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What NO ONE has yet picked up on, including those who work for Mac Rumors, is that now that AAPL is NO longer providing Unit Sales of iPhones, iPads, & Macs (@ Quarterly Earnings Releases), these types of "incremental lower-end improvements" are (& will continue to be) the Norm.

Cook & Co is now after "Incremental Revenue" in every way possible.

They feel they NO longer need to worry about the ASP for any of their products.

You won't hear this on CNBC, & elsewhere, until AFTER they read about it here.

i agree, but I also think they had to do this. This strategy is going to give them a more stable valuation and continued growth. Just speculating but I think this buys the investor another few years of growth in the face of stagnant innovation.
 
I think I will stick with the 10.5 pro. The quad speakers are amazing!

How oftern are you someplace where you can use the external speakers?

I can only speak for my own personal use case, but I hardly ever use the external speakers on my iPad. If I am ever in a situation where I can use external speakers, then chances are that I am watching something on a television screen.

To me, this new iPad Air seems to be targeted at business. It has everything a business person would need. Those options which a business person would not find useful, like quad speakers, have been removed.
 
How oftern are you someplace where you can use the external speakers?

I can only speak for my own personal use case, but I hardly ever use the external speakers on my iPad. If I am ever in a situation where I can use external speakers, then chances are that I am watching something on a television screen.

To me, this new iPad Air seems to be targeted at business. It has everything a business person would need. Those options which a business person would not find useful, like quad speakers, have been removed.
At home... all the time. Worth buying the discontinued pro for on its own
 
I’d be interested to see if the new iPad Air also omits all CDMA 3G support like the new iPad Pros did.

How does the performance compare between the two. Anything you like better on the 11"?

As someone who went from the 10.5” Pro to the 11”, there's a significant bump in performance if you do somewhat intensive work on it. If you’re just doing the day-to-day stuff like iMessage, Email, Safari, etc, you won’t notice any difference at all beyond some more screen real estate.
 
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How much of a discount would that be?

For me, that edu pricing would need to be considerably hefty to dissuade me from that Pro Motion display.
Not so much. Just 5%-ish.

WiFi 64 GB Air is CAD$649, or $619 edu.

Refurb 10.5" WiFi 64 GB Pro in Canada is the exact same $619 price.
 
Not so much. Just 5%-ish.

WiFi 64 GB Air is CAD$649, or $619 edu.

Refurb Pro in Canada is the exact same $619 price.

Like otternonsense questioned earlier, why the heck would you buy this over the 10.5 refurb? I guess they're just hoping for more people to turn up their noses at the idea of a refurbished product?

Damn, my old Air 2 has been more than fine for my needs and now this whole thread has got me feeling that "burning a hole in my pocket" syndrome except there's nothing in the pocket, just the burning...
 
Like otternonsense questioned earlier, why the heck would you buy this over the 10.5 refurb? I guess they're just hoping for more people to turn up their noses at the idea of a refurbished product?

Damn, my old Air 2 has been more than fine for my needs and now this whole thread has got me feeling that "burning a hole in my pocket" syndrome except there's nothing in the pocket, just the burning...
For some usage, the higher CPU speed of the A12 may be an advantage, and also, there is a decent chance that the Air will get updates for longer too, since it's a 2019 product.

However, I bought the refurb Pro. I thought it'd be nice to give ProMotion a whirl. The decent camera with flash, the 4 GB RAM, and the 4 speakers are also a bonus.
 
Glad I am not currently in the market for one. I wouldn't be able to decide between the many options. That new Air will fly with an A12, but no ProMotion or quad sound would make me very sad.
 
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Does anyone know if this is the same chassis as the iPad Pro 10.5 2017, basically so cases etc will fit? Turns out the 5th and 6th gen iPads shared the Air 2013 casing other than the volume controls moving so you could generally use cases you had before but I’m sure many of you had nice cases in the past as I did so this is a decent saving and that A12 is really fast. I’m not surprised they cut ProMotion out - remember when they canned the Air 2 not long after the Pro 9.7” launched as they were extremely similar devices.

I did have the iPad Pro 11 but returned it as it’s so flimsy and the bigger issue of touchscreen sensitivity - a problem that’s been reported a lot on Apple forums so not just me alone. Got an iPad Pro 10.5 refurb but this Air 10.5 might be better still.
 
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What for?

When your concept gets beat by garbage ChromeBooks in education (the only hope it ever had) as a computing device - time to let it go or put a real OS in it!
 
same boring design.

This argument almost never makes sense to me. Should it have been a Hypercube or something? Spinning rims? RGB flowing case lights? Maybe a built in cup holder?

The only things about the "design" that could likely need improvement are internal reinforcement (if that hasn't been done), a switch to USB-C connection, and other more technical elements that wouldn't really make it look much different.

Which one is better for students?
What kind of students? What grade/age? What are the intended uses cases? Possibly neither.
 
Does anyone know if this is the same chassis as the iPad Pro 10.5 2017, basically so cases etc will fit? Turns out the 5th and 6th gen iPads shared the Air 2013 casing other than the volume controls moving so you could generally use cases you had before but I’m sure many of you had nice cases in the past as I did so this is a decent saving and that A12 is really fast. I’m not surprised they cut ProMotion out - remember when they canned the Air 2 not long after the Pro 9.7” launched as they were extremely similar devices.

I did have the iPad Pro 11 but returned it as it’s so flimsy and the bigger issue of touchscreen sensitivity - a problem that’s been reported a lot on Apple forums so not just me alone. Got an iPad Pro 10.5 refurb but this Air 10.5 might be better still.

Same chassis as before and same dimensions and button placement.
 
What for?

When your concept gets beat by garbage ChromeBooks in education (the only hope it ever had) as a computing device - time to let it go or put a real OS in it!

As someone who uses iOS entirely for business, as well as design, the issue isn’t the OS, and full macOS on a touch device won’t solve the lack of adoption in education and business overall. The reason cheap chromebooks succeed isn’t because of usability, durability, or features - it’s because they’re dirt cheap to the point of essentially being disposable.
 



Apple has launched a new 10.5-inch iPad Air that can be viewed as a lower-priced successor to the second-generation 10.5-inch iPad Pro, which has been discontinued. Below, we compare tech specs and features.

10-5-inch-ipad-air-vs-pro-800x503.jpg

Pricing is key, with the new iPad Air starting at $499 with Wi-Fi only and $629 with LTE connectivity in the United States. The 10.5-inch iPad Pro started at $649 with Wi-Fi and $779 with LTE connectivity until it was discontinued. Both have 64GB or 256GB of storage, but the new iPad Air lacks a 512GB option.

Design wise, the iPads have a lot of similarities, including dimensions, thinness, and overall appearance. Both have a Touch ID home button, a headphone jack, and a Lightning connector, but the new iPad Air has only two speakers along the bottom, whereas the 10.5-inch iPad Pro has four speakers.

The new iPad Air is available in Silver, Space Gray, and a newer Gold finish that essentially merges the previously separate Gold and Rose Gold finishes that were available for the 10.5-inch iPad Pro.

Both iPads feature a fully laminated Retina display with a resolution of 2224×1668 pixels and 264 PPI, True Tone, and support for the P3 wide color space, but the new 10.5-inch iPad Air has a 60Hz refresh rate while the 10.5-inch iPad Pro has a so-called ProMotion display with up to a 120Hz refresh rate.

Processor wise, the new iPad Air sports Apple's A12 Bionic chip compared to a slower A10X Fusion chip in the 10.5-inch iPad Pro. The new iPad Air also has dedicated hardware called the "Neural Engine" that handles artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks, while the 10.5-inch iPad Pro does not.

In terms of battery life, both iPads last up to 10 hours per charge, according to Apple's internal testing.

With its lower price point, the new iPad Air has a lower-end 8-megapixel rear camera, compared to a 12-megapixel sensor on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro. The rear camera on the new iPad Air also lacks LED flash, optical image stabilization, and Focus Pixels, but one benefit is that there is no camera bump.

The front FaceTime HD cameras are the same 7-megapixel sensors with Live Photos, Retina Flash, and other identical features on both iPads.

As for connectivity, both iPads have 802.11ac Wi-Fi, but the new iPad Air has Gigabit-class LTE versus the 10.5-inch iPad Pro's theoretically slower LTE Advanced support. The new iPad Air also gets a bump to Bluetooth 5.0 versus Bluetooth 4.2 out of the box for the 10.5-inch iPad Pro.

Summary
The new iPad Air starts at $150 less than the 10.5-inch iPad Pro and thus has some tradeoffs: two speakers versus four, no ProMotion display, and a lower-end 8-megapixel rear camera with no LED flash or optical image stabilization.
Both iPads have a 10.5-inch Retina display with 264 PPI, headphone jack, Touch ID, Lightning connector, 7-megapixel front camera, up to 10 hours of battery life, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
The new iPad Air has some advantages: faster A12 Bionic chip vs. A10X Fusion, Gigabit-class LTE vs. LTE Advanced, and Bluetooth 5.0 vs 4.2.The new iPad Air can be ordered starting today with in-store availability beginning next week in the United States and many other regions.

Article Link: 2019 10.5-Inch iPad Air vs. 2017 10.5-Inch iPad Pro
Dear MacRumors Editorial,
Thanks for the comparison, but unless I just missed it, it looks like you completely forgot to mention support for Apple Pencil in your comparison. This is key info that would be helful.
 
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