Four New Lightning Adapters, Higher-Power iPad Power Adapter Coming Today

[haruhiko]

Umm...even the iPhone costs more than the typical competing device, and the Macbook Air is a complete rip off objectively.. It's low end hardware (basically) at a high end price.

That's not true. The SSD was expensive in 2011. Other manufacturers had not been able to compete in price until recently.

 

[Wolfpup]

Is that why it took competitors so long to match the iPad at $500, hardware and all?

Not sure what you mean. The hardware was very low end, particularly at first. There probably wasn't anything else exactly like it when it launched, but the claim was that their stuff isn't overpriced/underpowered/whatever, and "but this new thing they introduced with nothing else in the exact same category isn't overpriced by default!" isn't really a response to that. Even then, the iPad 1 should have had something better than an A8 with a whopping 256MB. Marginally passable at the time for a phone shaped device, not so much for something the size of a full PC.

 

[cmichaelb]

Placebo effect. iPhone 4S draws slightly above 5w at peak charging. The battery case, no idea.

iPad 3 only draws slightly above 10w at peak so the new charger is apparently only going to benefit the updated iPad (unless a firmware update can increase current draw during charging--but I doubt it).



Michael

Placebo effect? No. Very noticeable difference. Also, my Samsung tablet charges much faster using it. Again, very noticeable.

This was even brought up recently by one of the host of MacBreak Weekly podcast who has had the same results.

I'm not sure how or why it works, but it does. Try it.

 

[Wolfpup]

Placebo effect? No. Very noticeable difference. Also, my Samsung tablet charges much faster using it. Again, very noticeable.

Huh...interesting. Wonder how much it can draw?

I don't know why they only bumped the new charger to 12w, or why they didn't ship with that to begin with, but...hey, if nothing else they charge other things too! (Yay for USB!)

That's not true. The SSD was expensive in 2011. Other manufacturers had not been able to compete in price until recently.

Small SSDs weren't very expensive last year. Heck, I bought a quality Intel SSD in 2010 for my Playstation 3 that was 2x the size of what the Air defaulted with last year. The Intel SSD I bought for my newest Windows PC was larger, better, and cheaper than what it cost me just to upgrade from 128 to 256 last year in my Macbook Air.