Apple Debuts New 9.7-Inch iPad With A9 Chip to Replace iPad Air 2, Starting at $329

[recoil80]

Lol new iPad with 7.5mm thick. Funny. Ironic

I wonder if Air 2 cases will fit

 

[thekeyring]

Another iPad to the already messy, fragmented, unnecessarily long line up of iPads to saturate the already saturated mobile market while continuing to leave the demand of Macs behind..

I'd love to say we're losing faith Tim, but that was so long ago now.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Chicane-UK]

£339 in UK!!!

Exchange Rate says $329 = £264.11. Add on VAT at 20% takes us to £316.93. Not quite sure how Apple then rounds that up even further with an additional 7% price hike on top of that.

Sigh. Stiffed again.

 

[iTom17]

So... that's it? I expected more, even from Apple. I mean, come on? This is just laughable.

 

[Glideslope]

My God, this is the biggest disappointment since finding out santa wasn't real

What nonsense. He comes to my home every December.

 

[RightMACatU]

They reduced the prices.

Yes... so is the resale value of my A8X Air2.

 

[Howard2k]

Marco in a debate https://twitter.com/marcoarment/with_replies

Who?

 

[itsmilo]

no Antireflective coating!!

And thank god for that. I would take a few sun reflextions over the mess of fingerprints that can hardly be removed on my Air 2

--

Omg the Cellular one costs 160€ more like why???

 

[satchmo]

This will just be the new iPad 2. It will be the entry level base model as they vamp up their Pro line and it will stick around for probably longer than it should. I don't know what everyone is getting their panties in a twist over. They are clearly positioning the future of the iPad to be in their Pro line, but they need a low cost entry model for average to below-average iPad users.

Perhaps, but as an entry model this should have been $299.

 

[Howard2k]

Yes... so is the resale value of my A8X Air2.

Of course, that's what happens.

I'm sure you'd prefer that they reduce the prices of the retail product and that this would somehow increase the re-sale value, but that's not reality.

 

[oldmacs]

They reduced the prices.

It's not that cheap though. They used to sell top of the line iPads for just a bit more than this price back when Apple sold a fully featured proper iPad so that you didn't have to shell out for the pro.

 

[gim]

I'm afraid the new iPad is somehow worse than the Air 2.

Is a normal A9 even faster than the A8X?

 

[Sandstorm]

Because every product Apple makes has to be innovative - it's not like they can take try and sell an existing product at a lower price point to increase sales... how dare they!! It's like they're a company or something!

In reality I'm not even fuming about [lack of] innovation, but about greed and laziness. Keep defending this greedy, lazy, arrogant and tax evading mega corporation. But you can't escape the fact, that they could, for example, easily maintain Mac not-neglected. Give the most expensive 12.9 iPad "Pro" the same features the smaller "Pro" has. Even a silent updated like this could have been meaningful. But instead we get new colors and a few new, still extremely overpriced watch bands.

 

[potatis]

Is it thicker (if so why) or does the A9 processor weigh 30g more?

 

[oldmacs]

Suspect an event in the next few weeks to "announce" updated iPad Pros. Likely a new iPad Mini as well. For those complaining about the lack of an A9X, Apple needs to differentiate the iPad from the iPad Pros that use A9X.

There shouldn't need to be differentiation. Put the same chip in all the iPads. The A9 is 2015 tech, they should have put in an A9X at the very least.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

No one wants to take your tablets Tim. We want the return of the Mac.

If that's what you want you'll have to wait until WWDC. There's no way we were getting anything more than some minor processor bumps without a keynote and Mac hardware traditionally sees a refresh at WWDC time.

 

[SuperMatt]

Still ridiculous that the cellular option costs more than $100.

EDIT: Otherwise I do think this is a good release considering the price point.

I think the huge price difference for the cellular option has a lot to do with Qualcomm... that is one of the main reasons Apple is suing them.

 

[4jasontv]

They put A9, not A9X in the new iPad.
I'm going to buy a cellular iPad next month for my mom and I'll have a look at benchmarks to compare the new iPad with Air 2 with A8X.
I can get a refurbished 64GB cellular at a lower price than the new iPad with 32GB, so I may go for the Air 2 to have more storage and a lighter product.

I can not buy an iPad for a lot cheaper. I have been looking to pick up an iPad with pencil as a gift for the wife but this does nothing for her. She wants a mini with a pencil, but she would take a 9.7 if the price was low enough to make it easy to replace if a smaller screen came out. For these specs I'd say $250 for an LTE model is a fair price considering how poor it compares to the pro models and for what I can get a real computer, like a Surface, today.

 

[RightMACatU]

I'm sure you'd prefer that they reduce the prices of the retail product and that this would somehow increase the re-sale value, but that's not reality.

Invalid assumption from your part.

 

[PortableLover]

To add even more confusion to the lineup, there is now an iPad Smart Cover and an iPad Pro Smart Cover:

iPad Smart Cover - $39(€45)
Smart Cover for 9.7 inch iPad Pro - $49(€59)

Both are likely the same material, have the same function but the "pro" one is +$10.

Another observation to the new iPad: it is thicker and heavier than the Air 2, has exactly the dimensions and weight of the iPad Air (1). That means it's no iPad Air 2 with an A9 chip in it, it is an iPad Air 1 with an A9 chip in it. Crazy! Even no A9x and no pencil support. It's like they had to make the "cheap" iPad look worse than the iPad Air 2 so the iPad Pro looks better. If I have to guess the "air gap" of the iPad Air 1 between the touchscreen and the display is still there.
The whole thing leaves a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Why apple why? Ill wait for some reviews to come in. Getting one for someone in the family who has a a5 based ipad. I have the air 2 and am waiting for the 10.5!

 

[Number 41]

No one wants to take your tablets Tim. We want the return of the Mac.

Actually, given the sales numbers of iPads v. Macs, you've got that precisely backwards.

iPads outsell Macs more than 2-1.

 

[Danilo - Italy]

At least it still has a headphone jack...

No courage this time

 

[Howard2k]

Invalid assumption from your part.

My apologies. You'd prefer that they increase the price of the new iPad? You'd rather pay more money?

 

[recoil80]

The A9 is a bit faster despite the A8X being a tri-core.

I know but I want to have a look at benchmarks on the iPad.
A9 is on the iPhone so I can have a look at its benchmarks, but the screen resolution is different and I'm more interested in GPU performances rather than CPU. They may use a different clock in the iPad's A9 version, so let's wait and see.
When I upgraded from iPhone 6 to 6s I noticed a good performance increase but it was A8 vs A9.

Air 2 is lighter and cheaper, according to the sheets the new iPad doesn't offer the anti reflective coating nor the true tone, so is more similar to the Air 2 display rather than the iPad pro.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

I can understand them updating the iPad, but why take the store offline for hours on end for basically a minor update? I can see no positives because people anxious to see other products being updated will only be disappointed.

When have they taken the store offline for just a couple minutes to make updates? It's always for a few hours no matter what the update. They do plenty of testing on the new pages and store pages.

Seems a funny thing to question. "Why does this website go down for 60 minutes instead of 30 in order to do a bunch of stuff I'm not privy to nor impacted by?!"

"because people anxious to see other products being updated will only be disappointed."

So the very small percentage of people (like 0.0001%) that go to MR? Normal people are in zero way impacted by this.