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Apple Launches New 10.5-Inch iPad Air With A12 Bionic Chip and Apple Pencil Support, Starts at $499
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They have made an iPad like this approximately one times, what do you want from them?
Yeah if you use the Pencil a lot it’s not even funny how much better the Pencil experience is with the 2nd gen.
I've got a new naming strategy for Apple... iPad Quadra (for the top end), iPad Centris (iPad Air), iPad Classic (iPad), iPad LC (iPad mini). Then they can bring back the performa, iPad Performa 200, is bundled with a pencil but not a keyboard and has 64gb, but the 250 is missing the keyboard but has cellular 
How much memory (2GB / 3GB / 4GB) does this have?
It’s confusing to you, apparently. There are two possible explanations for that. Have you considered the alternative one?
Don't forget the ProMotion display, it really improves the user experience.
But I'm not sure the display and the magnetic Pencil are worth the price difference for the majority of users. I'd buy the new Air today, or maybe the mini, and I don't think the Pencil is for me. I could buy the smart keyboard maybe, but there are third party alternatives even for the 9.7 iPad if one needs a keyboard.
Seems like the iPad is the new sub 1k laptop, ranging from $330 and higher vased in features. Want a laptop? Those start above 1k. Basically covering all price points with some sort of product.
Edit: realizing now the iPad names mirror the laptop names: “Good” Base model (iPad, MacBook), “Better” model (IPad Air, MacBook Air), “Best” model ( iPad Pro, MacBook Pro).
Edit: realizing now the iPad names mirror the laptop names: “Good” Base model (iPad, MacBook), “Better” model (IPad Air, MacBook Air), “Best” model ( iPad Pro, MacBook Pro).
Actually it was the fact that you were so aware of apple product specs that made you think this was shifty. They changed the name to alienate it from the pro iPads, which is plenty enough for the average customer to know that it isn’t an ipad pro
Trying to explain to people Apple's lineups these days is increasingly confusing. I understand them but the end consumer not so much. There is such a lack of standardisation across the range.
Huge upcoming inventory of A12 chips that aren't going into the pre-launch projected iPhones volumes? New iPad Air and mini will soak those up.
Plus, probably cranking the iPad Pro prices even higher wasn't doing volume generation over generation volume increases either. Nuke "old" iPad Pro 10.5 (that was suppose to get volume) and convert to iPad Air (recycle the name) and get mid range iPad volume back up so the overall iPad line up average selling price doesn't drop so far. ( Will not be surprising if next financial results there is a hiccup on average sales price / margin on iPads. ).
The A12X in the slower moving iPad Pro probably will land in a refreshed AppleTV later also to eek out some more volume there also on chips consumed by product.
Ride the even more ancient iPad on A10 a while longer to goose margins ( I'd expect the periodic sales at substantive lower price to kick off regularly the rest of the year. ). If it is play the as "old as we can get away with" role, the 10.2" rumor seems more than a bit off at this point. Just goosing it with an A11 chip in the Fall or next Spring would be the more likely move.
Mini is in the "Mini Pro" zone but perhaps can't stuff a A12X in there. Again shooting to prop up the average selling price of overall iPad line up.
New iPad Air vs 10.5” Pro
Air:
The mini is a tough pill to swallow. Sure it’s faster but would a mini user notice the A12 over the A10? It’s more expensive for half the storage and Pencil support.
Air:
- Faster A12 Processor
- 13g lighter
- Cheaper than the now-discontinued Pro
- Possibly only 1st Gen Touch ID, products with 2nd Gen Touch ID were specifically noted in their tech specs page
- Old, 1st Gen iPad Pro camera
- No camera bump
- ProMotion Display
- Brighter display (600nits v 500nits)
- Quad Speakers
- 4K optically-stabilised video, 12MP photos from f1.8 aperture camera
The mini is a tough pill to swallow. Sure it’s faster but would a mini user notice the A12 over the A10? It’s more expensive for half the storage and Pencil support.
Support is for Apple Pencil generation 1 only. I'm not sure why they wouldn't be moving everything to generation 2 to avoid confusion.
Air? What year are we in? 2014? Why on Earth did they need to go back to using the Air name? At the most they should've just added the 10.5 as a regular iPad. This is really gonna confuse people now.
Now I hit the order button for the 2018 iPad Pro 11" - there is "just a 250 EURO" difference in the price tag compared to the new iPad Air 2019 with 256 GB & LTE. But the Pro has better components e.g. USB-C which I am willing to pay the difference.
Luckily the Pro is now already offered at some retailers with 100 EURO less compared to Apple Store.
Luckily the Pro is now already offered at some retailers with 100 EURO less compared to Apple Store.
Ugh... I just assumed the new iPad would support the Pencil 2. Too bad, I feel like this iPad would have been a likely purchase for me but now I'm hesitant to buy something "new" that only supports the "old" Pencil. I just wanted a little future proofing.
Just when iPad was getting simple Apple complicates it again. Why the need for iPad and iPad Air? And the new mini is more expensive than the bigger iPad. And all of these iPads require old 1st gen Pencil support when the 2nd gen Pencil is so much better.
