I wasn't planning on buying an iPad Air, as I'm still happy with my iPad 2, but that comparison chart on the first page really sold me that the iPad Air is the first real upgrade to the iPad 2.
My only complaint is I want high capacity, and I find it so ridiculous that to go from 16GB to 64GB I have to pay $200 extra. Two hundred dollars for 48GB. I think the last time I paid that much for 48GB was ten years ago.
Edit:
I wish Apple would put a microSD reader on the iPad. Purely for storage expansion. I realize they don't do this because it would basically kill their storage upgrade options and they'd probably lose money. No one would feel compelled to upgrade beyond 16GB.
microSD readers exist on the smallest devices nowadays, so form factor or weight is certainly no excuse.
I think the main reason that Apple doesn't include MicroSD is that they want to control the entire product experience, including data ingress and egress. Not only to protect lucrative margins, but also because they know that if the user screws something up by deleting files off the SD card etc, they'll blame Apple whether that's fair or not.
That assertion of control makes iOS unsuitable for many users, but Apple has consciously chosen a market segment and its proven itself a large one.
They do sell an SD card reader for iPad, don't they? A lot of people use it to offload their large photos and videos from the device.
I agree that Apple's memory upgrades are expensive (and probably account for a fair chunk of their margin). Supporting an SD card would necessitate a huge re-thinking of many parts of iOS, and create another point of failure and support. I dislike the way Android handles SD cards and prefer just to have more internal memory, it's a nicer experience not to explicitly manage that.
I think Apple should just charge less for memory instead.
I'd love to be able to expand my wifes iPad, but I think Apple don't offer it (the ability to expand the capacity) for two reasons, the first of which is price - the retail difference between 16Gb and 128Gb is almost pure profit.
The second resaon though, is that it introduces a level of complexity Apple are unlikely to be comfortable with[1]. Users now have to be aware of where stuff is being saved (flash or sd card), and the OS UI needs to be updated to provide this option.
[1] unfortunately, iCloud seems to wildly disprove my point ...
I was so happy to find a free program to transfer off videos and what-not, but it's still a hassle to have to do so manually ever time it fills up. I wind up using the iPad to capture video so often just because it is what is at hand.
It's not just storage upgrade options that keep Apple from adding external storage, I think. With the way the sandbox works, how would apps be allowed to read/write to an external device? That would allow them to escape the sandbox and do IPC, wouldn't it?
Wow, Apple is still skimping on RAM at the expense of user experience. It would've been a great time to bump the RAM up to 2GB given the switch to 64-bit iOS 7 seems to be causing 20-30% higher memory consumption. It was already kind of bad on previous gen 32-bit iPads.
It's still tempting to upgrade from the brick that the iPad 3 now feels but I'll live with it until the one with finger print reader, more RAM and fully baked iOS 7.1.x are out.
If they ship an ipad with 2GB, developers will start to use 2GB and then apps will run like crap on older models. Then people will complain about forced obsolescence. (Source: the dozens of comments I've read from people complaining their 512MB iOS device has been rendered useless.)
Something's gotta give - after sticking to 1GB on 4 generations users would hardly complain about the newer one having more RAM - that's just technological progress. Macs no longer have 2GB RAM for example. Secondly developers would be stupid to use more RAM just because they can - if their app only runs on the latest iPad, I'd say that would be a big issue.
I'm not going to hold my breath on the actual RAM number until we see an iFixit teardown. Due to just the shear size, the iPad mini has always had half the ram as the regular sized iPad. I wouldn't be surprised if the Air had 2GB and the Mini had 1 GB.
>The iPad Air, like the iPhone 5s, ships with 1GB of LPDDR3 memory. Apple frowns upon dissection of review samples but I think it’s a safe bet that we’re not talking about a PoP (Package-on-Package) configuration but rather discrete, external DRAM here. It’s also probably a safe bet that even the iPad mini with Retina Display will ship with 1GB of memory as well.
Yes, in this case more RAM is arguably the better trade off. Less need to reload apps and browser tabs, better multitasking performance etc. are good things to have over the 15 min or whatever of battery loss it might take to power on additional 1GB of LPDDR3 RAM. It's just a vastly better user experience for the common use cases. (Besides there are other tablets with 2GB RAM and they come very close to iPad in terms of battery life so it shouldn't be that big of an issue.)
Right. But it still seems to be an overall increase of 20-30% for lightest of the use cases.
>In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment. At worst, the device’s total memory usage never exceeded 60% of what ships with the platform but these are admittedly fairly light use cases. With more apps open, including some doing work in the background, I do see relatively aggressive eviction of apps from memory. The most visible case is when Safari tabs have to be reloaded upon switching to them. Applications being evicted from memory don’t tend to be a huge problem since the A7 can reload them quickly.
> It seemed like a foregone conclusion that the 10-inch tablet market was done for, with all interest and excitement shifting to smaller, but equally capable 7 or 8-inch tablets instead.
Did I miss something? I've been happy with my 10" ipad for years and, especially with the 2048x1536 display, have never felt the need to go smaller. I know most of the android tablets are smaller, but I've been completely satisfied. I suppose I've never used the ipad mini, so it might be all that and a bag of chips.
Is this really the trend? It wouldn't be the first to pass me by, but I'm still surprised.
I completely agree. I love my current iPad and don't want a smaller form factor for what I use it for (e.g., reading and small amounts of typing, Duolingo every morning). I already have a smaller form factor device that is wearable but painful to read or type on for bigger jobs (my phone) and a larger device with a full size keyboard for doing lots of typing and serious work (laptop). I welcome the iPad Air because it is the device I enjoy the most but faster and lighter.
Going down to 7" has a drastic effect on portability. You can fit a Nexus 7 into a coat pocket and use it much more comfortably while standing, which is a really big deal for a large part of the market. A 7" tablet isn't much worse than a 10" when used on your sofa, but it is vastly better on a crowded train. I think that the 7" form factor is the sweet spot between a smartphone and a Macbook Air, and that 10" tablets are becoming a niche item.
As usual Anandtech has one of the best reviews. My only complaint is the CPU benchmarks are more or less useless. I understand there aren't any good cross platform benchmarks right now but using JS benchmarks is completely inaccurate. Not only are there major variations between scores on the same device (across different browsers and versions) but the same browser isn't even available on both platforms.
I'd love to see how the A7 really stacks up against the Snapdragon/Tegra but it doesn't seem like we'll be seeing that any time soon.
No one does reviews like Anand—even other reviewers at Anandtech. When I see him as the author, I know I'm in for a treat. I mean, down to the metal, and a full understanding and clear explanation of what it means! Just top quality, every single time, even going back ten or fifteen years to the Pentium and Athlon era. I learned so much from his clear and passionate explanations of CPU structure and design decisions.
I still love that the author name link goes straight to his e-mail address. I think I'll thank him directly.
I'm trying to understand how you would use that information. Other than "product dimensions" and "product weight", why do you need to calculate/know more? It's interesting and all - I just don't guess I see what the value of knowing the g/cm3 is.
One thing that I think gives the iPad a considerable advantage is its 4:3 aspect ratio. Despite having larger bezels on the ends than the sides, it's an inch shorter than a Nexus 10 in its largest dimension.
The article mentioned 10" tablets and 15" laptops seeming to be on the way out. The difference in largest dimension is even more pronounced with laptops. The last 15" 4:3 Thinkpad was 13.2" wide. The current 15" 16:9 models are 14.7" wide. It's about the same thickness and weight with less depth, but it seems like a much bigger machine because its largest dimension is bigger.
Looks like Apple hit home runs with all of their updates this cycle. Interestingly I haven't seen this universal praise for any other Apple update cycle before. Unfortunately I am not in the market for any device right now.
I would disagree that they hit homeruns on everything. The most obvious "single" would be the iPhone 5C which, by all accounts, is underselling expectations significantly. As a consumer, Apple "lost the game" by not introducing an iPhone with a larger screen size. Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen. If Apple had introduced a 5" screen iPhone this cycle, how many would they have sold? I can't tell you how many people who have, this year, switched from long time iPhones to Samsung/HTC for this reason (my family included).
That said, I'm buying the iPad Air as an upgrade to my iPad 2 and I'll be updating my 2011 MBP as well because I think they've really hit homeruns for those two.
> The most obvious "single" would be the iPhone 5C which, by all accounts, is underselling expectations significantly.
Hrm? Apple's first-week iPhone sales significantly beat analyst estimates and their own records. It doesn't seem plausible that those were all 5Ses.
> Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen.
HTC are not doing well in the phone market. As for Samsung, the Note 3 managed 5 million channel sales in one month, with total sales of the series over a couple of years of only 40 million. 40 million sales over two years is a drop in the bucket for Samsung's sales; the bulk of their sales are of low-end devices (with small screens).
> If Apple had introduced a 5" screen iPhone this cycle, how many would they have sold?
Well, I know I wouldn't have bought one, whereas I did buy a 5S. Not everyone wants giant phones.
> Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they
> offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen.
Not sure that's supported by the data. Do you have a specific reason for assuming that and not one of the countless other differences is the reason why people pick, say, an HTC or Samsung over an iPhone? (As in: preference for Android; availability; etc.)
"The most obvious "single" would be the iPhone 5C which, by all accounts, is underselling expectations significantly."
No one has proven this, it's just a rumour circling the internet. Anecdotally I've seen plenty 'in the wild', but potentially not as many as the 5S (hard to tell aside from the gold), so it's unclear whether it's been a sales disappointment.
The device I really wish exists is an iPad Air minus the computing power. Just a screen to stream videos to from a iPhone, a laptop or a cable box. A portable screen that's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame.
Surprisingly this is for my parents. They watch videos all the time and watching videos on an iPhone is too small, on a laptop is too bulky and on an iPad is too expensive.
You're out of luck, the processor costs something like $10, taking it it out would hardly nudge the price. Get a cheap android tablet or a mini LED projector instead.
The processor alone would barely nudge the price, but removing the NAND, RAM, and camera modules along with it definitely would make huge difference. Even more if you can kill the touchscreen.
Unfortunately, the resulting product is also an incredibly limited niche.
This is where I'm leaning right now. A sub $200 Android tablet. But there's something to be said about not having to learn a whole new interview for my parents.
Apple TV doesn't suit their needs? Sit down on couch, take phone out of pocket, Air Play to TV. Do they watch videos a lot away from the room where the TV is located?
(I don't have an Apple TV, so maybe Air Play is not as convenient as I have been led to believe.)
This is basically why I bought an Apple TV for my parents. There's a good chance if a video loads on an apple device that it can be streamed to an Apple TV. They were watching videos all the time on iPads and the TV in the living room wasn't being used anymore.
Readit News
My only complaint is I want high capacity, and I find it so ridiculous that to go from 16GB to 64GB I have to pay $200 extra. Two hundred dollars for 48GB. I think the last time I paid that much for 48GB was ten years ago.
Edit:
I wish Apple would put a microSD reader on the iPad. Purely for storage expansion. I realize they don't do this because it would basically kill their storage upgrade options and they'd probably lose money. No one would feel compelled to upgrade beyond 16GB.
microSD readers exist on the smallest devices nowadays, so form factor or weight is certainly no excuse.
That assertion of control makes iOS unsuitable for many users, but Apple has consciously chosen a market segment and its proven itself a large one.
There's probably some correlation between simple(r) products and good customer service.
I agree that Apple's memory upgrades are expensive (and probably account for a fair chunk of their margin). Supporting an SD card would necessitate a huge re-thinking of many parts of iOS, and create another point of failure and support. I dislike the way Android handles SD cards and prefer just to have more internal memory, it's a nicer experience not to explicitly manage that.
I think Apple should just charge less for memory instead.
The second resaon though, is that it introduces a level of complexity Apple are unlikely to be comfortable with[1]. Users now have to be aware of where stuff is being saved (flash or sd card), and the OS UI needs to be updated to provide this option.
[1] unfortunately, iCloud seems to wildly disprove my point ...
http://www.digidna.net/diskaid/features/iphone-photos-transf...
Otherwise, I have an iPad 3 and played with the iPad 2. The difference in the retina display is enough for me.
Wow, Apple is still skimping on RAM at the expense of user experience. It would've been a great time to bump the RAM up to 2GB given the switch to 64-bit iOS 7 seems to be causing 20-30% higher memory consumption. It was already kind of bad on previous gen 32-bit iPads.
It's still tempting to upgrade from the brick that the iPad 3 now feels but I'll live with it until the one with finger print reader, more RAM and fully baked iOS 7.1.x are out.
If Apple doesn't let its apps get more intricated, competitors will do it first...
Also, Apple has the power to mandate that all apps have to run well on whatever old hardware Apple wants to keep supported. There's no good excuse.
I've not read about this. Can you cite a source?
>The iPad Air, like the iPhone 5s, ships with 1GB of LPDDR3 memory. Apple frowns upon dissection of review samples but I think it’s a safe bet that we’re not talking about a PoP (Package-on-Package) configuration but rather discrete, external DRAM here. It’s also probably a safe bet that even the iPad mini with Retina Display will ship with 1GB of memory as well.
Might that not have also been due to the iPad mini having a non-Retina display? Or does system RAM not matter much for that?
>In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment. At worst, the device’s total memory usage never exceeded 60% of what ships with the platform but these are admittedly fairly light use cases. With more apps open, including some doing work in the background, I do see relatively aggressive eviction of apps from memory. The most visible case is when Safari tabs have to be reloaded upon switching to them. Applications being evicted from memory don’t tend to be a huge problem since the A7 can reload them quickly.
Did I miss something? I've been happy with my 10" ipad for years and, especially with the 2048x1536 display, have never felt the need to go smaller. I know most of the android tablets are smaller, but I've been completely satisfied. I suppose I've never used the ipad mini, so it might be all that and a bag of chips.
Is this really the trend? It wouldn't be the first to pass me by, but I'm still surprised.
I'd love to see how the A7 really stacks up against the Snapdragon/Tegra but it doesn't seem like we'll be seeing that any time soon.
No one does reviews like Anand—even other reviewers at Anandtech. When I see him as the author, I know I'm in for a treat. I mean, down to the metal, and a full understanding and clear explanation of what it means! Just top quality, every single time, even going back ten or fifteen years to the Pentium and Athlon era. I learned so much from his clear and passionate explanations of CPU structure and design decisions.
I still love that the author name link goes straight to his e-mail address. I think I'll thank him directly.
Also agree that any benchmarks are useless. We need to code for the lowest common platform, in order to get the best sales.
Well it's just that. Apple is promoting their size/weight ratio so I just wanted to know there progress. Nothing more nothing less ;)
An excelent flotation device, if a tad small ...
I guess the volume is off by one order of magnitude - a paper notepad of 20 x 30 x 1 centimeters would be 600 cm3.
The article mentioned 10" tablets and 15" laptops seeming to be on the way out. The difference in largest dimension is even more pronounced with laptops. The last 15" 4:3 Thinkpad was 13.2" wide. The current 15" 16:9 models are 14.7" wide. It's about the same thickness and weight with less depth, but it seems like a much bigger machine because its largest dimension is bigger.
That said, I'm buying the iPad Air as an upgrade to my iPad 2 and I'll be updating my 2011 MBP as well because I think they've really hit homeruns for those two.
Hrm? Apple's first-week iPhone sales significantly beat analyst estimates and their own records. It doesn't seem plausible that those were all 5Ses.
> Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen.
HTC are not doing well in the phone market. As for Samsung, the Note 3 managed 5 million channel sales in one month, with total sales of the series over a couple of years of only 40 million. 40 million sales over two years is a drop in the bucket for Samsung's sales; the bulk of their sales are of low-end devices (with small screens).
> If Apple had introduced a 5" screen iPhone this cycle, how many would they have sold?
Well, I know I wouldn't have bought one, whereas I did buy a 5S. Not everyone wants giant phones.
No one has proven this, it's just a rumour circling the internet. Anecdotally I've seen plenty 'in the wild', but potentially not as many as the 5S (hard to tell aside from the gold), so it's unclear whether it's been a sales disappointment.
Surprisingly this is for my parents. They watch videos all the time and watching videos on an iPhone is too small, on a laptop is too bulky and on an iPad is too expensive.
Unfortunately, the resulting product is also an incredibly limited niche.
(I don't have an Apple TV, so maybe Air Play is not as convenient as I have been led to believe.)