorly received iPad 3 and the iPad 4, which was displaced by the iPad Air last October. Knocking out the iPad 2 will leave Apple’s iPad lineup with the iPad Mini Retina and non-Retina models and the iPad Air. At this point, there’s no word how the vendor will handle continued support for those iPad 2 models in use out there in the wild.

When it first hit the market, the iPad 2 promptly killed off its predecessor owing to a number of fancy new features, including Apple’s magnetic Smart Cover accessory, a front-facing camera and, of all things, the vendor offered it in white in addition to black.

AppleInsider noted Apple’s move to drop the iPad 2 maps to a prediction famed KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo made late last year when he forecast the end of the tablet’s long life, based on data showing the vendor had lined up but 300,000 units of the model to sell in Q1 2014. In the recently completed quarter, Apple sold some 26 million iPad units, a 13.5 percent jump from the same period last year, but did not break out its tablet sales by model.