Apple Announces Thinner, Lighter iPad Air With 64-Bit A7 Processor

[musika]

This is stupid. The iPad is a consumption device, it's not designed to be a computer replacement and Apple isn't selling it as one.

It's like complaining that my inkjet printer can't be used as a 3D printer.

That's not true though.

 

[shoeler]

why do they still sell the iPad 2 and not 3 or 4 instead?

Doesn't make a lot of sense, but they are Apple! No matter what they do people will be loyal and still buy stuff. They have great products, but they do what they want!

I was just as shocked the mini dropped a mere $30 and then the mini 2 to $399!

I was thinking about upgrading my ipad/my wife's, but to me the extra spending money I have is worth keeping and i'll keep enjoying the ipad I have.

 

[ggibson913]

Retina the Last Big Upgrade to the iPad

I upgraded to 'the New iPad' from the original iPad when it came out. The Retina display was a major upgrade to which I said "Ok, I'll bite" But since then I have not found a compelling reason to upgrade my 'the New iPad'. Yes I could have one connector to rule them all nd I am sure the newer iPads are faster but that to me isn't enough. Not to mention that the price drop of 'the New iPad' in the resale market is not all that good and I can only imagine it getting worse with the release of the iPad Air.

No thanks Apple, there are no apps that my 'the New iPad' can't run in the app store and since you are still keeping the iPad 2 in pipe, I have no worries that will change anytime soon. Don't get me wrong I love the idea of a little less than a half pound lighter and space gray color, but honestly the price to play the upgrade game is much too high for me to play at this time. If you ask me the bargains will be the resale market for 3rd and 4th Gen iPads.

 

[FlunkedFlank]

Average app sizes, especially games, are significantly larger (AAAs often 1GB each). Apps now shipping retina+non-retina+32bit+64bit+phone+tablet compatible binaries means more wasted bits, of which any given device doesn't need all of.

I agree that apps are getting bigger, but that's due almost entirely to embedded media, game data, etc.. The overhead to 64bit code should be very small, and non-retina icons and such are also probably negligible.

But yes, 32gb base size would have been very nice.

 

[MentalFloss]

The issue here isn't options, it's pricing.

Having the same base model (without lowering price accordingly) for 4+ years, while flash memory prices have dropped more than double in that time period is inexcusable.

Actually, in a capitalist economy, a company sets prices at what they believe the customers will pay. If customers are still paying these prices, then it would be inexcusable for Apple not to take the money. Luckily though, it is another part of a capitalist economy that nobody is forced to pay the prices.

 

[Cyloncat]

For all the complaints about the base price being high.... Add up the amount of software that is suddenly "free" with a new device. It's not free; the price has been transferred to the hardware. The software developers are still getting paid.

 

[Teste]

Apple is increasing their profit margins at the expense of their customers. First it was the iPhone 5C - instead of selling the last year's phone for a reduced price, Apple decided to sell last year's phone in a cheaper plastic casing so they would make more of a profit, regardless of the dishonesty in selling a "new" device that is actually one year old.

Now the iPad 2 - Apple could have discontinued the iPad 2 and begin selling the iPad 4 at a lower cost, unificating the Lightning connects as the iPad's default. Instead, they chose to discontinue one of the most recent iPads, while selling a two years old product, that likely won't even be able to use the next iOS, for a very high price. All because the profit margin of the iPad 2 is bigger than that of the iPad 4.

For all the complaints about the base price being high.... Add up the amount of software that is suddenly "free" with a new device. It's not free; the price has been transferred to the hardware. The software developers are still getting paid.

For everyone here who already uses the iPad as a productivity tool and already has iWorks, that's irrelevant - if the high price is in order to pay for those apps, I would basically be paying for the same thing twice.

 

[b3ats]

Again with A7X stop it already! It's almost like you guys never you bother to look at the specs and the performance of A7 chip

Every iteration of iPad has ran an a more powerful version of Apple's current chip - and it's mainly been in an "X" guise.

The A7 is impressive, don't get me wrong, but when this thing is three times the size of the iPhone 5S and only runs the same processor then questions have got to be asked as to how powerful it's actually going to be!

The best choice here is probably the iPad Mini Retina - the screen is better and everything else is the same as its big brother. From a purely performance perspective, the Mini is the way to go.

I shall not be upgrading my 3rd gen this time. I was screwed over with the 4th gen and Apple left out some stuff that I had expected to be in there. It's a shame because once again, Apple put profit before the product - I mean, wtf is the 2 still doing in the store?

 

[AppleWarMachine]

iPad 2 $399....Seriously

 

[tech4all]

$229 for a Nexus 7? No Touch ID? No iOS? No iCloud? Lower Resolution?

Hello, iPad Mini.

Ok let's look at your claims:


Price:

16GB WiFi Nexus 7: $229
16GB WiFi iPad mini: $399


Touch ID:

Nexus 7: No (but still has other effective security measures)
iPad mini: Yes


iOS: Not everyone likes iOS 7


Cloud Storage:

Nexus 7: Yes; Google Drive
iPad mini: Yes; iCloud

Resolution:

Nexus 7: 1920 x 1200 @ 323ppi 7" screen
iPad mini: 2048 x 1536 @ 326ppi 7.9" screen (welcome to 2012)

Mind you, the Nexus 7 had a 'retina' display since it debuted last year. The iPad mini did not. Yes the iPad mini has a higher resolution screen now, but 3 more pixels per inch isn't anything to brag over.

So go ahead and spend nearly $400 when you could have virtually the same thing for $176 less.

Now if you excuse, if I to go say 'hi' to my Nexus 7.

Sources: Apple | Google

 

[Edsel]

Comments such as this are ridiculous. If you haven't bought an iPad by now, you already have your reasons. I didn't think the trolls would come out on page one.

I've been building my arm muscles on the iPad 4. This is some much needed reduction in weight. Day one for me.

My house and office have been littered with Apple products for ten years. Out of curiosity, I purchased the new Nexus 7.2 three months ago and have been extremely pleased with its performance and pleased with Google's ecosystem (excepting Google's privacy issues). I have also been fiddling with Windows 8.1 devices. MSFT may have a winner too.

I hope Apple knows that the barbarians are pounding on their gate. Their new Cupertino campus may represent a fortress rather than a spaceship if they don't innovate a little more. Step it up, Apple.

 

[Edd.Dantes]

April it is...

 

[hayhay]

Bummer

Loving the Touch ID on my iPhone 5s and was so hoping it would be brought to the iPad with this update...it if had...there is no doubt I would have upgraded my iPad 2...now I'm not so sure...I've waited this long...why not wait one more year for it to get here...if I was to upgrade...I would be so pist at myself in a year for doing so.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

So.. iPad Air got better dimensions and weight, and that's about it. Same processor as a phone. It may be a great processor, but iPad pushes a lot more pixels. Will it even be as fast?

Better wifi is pointless. It's wifi was already faster than the internet pipe, the limiting factor. No better camera. Same crippling base storage size. No fingerprint sensor. Probably same RAM (have to wait for a tear down).

Pretty incremental upgrade overall. Hardly impressive.

Sonny Dickson said 1Gb of RAM for iPad mini 2. 2Gb of RAM for iPad Air. It is a $100 difference between the iPad mini retina and the iPad Air; and there will be more than just 2 inches for your extra $100. So I'd expect 2Gb of RAM, and the G6630 GPU instead for the iG6430 that the iPad mini retina will have.

 

[kwrzesien]

There are people who do nothing else but web surfing, email, iMessage and Facetime with this device. I am sure there are a lot of grandparents who got low-end iPad as gifts. Why should people pay for memory that they will never need?

There are more people who don't need 32GB than people who need 128GB.

That's fine, so make the memory upgrades more reasonable.

 

[dannys1]

I feel very underwhelmed at this.

I was hoping for an iPad with TouchID, A7X processor, upgraded A/C Wi-Fi, better screen, 8MP camera.

This thing is less powerful than the iPhone! Not once during my ownership of the original iPad and my current iPad 3rd Gen have I complained about it being too heavy.

On a more positive note, I notice that Apple trumped the 2013 Nexus 7's PPI with 226 compared to 223. Must be a nice screen.

You might be just a tad "spec obsessed" and not really thinking about just using the device judging by your first and last comment.

The A7X thing is laughable though. ITS A NAME. Apple could have called this A7X and you wouldn't have said a word using exactly the same iPad, see how that works? Its a marketing name and obviously they should have used it to impress a few around here with a chip that doesn't even exist and isn't needed anymore.

 

[tech4all]

Still 16GB? Wtf?

only 16GB, FAIL

going to buy the refurbs now

Yea, I'm bummed about two things and that's one of them. I was really hoping for 32GB starting.

Second thing was no Touch ID.

Apple has a lot of gull to still offer 16GB at a $499 price. This is 2013 Apple, wake up Apple! Nonetheless, Apple knows they could offer the iPad with 4GB of storage for $499 and it would still sell.

I was actually thinking of getting and iPad. I currently use a Nexus 7 and would like a bigger screen. The only deal breaker for me was if Apple didn't increase the storage to at least 32GB. Guess I'll be waiting for the Nexus 10 II.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

The graphics are twice as powerful as the iPhone 5S. (They said it's x2 the iPad 4 which has the same graphics power as the iPhone 5S).

Logically, they do this by doubling the GPU frequency - so twice the graphics with the same A7 chip. (This seems possible because the PowerVR Rogue G6430 in the A7 is very efficient, and was probably strongly underclocked in the iPhone 5S... now we're seeing what it can do. The figures work out to be 200MHz in the iPhone 5S, so that would be 400MHz in the iPad 5.

I expect them to use the G6630 for iPad Air, G6430 for mini 2.

 

[Wolfbane9999]

$400 for the iPad Mini? No Touch ID? No multi-user accounts? Hello Nexus 7.

I have an iPad 3 and the new nexus 7, I thought the nexus 7 would replace my iPad 3... It did not.. Enjoy touching the screen multiple times to do each action. You get what you pay for

 

[akm3]

Big, huge, monstrous mistake.

Rename your flagship product, are you kidding me.

'iPad' was not good enough?

The iPad is now the brand, the suffix is the model. Until the iPad umbrella, you have (so far) mini and air. Like the iPod. You have the iPod shuffle, nano, touch, and classic.

They are making room for more and different "iPads"

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Again with A7X stop it already! It's almost like you guys never you bother to look at the specs and the performance of A7 chip

The iPad Air technically could still be an A7X in all but name. As the A""X series were about the 100MHz clock increase (which the A7 could get) as well as an increased GPU, which the iPad got as it is twice as fast as the iPad 4.

Heres the maths:

iPhone 5-28.8Gflops
iPhone 5S-76.8Gflops (2X iPhone 5 GPU)
iPad 4-76.8Gflops
iPad Air - 2X faster (which is technically 2.67X as the iPhone 5S got) which would equate to 205Gflops.

So that is most likely the G6630 GPU rather than a higher clocked G6430.

 

[Essenar]

Looks like the last iPad I will have ever owned is the iPad Mini. $329 was hard to swallow, $399 isn't even appetizing. The specs are great, but I would've preferred an A6X, 32-bit and a reroll of the $329 price. That way, the iPad Air is faster and more futuristic, the iPad Mini keeps the internals of the iPad 4 and we carry on.

Now it's almost the price of two Nexus 7's. Not worth it at all.

 

[wiz329]

Actually, in a capitalist economy, a company sets prices at what they believe the customers will pay. If customers are still paying these prices, then it would be inexcusable for Apple not to take the money. Luckily though, it is another part of a capitalist economy that nobody is forced to pay the prices.

Seriously dude?

We all understand that. Apple is under no obligation to sell ANYTHING at ANY price. However, in terms of "value", as a consumer, I consider 16GB as a base model inexcusable, considering competitor pricing, as well as material costs.

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How do prices DROP more than double? Are you saying the memory manufactures are paying companies to take their memory at the same 'price' that Apple used to pay for the memory? At most, you can drop the price of something 100% - from whatever it was to free.

Excuse my terminology. I meant to say that memory prices have more than HALVED.

I think everyone else understood what I meant.

 

[coolfactor]

I definitely see a bigger 13-inch iPad Pro coming now. If not, what in the world is up with this name?

Yup, that was my thinking, too. That's why they left TouchID out, too. I was surprised by that, but an iPad Pro makes perfect sense.

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It makes me sick at all of the people complaining about price. The power and functionality PACKED into these devices provides astronomical value over the life of the device. If anything, the devices just got cheaper in terms of total cost of ownership.

So, Thanks Apple. You're doing a great job!

 

[shoeler]

Disappointing sums it up best!