8 ms·

iPad Air 2

135 points by abhshkdz 12y ago

cryptoz 12y ago
From the Compare page http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/, it looks like the "iPad Air 2" is the first iPad to carry a barometer as an additional sensor. I missed the keynote, did they discuss this? Doesn't seem as usable as a step-counter since it's in a tablet, how does Apple intend to use the barometer for this tablet? Also, is there a single Technical Specifications page for the iPad Air 2? I can't find a list of sensors in the device, outside of the linked Compare page. Edit: Here's the full specs page: http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/specs/ http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/specs/
- snom380 12y ago
  My guess is for location services to provide better altitude accuracy than with GPS alone. That can be used to figure out if your on or below an overpass, if your on the second floor of some building etc and take elevation into account when exercising. Personally I'll certainly use it as I'm a private pilot :)
- ja27 12y ago
  They mentioned the barometer but only briefly.
- shurcooL 12y ago
  Did the iPhone 6 get a barometer sensor too?
  - andrewmunsell 12y ago
    Yes-- both the 6 and 6+
nraynaud 12y ago
I like the mix of units on the front page: "6.1mm, 0.96 pounds". I guess the general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or thousandths?
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "I guess the general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or thousands?" The fractional sizes would get weirded and weirder as they get smaller. 1mm is ~1/32 (5/128ths is a really close approximation, but let's assume nobody is that crazy). Right now it's ~1/4 of an inch Let's say they reduce the size 1mm. Now which sounds better: 5.1mm, or 7/32 of an inch (or 13/64ths, which is more accurate)
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    434g would seem like a reasonable way to express the mass of the thing too.
    - chrisdroukas 12y ago
      Ah, but then you're mucking with the advertising. 0.96 pounds seems so much lighter than 434 grams, right? A similar thing happened to A&W [0] with their "1/3 pound" burger selling fewer than a competitor's "1/4 pound" burger — effectively because "3" is less than "4" and fractions aren't for everyone. [0]http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-pound-burger-ripoff http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-po...
  - nraynaud 12y ago
    what I find crazy is machinists converting between fractions and decimal to work. i can't imagine how many mistakes must have been made because of that.
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      Machinists don't use fractions (in my experience). They just use thousands of an inch.
- jjtheblunt 12y ago
  American here: we all were taught the metric system at least as far back as the early 1970s in elementary school, and I'd say even we don't know why the heck we still see the old English system in use.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Sigh, I love the performance improvements, just wish they had made a larger format one. Can't wait for the ifixit guys to tear it apart. Looking at all the "air" in my old Thinkpad 750C reminded me of how far we have come in terms of making these things practically a single slab.
nnx 12y ago
It is so disappointing that the iPad Mini 3 did not get the A8 upgrade. http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/specs/ http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/specs/
- abc_lisper 12y ago
  Sneaky! I was assuming the brother pads had the same chip. Can't get a mini now.
  - Synaesthesia 12y ago
    The A8 isn't a huge improvement over the A7, and the A7 was a collosal jump in performance, still more than good enough IMO. I mean there are people out there using A5 processors and the A7 is 4-5X faster. The A8 is only about 30% faster at best than the A7.
azurelogic 12y ago
What's really sad is that the iPad mini 3 is an iPad mini 2 with a TouchID sensor. Looks like I'll be saving $100 and getting a mini 2.
- webXL 12y ago
  But you can get the 3 in GOLD! Gold, Jerry... Gold! Edit: Okay, some people are a little sensitive about the lack of new iPad mini features or don't get the reference. It's from Seinfeld. And it's worth noting that Gold is an option now, since apparently gold models are selling well for Apple.
- selectodude 12y ago
  That's so odd. I guess their A8 yields aren't quite up to snuff yet.
kunstmord 12y ago
What's with ditching the 32GB options?
- hrktb 12y ago
  I think it's more that they can't ditch the 16G option for some reason.
  - josu 12y ago
    If they had a 32G entry option less people would buy the 64G one.
    - hrktb 12y ago
      They always offered updates in 100$ steps, and price wise the 64G is where the 32G would usually be. If they really kept the previous logic, the 16G would have been gone and the lineup would start at 32G, or we'd still start at 16G but the 128G would be 100$ higher than it is now. That's on this basis that I was thinking, they couldn't get themselves to start the lineup at 32G. I guess it's the same pressures at play as for the 8G iPhones.
- hibikir 12y ago
  If you check the pricing, what they've done is lower prices of the expansions $100 over what they were before, but somehow left the base models at 16 GB. Yesterday $600 got you 32GB and an A7 processor, while today gets you 64GB and an A8x. So the better question is: how is Apple getting away with selling a 16GB option for $500? It's not really that much space, especially when you take the OS and the space necessary to download updates into account.
  - josu 12y ago
    Most of the people with 16GB models don't even use 50% of the available space. All they use the storage for is photos and videos.
- dkrich 12y ago
stevep98 12y ago
Also no NFC chip. It would have been nice to have some nice point-of-sale capability for merchants who current use square or something similar.
post_break 12y ago
The fastest new processors, whiz bang features, and the boat anchor of 16GB starting memory. At this rate we'll still have new devices in 2020 that start with 16GB. Yes I know it's a sale tactic to get you to "upgrade" to 64GB and recoup some nice profit margin, but 16 is too low for a lot of people, and 64 is a waste. Android suffers this a lot. Brand new high end model $650 phone, 8GB of usable space.
- noarchy 12y ago
  Many people who were sporting a 16GB Air model had to delete a fair bit of content and apps in order to free up the huge amount of space the iOS 8 upgrade required. And this was on Apple's then-latest and greatest tablet. So there are already technical issues with keeping 16GB as the baseline, at least if future upgrades will be like the most recent one.
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    I had the same problem with my gen 4, until I plugged it into my Mac and it did the upgrade with no problems at all. It's not exactly a crippling issue (versus, for example, my three times and now permanently bricked Nexus 7, which needed to be reimaged using command line dev tools after borking itself with auto-updates).
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Agreed. 16gb kind of sucks, especially with the OS growing and growing, yet 64 or 128 are completely beyond the way I use my tablet. 32gb is great. I really hope we'll see a 32gb minimum in 2015 next year. At the same time, there ARE people who don't store anything on their ipad. Like my grandpa. He uses it for mail, news etc on his couch. So it's a bit of a waste to hook up this segment of people with an additional 16gb they'll never touch. And having four different sizes (16,32,64,128) is problematic. At the end of the day though, my grandpa could use a cheap nexus 7 for that type of stuff. The iPad at the end of the day is a very high-end device, yet the entry-level product fills up with the OS, three movies and three large games. So I'm a bit split on this one. But I think next year the time's ripe for 32gb minimum, again we're talking about the premium-spectrum of tablets here that are replacing some of our laptop/desktop life. Of the 16gb you're usually left with 12-14gb...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nikon 12y ago
Looking on the Apple website, there are now _5_ different iPad models to choose from. Sounds silly but it feels so un-Apple to have that many different variations of one product line.
- newppc 12y ago
  Completely agree - I mean there has to be a good amount of people inside Apple who have brought this up already. Maybe they ran the numbers and decided all these options are better than fewer options? I'm counting 22 variations of the iPads for a customer to choose from - http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "Sounds silly but it feels so un-Apple to have that many different variations of one product line." That's a good thing. They're delivering the best hardware and software, why not leave old versions around to make it more affordable for people who can't buy a new device every year? Remember Jobs talked about wanting to change how kids read books and got educated etc. well if you only have the latest models at the highest prices only kids with parents will have access. I like it and I don't think it's too confusing. The power in each is good so the differentiation is mostly price and screen res which is easy enough for people to grasp.
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Absolutely amazing device, but also wholly unexciting. That's completely okay, but I'm left with this feeling 'there's nothing to see here, nothing to discuss'. Curious to see the new screen on the Air 2 in the store, though. Might be a significant difference. As for the mini 3... that's just a mini 2 (2014 version). Literally no change except the fingerprint scanner. I'd call it the '3', too, just to prevent confusion, but it's utterly unremarkable otherwise versus the '2'.
- bobbles 12y ago
  There's no mute switch, so thats something
bsaul 12y ago
i thank the evil lords of screen production issues for the iPad air 2 to remain with the same resolution. Damn, i had a look at this "Size classes" feature a week ago and i REALLY didn't feel like recoding my 40-screens iPad app during the next two weeks. Now i'll have a year, which feels much better.
- Tloewald 12y ago
  Careful examination of the specs reveal the iPad Mini 3 is basically an iPad Mini 2 with touch ID, and less expensive memory options. It doesn't have the CPU, screen, thinness, or improved camera. It's kind of like the iPad 3 which was replaced by the iPad 4 within six months. There may well be an iPad Mini 3S or somesuch early 2015. My guess is the rumored screen production issues for the Air 2 led to the Mini 3 being a less ambitious update.
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    It might get more ram, although I doubt it. Seems like the only unknown factor still.
    - Tloewald 12y ago
      Good point. It does create some very interesting price points. The iPad Mini 2 at 16GB is a really good deal (and definitely worth $50 more than the iPad Mini 1). Similarly, the iPad Mini 3 at 16GB is a terrible deal, but the iPad Mini 3 at 64GB is a much better deal than the iPad Mini 2 at 32 GB. I think Apple has actually done itself a bit of a disservice here -- they should probably have done something like: iPad Mini $229, iPad Mini 2 $299, iPad Mini 3 32GB $399, iPad Mini 3 64GB $499. Instead they have a bunch of SKUs that will just confuse people. But I suspect that they'd planned to roll out an A8X iPad Mini 3 with the new screen and had to pull back from that plan, and this is where they ended up. I frankly find it amazing that Apple can ramp up stuff this effectively, year after year. Consider that they're building a bazillion new screens in a new way and shipping it to a bazillion customers who are going to complain about the smallest defects.
yeasayer 12y ago
Any info about the amount of RAM? They should've bumped it to 2GB. No words about it during presentation, not a single mention in tech specs on apple.com site. If this new iPad still has 1GB of RAM, it's a dealbreaker for me. Lack of RAM causes Safari to reload webpages from inactive tabs, which is a HUGE flaw. It really hurts websurfing experience and I think websurfing is one of the primary purposes of iPad.
- blinkingled 12y ago
  Yeah, no mention of it anywhere - not even indirect. It really is a problem for majority of the people trying to get things done with it. I got a Note 2014 edition with 3GB RAM and though there were initial software hiccups I have stuck with it - rarely do my Chrome tabs reload, background audio die or my RDP session end randomly. Alt+Tab and everything is instantly there. With the latest updates it has become quite smooth - I would say better than the iPad with simple tweaks. Plus I have a uSD slot to throw my music on. If you are looking for even a semi replacement laptop - you could do much better with Android tablets - Note or Nexus 9 if you prefer stock and don't need the stylus.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Agreed, web reading is a huge usecase for me, the biggest one by far, and the one in which I'm most bothered by performance changes. I couldn't care less to get a few frames faster or -5s loading times on some game, or shooting faster photos with my camera on a tablet. I care about browsing, and I have exactly the same issue with reloading webpages. In fact, it's why I use safari over Chrome because Chrome is much worse for me in that regard, despite using Chrome for everything else on every other device and disliking Safari generally. But it's the least bad with having to reload webpages.
- swang 12y ago
  This was a huge problem on the original iPad. I still don't understand why Apple skimps on the RAM.
  - awolf 12y ago
    Less RAM more battery life. Less RAM bigger margins. Two pretty good reasons.
hbosch 12y ago
Surprised to see that the Nexus 9, announced yesterday by Google, can compete almost exactly with this device toe-to-toe (minus the storage options, in which I believe Apple wins). Usually Apple always seems so far ahead.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Also minus the apps. I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork etc. on Android when I had an Android tablet.
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    I consider MS Office on Android and iOS to be superior to iWork. It's definitely not something I consider to be anywhere close to a deciding factor on 'app quality' for either ecosystem.
  - personZ 12y ago
    I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork etc. I have all three of these apps on my iPad. I recently removed iMovie, and never touch Pages choosing to instead use superior options (where there are also superior options on Android). Garageband was interesting for a while (and it is a superlative implementation), but hasn't been intentionally opened by anyone in the family in many, many months. They are good apps, but I doubt they're within even the top 100 most used apps across platforms. They aren't compelling for the average user.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      My point was that they are incredibly high quality.
      - personZ 12y ago
        Sure, but for someone using Facebook, LinkedIn, the web browser, gmail, Google Maps, and so on, the fact that one platform has Garageband and the other doesn't is meaningless, regardless of how well built of an app Garageband may be is.
MattHeard 12y ago
I see that Monument Valley is the "beautiful app" that both Google and Apple are showing off for their devices. [1] http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeverything-1600.jpg http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeveryth... [2] http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-air-2/a/images/overview/apps_large.png http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-air-2/a/images/overview/apps_...
- pradn 12y ago
  Anyone know what the bottom-left app is? It seems to be a puzzle game.
  - morley 12y ago
    That's Monument Valley.
    - pradn 12y ago
      Oh, cool. I thought that referred to one of the photo apps.
- monstermonster 12y ago
  Shame it took 10 minutes to complete it for me. Not sure it was value for money but it looked and felt good.
- w-ll 12y ago
  OT: This video came up in the unity subreddit this morning. Making of Monument Valley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCCC9hQm6MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCCC9hQm6MM Edit: removed time code, but they go into detail about the visual pipeline around the 30min mark.
kaolinite 12y ago
I'm surprised nobody is talking about the Apple SIM which personally I feel is one of the most incredible features they've shipped this year: no more SIM cards, just pick the carrier you want in the Settings app and you're signed up. Fed up with them? Switch carrier in an instant. Going abroad? Switch to a local carrier. Just wow. I really hope they bring this to iPhone. http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-air-2/wireless/ http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-air-2/wireless/ (near the bottom, search for "Apple SIM")
- monstermonster 12y ago
  That's ok until there's a provider that they don't have in their database. This may be a big problem for the smaller virtual operators or calling card outfits.
  - abc_lisper 12y ago
    But apple does update their (baseband?) firmware every now and then, right?
- quinndupont 12y ago
  From what I can tell, it's ONLY those US and UK carriers. So, for example, don't come travelling up to Canada :(
  - GHFigs 12y ago
    If you travel to Canada or anywhere else, you take out the Apple SIM and put in your local SIM.
  - hackerboos 12y ago
    In the UK only EE is participating (as of now) so you can switch from EE to...EE.
- Matoso 12y ago
  On the other hand I'm grandfathered in to an unlimited data plan, If the Apple SIM isn't a swappable card I doubt I'd be able to get unlimited with it. For that matter I'm also not seeing verizon listed as a participating provider, which seems to be cutting out a previously supported demographic.
downandout 12y ago
This is a generally unimpressive upgrade, though I have become addicted to Touch ID and will upgrade my iPad for that specific reason. Touch ID, the iOS UX, and the massive app ecosystem are Apple's competitive advantages these days. For this and probably next year, they will be enough to keep billions of dollars rolling in and the launch day lines long. I think without some real innovation in the next two years though, the tide may start turning.
milhous 12y ago
I don't understand why they continue to omit the LED flash for the camera. Theres no reason to leave it off.
pertinhower 12y ago
Help me. I want to care about this. But what does this model have that will make a substantial, observable improvement over my—say—iPad 3?
- parasubvert 12y ago
  I have an iPad 3, and I bought my father last year's iPad air. The speed difference is large. 802.11ac wifi is also a big deal. With the new one, it's even faster, and touchID is nice. Plus it has the iPhone 6 camera which is truly one of the best mobile device cameras out there.
- Synaesthesia 12y ago
  4-5x the CPU performance, huge improvement in GPU performance, thinner, lighter, better battery life, better wireless connectivity.

135 points by abhshkdz 12y ago

From the Compare page http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/, it looks like the "iPad Air 2" is the first iPad to carry a barometer as an additional sensor. I missed the keynote, did they discuss this? Doesn't seem as usable as a step-counter since it's in a tablet, how does Apple intend to use the barometer for this tablet? Also, is there a single Technical Specifications page for the iPad Air 2? I can't find a list of sensors in the device, outside of the linked Compare page. Edit: Here's the full specs page: http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/specs/ http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/specs/

snom380 12y ago
My guess is for location services to provide better altitude accuracy than with GPS alone. That can be used to figure out if your on or below an overpass, if your on the second floor of some building etc and take elevation into account when exercising. Personally I'll certainly use it as I'm a private pilot :)
ja27 12y ago
They mentioned the barometer but only briefly.
shurcooL 12y ago
Did the iPhone 6 get a barometer sensor too?
- andrewmunsell 12y ago
  Yes-- both the 6 and 6+

nraynaud 12y ago

I like the mix of units on the front page: "6.1mm, 0.96 pounds". I guess the general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or thousandths?

DannyBee 12y ago
"I guess the general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or thousands?" The fractional sizes would get weirded and weirder as they get smaller. 1mm is ~1/32 (5/128ths is a really close approximation, but let's assume nobody is that crazy). Right now it's ~1/4 of an inch Let's say they reduce the size 1mm. Now which sounds better: 5.1mm, or 7/32 of an inch (or 13/64ths, which is more accurate)
- Tloewald 12y ago
  434g would seem like a reasonable way to express the mass of the thing too.
  - chrisdroukas 12y ago
    Ah, but then you're mucking with the advertising. 0.96 pounds seems so much lighter than 434 grams, right? A similar thing happened to A&W [0] with their "1/3 pound" burger selling fewer than a competitor's "1/4 pound" burger — effectively because "3" is less than "4" and fractions aren't for everyone. [0]http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-pound-burger-ripoff http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-po...
- nraynaud 12y ago
  what I find crazy is machinists converting between fractions and decimal to work. i can't imagine how many mistakes must have been made because of that.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Machinists don't use fractions (in my experience). They just use thousands of an inch.
jjtheblunt 12y ago
American here: we all were taught the metric system at least as far back as the early 1970s in elementary school, and I'd say even we don't know why the heck we still see the old English system in use.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Sigh, I love the performance improvements, just wish they had made a larger format one. Can't wait for the ifixit guys to tear it apart. Looking at all the "air" in my old Thinkpad 750C reminded me of how far we have come in terms of making these things practically a single slab.

nnx 12y ago

It is so disappointing that the iPad Mini 3 did not get the A8 upgrade. http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/specs/ http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/specs/

abc_lisper 12y ago
Sneaky! I was assuming the brother pads had the same chip. Can't get a mini now.
- Synaesthesia 12y ago
  The A8 isn't a huge improvement over the A7, and the A7 was a collosal jump in performance, still more than good enough IMO. I mean there are people out there using A5 processors and the A7 is 4-5X faster. The A8 is only about 30% faster at best than the A7.

azurelogic 12y ago

What's really sad is that the iPad mini 3 is an iPad mini 2 with a TouchID sensor. Looks like I'll be saving $100 and getting a mini 2.

webXL 12y ago
But you can get the 3 in GOLD! Gold, Jerry... Gold! Edit: Okay, some people are a little sensitive about the lack of new iPad mini features or don't get the reference. It's from Seinfeld. And it's worth noting that Gold is an option now, since apparently gold models are selling well for Apple.
selectodude 12y ago
That's so odd. I guess their A8 yields aren't quite up to snuff yet.

kunstmord 12y ago

What's with ditching the 32GB options?

hrktb 12y ago
I think it's more that they can't ditch the 16G option for some reason.
- josu 12y ago
  If they had a 32G entry option less people would buy the 64G one.
  - hrktb 12y ago
    They always offered updates in 100$ steps, and price wise the 64G is where the 32G would usually be. If they really kept the previous logic, the 16G would have been gone and the lineup would start at 32G, or we'd still start at 16G but the 128G would be 100$ higher than it is now. That's on this basis that I was thinking, they couldn't get themselves to start the lineup at 32G. I guess it's the same pressures at play as for the 8G iPhones.
hibikir 12y ago
If you check the pricing, what they've done is lower prices of the expansions $100 over what they were before, but somehow left the base models at 16 GB. Yesterday $600 got you 32GB and an A7 processor, while today gets you 64GB and an A8x. So the better question is: how is Apple getting away with selling a 16GB option for $500? It's not really that much space, especially when you take the OS and the space necessary to download updates into account.
- josu 12y ago
  Most of the people with 16GB models don't even use 50% of the available space. All they use the storage for is photos and videos.
dkrich 12y ago

stevep98 12y ago

Also no NFC chip. It would have been nice to have some nice point-of-sale capability for merchants who current use square or something similar.

post_break 12y ago

The fastest new processors, whiz bang features, and the boat anchor of 16GB starting memory. At this rate we'll still have new devices in 2020 that start with 16GB. Yes I know it's a sale tactic to get you to "upgrade" to 64GB and recoup some nice profit margin, but 16 is too low for a lot of people, and 64 is a waste. Android suffers this a lot. Brand new high end model $650 phone, 8GB of usable space.

noarchy 12y ago
Many people who were sporting a 16GB Air model had to delete a fair bit of content and apps in order to free up the huge amount of space the iOS 8 upgrade required. And this was on Apple's then-latest and greatest tablet. So there are already technical issues with keeping 16GB as the baseline, at least if future upgrades will be like the most recent one.
- Tloewald 12y ago
  I had the same problem with my gen 4, until I plugged it into my Mac and it did the upgrade with no problems at all. It's not exactly a crippling issue (versus, for example, my three times and now permanently bricked Nexus 7, which needed to be reimaged using command line dev tools after borking itself with auto-updates).
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Agreed. 16gb kind of sucks, especially with the OS growing and growing, yet 64 or 128 are completely beyond the way I use my tablet. 32gb is great. I really hope we'll see a 32gb minimum in 2015 next year. At the same time, there ARE people who don't store anything on their ipad. Like my grandpa. He uses it for mail, news etc on his couch. So it's a bit of a waste to hook up this segment of people with an additional 16gb they'll never touch. And having four different sizes (16,32,64,128) is problematic. At the end of the day though, my grandpa could use a cheap nexus 7 for that type of stuff. The iPad at the end of the day is a very high-end device, yet the entry-level product fills up with the OS, three movies and three large games. So I'm a bit split on this one. But I think next year the time's ripe for 32gb minimum, again we're talking about the premium-spectrum of tablets here that are replacing some of our laptop/desktop life. Of the 16gb you're usually left with 12-14gb...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

nikon 12y ago

Looking on the Apple website, there are now _5_ different iPad models to choose from. Sounds silly but it feels so un-Apple to have that many different variations of one product line.

newppc 12y ago
Completely agree - I mean there has to be a good amount of people inside Apple who have brought this up already. Maybe they ran the numbers and decided all these options are better than fewer options? I'm counting 22 variations of the iPads for a customer to choose from - http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Sounds silly but it feels so un-Apple to have that many different variations of one product line." That's a good thing. They're delivering the best hardware and software, why not leave old versions around to make it more affordable for people who can't buy a new device every year? Remember Jobs talked about wanting to change how kids read books and got educated etc. well if you only have the latest models at the highest prices only kids with parents will have access. I like it and I don't think it's too confusing. The power in each is good so the differentiation is mostly price and screen res which is easy enough for people to grasp.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago

Absolutely amazing device, but also wholly unexciting. That's completely okay, but I'm left with this feeling 'there's nothing to see here, nothing to discuss'. Curious to see the new screen on the Air 2 in the store, though. Might be a significant difference. As for the mini 3... that's just a mini 2 (2014 version). Literally no change except the fingerprint scanner. I'd call it the '3', too, just to prevent confusion, but it's utterly unremarkable otherwise versus the '2'.

bobbles 12y ago
There's no mute switch, so thats something

bsaul 12y ago

i thank the evil lords of screen production issues for the iPad air 2 to remain with the same resolution. Damn, i had a look at this "Size classes" feature a week ago and i REALLY didn't feel like recoding my 40-screens iPad app during the next two weeks. Now i'll have a year, which feels much better.

Tloewald 12y ago
Careful examination of the specs reveal the iPad Mini 3 is basically an iPad Mini 2 with touch ID, and less expensive memory options. It doesn't have the CPU, screen, thinness, or improved camera. It's kind of like the iPad 3 which was replaced by the iPad 4 within six months. There may well be an iPad Mini 3S or somesuch early 2015. My guess is the rumored screen production issues for the Air 2 led to the Mini 3 being a less ambitious update.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  It might get more ram, although I doubt it. Seems like the only unknown factor still.
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    Good point. It does create some very interesting price points. The iPad Mini 2 at 16GB is a really good deal (and definitely worth $50 more than the iPad Mini 1). Similarly, the iPad Mini 3 at 16GB is a terrible deal, but the iPad Mini 3 at 64GB is a much better deal than the iPad Mini 2 at 32 GB. I think Apple has actually done itself a bit of a disservice here -- they should probably have done something like: iPad Mini $229, iPad Mini 2 $299, iPad Mini 3 32GB $399, iPad Mini 3 64GB $499. Instead they have a bunch of SKUs that will just confuse people. But I suspect that they'd planned to roll out an A8X iPad Mini 3 with the new screen and had to pull back from that plan, and this is where they ended up. I frankly find it amazing that Apple can ramp up stuff this effectively, year after year. Consider that they're building a bazillion new screens in a new way and shipping it to a bazillion customers who are going to complain about the smallest defects.

yeasayer 12y ago

Any info about the amount of RAM? They should've bumped it to 2GB. No words about it during presentation, not a single mention in tech specs on apple.com site. If this new iPad still has 1GB of RAM, it's a dealbreaker for me. Lack of RAM causes Safari to reload webpages from inactive tabs, which is a HUGE flaw. It really hurts websurfing experience and I think websurfing is one of the primary purposes of iPad.

blinkingled 12y ago
Yeah, no mention of it anywhere - not even indirect. It really is a problem for majority of the people trying to get things done with it. I got a Note 2014 edition with 3GB RAM and though there were initial software hiccups I have stuck with it - rarely do my Chrome tabs reload, background audio die or my RDP session end randomly. Alt+Tab and everything is instantly there. With the latest updates it has become quite smooth - I would say better than the iPad with simple tweaks. Plus I have a uSD slot to throw my music on. If you are looking for even a semi replacement laptop - you could do much better with Android tablets - Note or Nexus 9 if you prefer stock and don't need the stylus.
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Agreed, web reading is a huge usecase for me, the biggest one by far, and the one in which I'm most bothered by performance changes. I couldn't care less to get a few frames faster or -5s loading times on some game, or shooting faster photos with my camera on a tablet. I care about browsing, and I have exactly the same issue with reloading webpages. In fact, it's why I use safari over Chrome because Chrome is much worse for me in that regard, despite using Chrome for everything else on every other device and disliking Safari generally. But it's the least bad with having to reload webpages.
swang 12y ago
This was a huge problem on the original iPad. I still don't understand why Apple skimps on the RAM.
- awolf 12y ago
  Less RAM more battery life. Less RAM bigger margins. Two pretty good reasons.

hbosch 12y ago

Surprised to see that the Nexus 9, announced yesterday by Google, can compete almost exactly with this device toe-to-toe (minus the storage options, in which I believe Apple wins). Usually Apple always seems so far ahead.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
Also minus the apps. I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork etc. on Android when I had an Android tablet.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  I consider MS Office on Android and iOS to be superior to iWork. It's definitely not something I consider to be anywhere close to a deciding factor on 'app quality' for either ecosystem.
- personZ 12y ago
  I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork etc. I have all three of these apps on my iPad. I recently removed iMovie, and never touch Pages choosing to instead use superior options (where there are also superior options on Android). Garageband was interesting for a while (and it is a superlative implementation), but hasn't been intentionally opened by anyone in the family in many, many months. They are good apps, but I doubt they're within even the top 100 most used apps across platforms. They aren't compelling for the average user.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    My point was that they are incredibly high quality.
    - personZ 12y ago
      Sure, but for someone using Facebook, LinkedIn, the web browser, gmail, Google Maps, and so on, the fact that one platform has Garageband and the other doesn't is meaningless, regardless of how well built of an app Garageband may be is.

MattHeard 12y ago

I see that Monument Valley is the "beautiful app" that both Google and Apple are showing off for their devices. [1] http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeverything-1600.jpg http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeveryth... [2] http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-air-2/a/images/overview/apps_large.png http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-air-2/a/images/overview/apps_...

pradn 12y ago
Anyone know what the bottom-left app is? It seems to be a puzzle game.
- morley 12y ago
  That's Monument Valley.
  - pradn 12y ago
    Oh, cool. I thought that referred to one of the photo apps.
monstermonster 12y ago
Shame it took 10 minutes to complete it for me. Not sure it was value for money but it looked and felt good.
w-ll 12y ago
OT: This video came up in the unity subreddit this morning. Making of Monument Valley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCCC9hQm6MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCCC9hQm6MM Edit: removed time code, but they go into detail about the visual pipeline around the 30min mark.

kaolinite 12y ago

I'm surprised nobody is talking about the Apple SIM which personally I feel is one of the most incredible features they've shipped this year: no more SIM cards, just pick the carrier you want in the Settings app and you're signed up. Fed up with them? Switch carrier in an instant. Going abroad? Switch to a local carrier. Just wow. I really hope they bring this to iPhone. http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-air-2/wireless/ http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-air-2/wireless/ (near the bottom, search for "Apple SIM")

monstermonster 12y ago
That's ok until there's a provider that they don't have in their database. This may be a big problem for the smaller virtual operators or calling card outfits.
- abc_lisper 12y ago
  But apple does update their (baseband?) firmware every now and then, right?
quinndupont 12y ago
From what I can tell, it's ONLY those US and UK carriers. So, for example, don't come travelling up to Canada :(
- GHFigs 12y ago
  If you travel to Canada or anywhere else, you take out the Apple SIM and put in your local SIM.
- hackerboos 12y ago
  In the UK only EE is participating (as of now) so you can switch from EE to...EE.
Matoso 12y ago
On the other hand I'm grandfathered in to an unlimited data plan, If the Apple SIM isn't a swappable card I doubt I'd be able to get unlimited with it. For that matter I'm also not seeing verizon listed as a participating provider, which seems to be cutting out a previously supported demographic.

downandout 12y ago

This is a generally unimpressive upgrade, though I have become addicted to Touch ID and will upgrade my iPad for that specific reason. Touch ID, the iOS UX, and the massive app ecosystem are Apple's competitive advantages these days. For this and probably next year, they will be enough to keep billions of dollars rolling in and the launch day lines long. I think without some real innovation in the next two years though, the tide may start turning.

milhous 12y ago

I don't understand why they continue to omit the LED flash for the camera. Theres no reason to leave it off.

pertinhower 12y ago

Help me. I want to care about this. But what does this model have that will make a substantial, observable improvement over my—say—iPad 3?

parasubvert 12y ago
I have an iPad 3, and I bought my father last year's iPad air. The speed difference is large. 802.11ac wifi is also a big deal. With the new one, it's even faster, and touchID is nice. Plus it has the iPhone 6 camera which is truly one of the best mobile device cameras out there.
Synaesthesia 12y ago
4-5x the CPU performance, huge improvement in GPU performance, thinner, lighter, better battery life, better wireless connectivity.