iPad Air Graphics Performance 40-70% Better Than iPad 4

and so was the performance of most of apple new idevices performance compared to the old ones on paper...did that change anything for general user base.

Summary, use what works for you...iPad 2 of iPad invisible.

Kendo said:

So instead of wanting it for its screen, light weight, fast speed, and thin profile in order to view the web and consume content...you want it so you can keep scanning your finger? Why punish yourself for an entire year just to get Touch ID?

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He has an iPad 3. While it might be a big jump in benchmarks to the Air, performance in day to day will be similar to existing units. His 3 already has retina. So unless the weight/size of the 3 is unbearable to him... it would only make sense to wait for a feature he wants before upgrading.

Btw, touch ID is awesome if you have long passwords and not 4 digit codes.

kcamfork said:

Agreed. Sigh... What would have been the cost difference? Like... $2 to put in 1GB more?

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Except that they couldn't increase the price by $2 ($499 -> $501?) as it would look a bit silly. So...they're cutting the costs wherever they can, while maintaining the existing price points. I'm saying that, of course, as I would have also simply loved to have 2GB of RAM in the new iPad Air.

legioxi said:

He has an iPad 3. While it might be a big jump in benchmarks to the Air, performance in day to day will be similar to existing units. His 3 already has retina. So unless the weight/size of the 3 is unbearable to him... it would only make sense to wait for a feature he wants before upgrading.

Btw, touch ID is awesome if you have long passwords and not 4 digit codes.

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Do you own an iPad 3? I've had one since launch. The thing freezes and hangs up just visiting the App Store and iTunes. Even browsing Apple's main iPad website drops it to its knees. I'm not talking a stutter, I mean a complete freeze for a few seconds followed by jerky scrolling.

Touch ID is a good feature, but I can't imagine punishing myself for one more year with the 3 considering the new iPad has 5x the performance along with the complete design change and lighter weight.

I'm all in

I have been waiting for this new iPad for quite some time now. I have the 1st Generation iPad and have "suffered" with iOS5 (end-of-life) and super-slow & crashing apps for too long. I will pre-order online at midnight on Halloween and do the in-store pickup on Friday night. If I had an iPad 2, 3 or 4 I probably couldn't justify the upgrade just yet. Psyched!

wait, didn't the keynote claim the iPad Air had x2 the graphics power of the iPad 4?

michaelbarrett1 said:

I have been waiting for this new iPad for quite some time now. I have the 1st Generation iPad and have "suffered" with iOS5 (end-of-life) and super-slow & crashing apps for too long. I will pre-order online at midnight on Halloween and do the in-store pickup on Friday night. If I had an iPad 2, 3 or 4 I probably couldn't justify the upgrade just yet. Psyched!

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You are definitely overdue. I can't even imagine still hanging on to the 1st gen. That thing is a dinosaur by now. Amazing how quickly technology moves.

iChrist said:

Most apps are simplistic and require about 5% of that processing power. The more demanding ones are games, which are for children.

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It's like you give a kid a whole garage of tools to make something with, to better life, and they just reach down and play with their own single-serving tool.

Kendo said:

Do you own an iPad 3? I've had one since launch. The thing freezes and hangs up just visiting the App Store and iTunes.

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You might need to do a full restore. I have an iPad 3 64 GB since launch and have never had any issues. And other than some sluggishness going back to home screen from an app I really haven't had any slowness with iOS 7.

I wish it was Friday already. Just give me my iPad air

iChrist said:

Yes. No doubt the speed of the new ipad is impressive, but to what end? Most apps are simplistic and require about 5% of that processing power. The more demanding ones are games, which are for children.

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We should have all taken MS up on their offer to trade in iPads for the Surface. Then we could all get down and do some productivity.

yow. said:

wait, didn't the keynote claim the iPad Air had x2 the graphics power of the iPad 4?

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"Up to"

mw360 said:

"Up to"

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Scoundrels!

And here is an issue that the guy who made infinity blade talked about a long time ago. Sure the air has super graphics power, but they need to create apps to the lowest hardware that will be using it and the iPad mini is still being sold so they really have a tough time harnessing all that power since if someone loaded the app on the iPad mini it would lag. I think they can make minor adjustments depending on the device but it seems to not happen very often

michaelbarrett1 said:

I have been waiting for this new iPad for quite some time now. I have the 1st Generation iPad and have "suffered" with iOS5 (end-of-life) and super-slow & crashing apps for too long. I will pre-order online at midnight on Halloween and do the in-store pickup on Friday night. If I had an iPad 2, 3 or 4 I probably couldn't justify the upgrade just yet. Psyched!

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Exactly the same here. I'm psyched too!

I'm using my iPad 1 right now, and it sort of feels weird. I've had this little guy for 3 1/2 years, using it every day.... and little does he know that he'll be replaced in 2 days. I just can't bear to tell him.

mcdj said:

So every paragraph of the anandtech review gets its own headline here?

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They can milk the review for awhile. Nobody does reviews like Anandtech.

Amplelink said:

You are definitely overdue. I can't even imagine still hanging on to the 1st gen. That thing is a dinosaur by now. Amazing how quickly technology moves.

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It was always a choice between spending $500+ for a new one, and is that $500+ worth it for the new features.

kcamfork said:

Agreed. Sigh... What would have been the cost difference? Like... $2 to put in 1GB more?

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Do you really think it's about money?

I think the cost would've been fragmentation, so keeping 1gb RAM in all the latest iOS devices is great news for the millions of people who use older devices, as well as developers.

...

Also worth mentioning, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a whopping 3gb of RAM and judging by the reviews I've read, it's still a poor performing, laggy piece of ****.

bbeagle said:

Exactly the same here. I'm psyched too!

I'm using my iPad 1 right now, and it sort of feels weird. I've had this little guy for 3 1/2 years, using it every day.... and little does he know that he'll be replaced in 2 days. I just can't bear to tell him.

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Just ask Siri to tactfully let your iPad know that it is being replaced, she'll know how to handle it.

P.S. If you get a notification that 'iPad is requesting permission to access your Macrumors comments' just say no. Can you imagine how it would break it's heart (I mean CPU) if it found out that way?

kcamfork said:

Agreed. Sigh... What would have been the cost difference? Like... $2 to put in 1GB more?

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I'd rather pay a little more and have 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage for entry level if Apple can't eat the $10 to do it. As time goes on, more RAM and storage are going to be needed. And the RAM is especially needed to keep it running efficiently for the next 3 years or so.

xensaenigma said:

We should have all taken MS up on their offer to trade in iPads for the Surface. Then we could all get down and do some productivity.

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What do you do with your iPad? Anything that warrants a spec bump? Or do you just like it b/c it's new?

Squilly said:

I find it surprising that the iPad Air is on par with the Nvidia Shield which is meant to be a gaming tablet.

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I'm not. The Tegra 4 debuted back in January 2013. The A7 debuted ~8 months later.

The rate at which mobile chips are going I would very much expect that.

I'm sure whatever Nvidia has next Tegra 5/Logan will move things along. not sure if the gap will be like it is between A6X and the Tegra 4.

But then Apple will have its turn with the A8 or whatever they wish to call it.

Oct 2013

iPhone5s outperforms my iPad4 --> must upgrade to iPad Air

Oct 2014

My iPhone6 outperforms my iPad Air --> must upgrade to iPad Zero Gravity

kcamfork said:

Agreed. Sigh... What would have been the cost difference? Like... $2 to put in 1GB more?

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RAM is not like a processor that can be ramped up or down. It has to stay powered.

Thus, more RAM means worse battery life.

So what does adding more gain you? On a Mac where you run many programs at once, it does a lot! Putting a lot of RAM in your Macbook is a great idea, even if the battery takes a hit. But in an iPad where you only see one app at a time? Well, you get a longer memory footprint for past apps...things further back in time can still load quickly. But you don't get the ability to run more apps at once the way you would on a Mac.

If you're flying through tons of iPad apps, that might matter. If you're constnatnly flipping back and forth between two, though, you may never see the benefit of that extra RAM.

So what you're asking for is a thing that will only benefit some of the people some of the time in certain situations but will definitely kill battery life for everyone all of the time.

Not an attractive idea when you say it like that.

iOS device RAM is not going to grow as quickly or as high as Mac RAM will. The benefits of more RAM quickly taper off when it comes to iOS.

Kendo said:

Do you own an iPad 3? I've had one since launch. The thing freezes and hangs up just visiting the App Store and iTunes. Even browsing Apple's main iPad website drops it to its knees. I'm not talking a stutter, I mean a complete freeze for a few seconds followed by jerky scrolling.

Touch ID is a good feature, but I can't imagine punishing myself for one more year with the 3 considering the new iPad has 5x the performance along with the complete design change and lighter weight.

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Looks like iPads will need to be updated every two years or they will start to run slower.