iirc in the past it was about memory and that larger storage needs more memory for caching.

So this made at least some sense.

I guess yields might be good enough that they can afford to bin with another core in there as well.

Memory is probably still the main reason for binning in the first place.

I figure it's probably just reducing SKUs. The people who care about the fastest chip are likely also the people wanting lots of storage so you can save on having to create a ton more products by bundling them.

My guess is that the lower-tier storage iPad Pro's are getting the "defective" MacBook Pro chips.

Still? They really don't overcharge. The storage they sell is much, much, much faster than what everyone compares it to at lower prices.

You can get Mac Studio 3rd party "SSDs" for less than half the price Apple charges for the same storage, with the same performance, they even use the same flash chips!

Where are you getting this information? Curious because I can't find any evidence that Apple has "much, much, much faster" storage. If anything, Apple storage looks mediocre at best.

For example: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m4-mbp-ssd-speeds.24422....

Compare with: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/crucial-t710....

While it is not an Apple to Oranges comparison, T710 seems 80% faster for writing big files, and for $279.99 - $299.99 for 2TB this is still much cheaper than whatever Apple is offering.

If you have a better reference (specially if there is something that is cross platform), I would be interested.

Evidence?