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All iPads iPad Air 3 Thoughts

M

mongohumor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 5, 2008
19
0
First, when do you think it will be released?

Second, storage max now is 128GB, will there be an increase?

Third, A9 chip?

Anything else?

Appreciate your comments!

Bryan.
 
My thoughts:
  • October 2015 announcement
  • No opinion on the maximum storage
  • A9X chip
  • Probably a 3x Retina display due to the 3x iPad asset leak
  • The same thickness as the iPad Air 2 or slightly thinner (it is more likely to be thinner if it remains at 2x Retina)
  • I think a (optional) stylus is likely if an iPad "Pro" is announced in or before October 2015 and the "Pro" has a (optional) stylus.
 
mongohumor said:
First, when do you think it will be released?

Second, storage max now is 128GB, will there be an increase?

Third, A9 chip?

Anything else?

Appreciate your comments!

Bryan.
Click to expand...

iMacmatician said:
My thoughts:
  • October 2015 announcement
  • No opinion on the maximum storage
  • A9X chip
  • Probably a 3x Retina display due to the 3x iPad asset leak
  • The same thickness as the iPad Air 2 or slightly thinner (it is more likely to be thinner if it remains at 2x Retina)
  • I think a (optional) stylus is likely if an iPad "Pro" is announced in or before October 2015 and the "Pro" has a (optional) stylus.
Click to expand...

Here are my thoughts.
To iMacmatician, I think most of what you said will be saved for the iPad Pro (if it exists). So the iPad Air 3 will have an A9, stay at 6.1mm and 2048x1536 (it will move to @3x eventually in any case). The iPad Pro will have an A9X, 12.2-inch 3072x2304 display and an optional stylus. Apple make their SoCs more power efficient every time, so no doubt that this won't be an exception. So this leaves Apple with 3 choices for the Air 3: Make it thinner, increase the resolution, or increase the battery life. I think the latter is the most likely, given the battery life complaints in the Air 2, and if they can increase it vastly, that would be great.
As for max capacity, the iPad has had 128GB for 2 years now, it would kind of make sense if they increased it to 256GB, although they might just put it in the Pro for now. I think a more pressing issue is base storage though. We've had 16GB as a base storage for nearly 6 years now. Increase to 32 already! It would be fine to have it in the entry level devices (iPad mini 1 and iPhone 5C) but every other device has to have base 32GB.
It would make sense if it released in October, but some have been saying September. This might mean the iPhones will come in August. It would be great if we have everything earlier.
 
Last edited:
My iPad experience has been fine. I don't have any reason to replace my perfectly good iPad Air. It does everything I want and is handy to have around the house for looking up items and info on the net.
 
i hope a better battery.

I am used to an ipad lasting over 2 days with normal usage

The Air2 barely makes it through a whole day for me at times and the battery life may be the only disappointment as everything else is amazing on this thing.
 
Radical Idea.

I know this is a bit Out There as a concept, and might be deemed as wild and crazy. But here goes.............

Speakers than actually point towards the ears of the user, and not towards the person sitting next to you !!!
 
whatos said:
My iPad experience has been fine. I don't have any reason to replace my perfectly good iPad Air. It does everything I want and is handy to have around the house for looking up items and info on the net.
Click to expand...

Me too. I was almost going to buy the Air 2 but the vibrations killed it for me. Glad I didn't. I doubt I would have had much more real world performance anyways.

As for the Air 3? Hmmmm.... Depends on what they do. There's a good chance I'll stay with my Air unless they really do something crazy and innovative. If storage, RAM and some other big time hardware changes came about I might be interested. Might.
 
nj-morris said:
Here are my thoughts.
To iMacmatician, I think most of what you said will be saved for the iPad Pro (if it exists). So the iPad Air 3 will have an A9, stay at 6.1mm and 2048x1536 (it will move to @3x eventually in any case). The iPad Pro will have an A9X, 12.2-inch 3072x2304 display and an optional stylus. Apple make their SoCs more power efficient every time, so no doubt that this won't be an exception. So this leaves Apple with 3 choices for the Air 3: Make it thinner, increase the resolution, or increase the battery life. I think the latter is the most likely, given the battery life complaints in the Air 2, and if they can increase it vastly, that would be great.
As for max capacity, the iPad has had 128GB for 2 years now, it would kind of make sense if they increased it to 256GB, although they might just put it in the Pro for now. I think a more pressing issue is base storage though. We've had 16GB as a base storage for nearly 6 years now. Increase to 32 already! It would be fine to have it in the entry level devices (iPad mini 1 and iPhone 5C) but every other device has to have base 32GB.
It would make sense if it released in October, but some have been saying September. This might mean the iPhones will come in August. It would be great if we have everything earlier.
Click to expand...

Dear lord they don't need to increase the resolution... It will make the next iPad a dud JUST like how the iPad 1, 3, and 5 (air) were, further perpetuating the "every other iPad" cycle. Also, if they don't keep going with "X" chips, I will be here scratching my head. iPad needs more power. Putting the regular A7 in the iPad Air was a huge mistake. I hope that the next iPad has the same display, better chip, better battery, but more features with iOS 9 making the iPad have more exclusive features. iPad needs to be more tablet-like and less like an over-sized smartphone.

If the iPad Air 3 is yet another dud I will be pissed because that's the next iPad I'm looking at, I'm trying to get out of this under-powered iPad mini 2. I may end up just getting a cheaper iPad Air 2 if they make the iPad Air 3 underpowered.
 
XTheLancerX said:
Dear lord they don't need to increase the resolution... It will make the next iPad a dud JUST like how the iPad 1, 3, and 5 (air) were, further perpetuating the "every other iPad" cycle. Also, if they don't keep going with "X" chips, I will be here scratching my head. iPad needs more power. Putting the regular A7 in the iPad Air was a huge mistake. I hope that the next iPad has the same display, better chip, better battery, but more features with iOS 9 making the iPad have more exclusive features. iPad needs to be more tablet-like and less like an over-sized smartphone.

If the iPad Air 3 is yet another dud I will be pissed because that's the next iPad I'm looking at, I'm trying to get out of this under-powered iPad mini 2. I may end up just getting a cheaper iPad Air 2 if they make the iPad Air 3 underpowered.
Click to expand...

The iPad Air is nothing near the compromised product that the iPad 3 was.

NOTHING.

That is an utterly ridiculous, and quite frankly a factually incorrect and easily debunked, statement.

The iPad 3 was replaced after some six/seven months on sale. This annoyed me no end given I bought it on launch and it was my first ever iPad. Not the best start to iPad ownership eh?

The iPad 3 wasn't powerful enough to run 3D games at Retina Resolution with all effects enabled. See the NOVA 3 debacle (iPad 2 res with full effects or Retina resolution with zero effects, those were the choices).

I have owned, to date, iPad 3, iPad 4, and now iPad Air.

The whole RAM issue, which I know would be your "go to" retort clearly isn't an issue since you didn't mention iPad 4 in your "dud list." And it's not a regular A7 in the Air, it is clocked higher than the A7 found in the iPhone 5s. Would an X chip have been nice? Of course it would. A "dud" though? Behave.

iPad Air still screams in app performance today, there is nothing available today I can't throw at it, and the simple fact is that RIGHT NOW in terms of app performance the Air and Air 2 are identical bar some quicker loading times by a second or two. Go and look at newer/bigger titles like AG Drive, Implosion, Radiation Island, Oddworld - Strangers Wrath, Monster Hunter - Freedom Unite, etc ... identical and flawless performance.

Air 2 will stretch its legs, eventually ... but by then the usual suspects on here who proclaim the newest iPad is the be all and end all, who say they won't upgrade annually again, will move onto the iPad Air 3 and be telling us the "Air 3 is what the Air 2 should've been." :rolleyes:
 
XTheLancerX said:
Dear lord they don't need to increase the resolution... It will make the next iPad a dud JUST like how the iPad 1, 3, and 5 (air) were, further perpetuating the "every other iPad" cycle. Also, if they don't keep going with "X" chips, I will be here scratching my head. iPad needs more power. Putting the regular A7 in the iPad Air was a huge mistake. I hope that the next iPad has the same display, better chip, better battery, but more features with iOS 9 making the iPad have more exclusive features. iPad needs to be more tablet-like and less like an over-sized smartphone.

If the iPad Air 3 is yet another dud I will be pissed because that's the next iPad I'm looking at, I'm trying to get out of this under-powered iPad mini 2. I may end up just getting a cheaper iPad Air 2 if they make the iPad Air 3 underpowered.
Click to expand...

I agree regarding the resolution, I was saying that the 3072x2304 resolution will be on the iPad Pro, not the Air 3. As for putting the A7 into the iPad Air, I don't think that was a mistake at all, because the A7 was basically in the X cycle. The A8 wasn't however, so I think the A9 will be the follow-up to the A8X rather than the A8, then put it into the iPhone 6s. The A9X can be put into the iPad Pro. Of course iPads need power, but they don't need more power than iPhones do. They just need a while to set the standard for their mainstream processors and their X ones.
 
RebornProphet said:
The iPad Air is nothing near the compromised product that the iPad 3 was.

NOTHING.

That is an utterly ridiculous, and quite frankly a factually incorrect and easily debunked, statement.

The iPad 3 was replaced after some six/seven months on sale. This annoyed me no end given I bought it on launch and it was my first ever iPad. Not the best start to iPad ownership eh?

The iPad 3 wasn't powerful enough to run 3D games at Retina Resolution with all effects enabled. See the NOVA 3 debacle (iPad 2 res with full effects or Retina resolution with zero effects, those were the choices).

I have owned, to date, iPad 3, iPad 4, and now iPad Air.

The whole RAM issue, which I know would be your "go to" retort clearly isn't an issue since you didn't mention iPad 4 in your "dud list." And it's not a regular A7 in the Air, it is clocked higher than the A7 found in the iPhone 5s. Would an X chip have been nice? Of course it would. A "dud" though? Behave.

iPad Air still screams in app performance today, there is nothing available today I can't throw at it, and the simple fact is that RIGHT NOW in terms of app performance the Air and Air 2 are identical bar some quicker loading times by a second or two. Go and look at newer/bigger titles like AG Drive, Implosion, Radiation Island, Oddworld - Strangers Wrath, Monster Hunter - Freedom Unite, etc ... identical and flawless performance.

Air 2 will stretch its legs, eventually ... but by then the usual suspects on here who proclaim the newest iPad is the be all and end all, who say they won't upgrade annually again, will move onto the iPad Air 3 and be telling us the "Air 3 is what the Air 2 should've been." :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

nj-morris said:
I agree regarding the resolution, I was saying that the 3072x2304 resolution will be on the iPad Pro, not the Air 3. As for putting the A7 into the iPad Air, I don't think that was a mistake at all, because the A7 was basically in the X cycle. The A8 wasn't however, so I think the A9 will be the follow-up to the A8X rather than the A8, then put it into the iPhone 6s. The A9X can be put into the iPad Pro. Of course iPads need power, but they don't need more power than iPhones do. They just need a while to set the standard for their mainstream processors and their X ones.
Click to expand...

I can come down and agree that app performance is still incredible... But OS performance is NOT. I think I have more of an issue with iOS 8 because my mini 2 stutters so damn much with this translucent UI (Yes, I have tried a full DFU restore, I've observed all of the same behavior on every A7 iPad I've touched). iPad Air 2 does not stutter hardly at all.

That's what makes me think this generation of iPad is a dud. The iPad is a year old and the UI behaves like the iPad is 3 years old. Well, actually, older. Many areas where my mini 2 stutters are smooth on the iPad 2 and 3 because it lacks the translucency effects.

The new UI and constant live Gaussian blur filters are obviously too much for the regular A7 (at 2048x1536! It perfectly manages things at 1136x640 or whatever the 5S has for display res). I think if they made the A7 for 5S, and the A7X with 2 CPU cores at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM, and an improved GPU with something more like 6 cores or something, things would have been much better. The A8X would come in afterwords to add in the third CPU core, and have an improved 8-core GPU.

I'm expecting something like this in the A9X; Quad-core CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz, improved GPU (probably will still have 8 cores) and 2GB of RAM. Anything more would be too much of a jump for Apple. The huge jump from A7 - A8X was only to save the Air 2 from the stutter seen with the translucency effects. Hopefully that will be able to handle the higher display resolution if they decide to do that for the iPad Air 3, I'd expect that to stay with the iPad Pro like you said though. Maybe they will introduce stereo speakers, an improved battery, maybe improved front facing camera. Not sure what else they could really do here that isn't software based. We need a more "tablet-like" experience, not an "enlarged-iPhone" experience.
 
XTheLancerX said:
I can come down and agree that app performance is still incredible... But OS performance is NOT. I think I have more of an issue with iOS 8 because my mini 2 stutters so damn much with this translucent UI (Yes, I have tried a full DFU restore, I've observed all of the same behavior on every A7 iPad I've touched). iPad Air 2 does not stutter hardly at all.

That's what makes me think this generation of iPad is a dud. The iPad is a year old and the UI behaves like the iPad is 3 years old. Well, actually, older. Many areas where my mini 2 stutters are smooth on the iPad 2 and 3 because it lacks the translucency effects.

The new UI and constant live Gaussian blur filters are obviously too much for the regular A7 (at 2048x1536! It perfectly manages things at 1136x640 or whatever the 5S has for display res). I think if they made the A7 for 5S, and the A7X with 2 CPU cores at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM, and an improved GPU with something more like 6 cores or something, things would have been much better. The A8X would come in afterwords to add in the third CPU core, and have an improved 8-core GPU.

I'm expecting something like this in the A9X; Quad-core CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz, improved GPU (probably will still have 8 cores) and 2GB of RAM. Anything more would be too much of a jump for Apple. The huge jump from A7 - A8X was only to save the Air 2 from the stutter seen with the translucency effects. Hopefully that will be able to handle the higher display resolution if they decide to do that for the iPad Air 3, I'd expect that to stay with the iPad Pro like you said though. Maybe they will introduce stereo speakers, an improved battery, maybe improved front facing camera. Not sure what else they could really do here that isn't software based. We need a more "tablet-like" experience, not an "enlarged-iPhone" experience.
Click to expand...

See, I'm not buying the "blur excuse".

I've got my old iPad 4 here running iOS 7.1.2 and the only areas where the blur has been added in iOS 8 is on Spotlight (home screen behind the keyboard) and on Safari with the new Favourites/Bookmarks box that appears when you tap the address bar.

The blur effect is present everywhere else, and this iPad 4 is smooth. The iPad Air I have now was smoother, in those areas (Spotlight and Safari) on iOS 7.1.2 because the blur on the home screen wasn't there on Spotlight and the daft box didn't appear on Safari ... the screen merely went white with your Favourites short cuts shown, rather than a transparent box with the webpage behind it).

The dock, Siri, Folders, Notification Centre, Control Centre, keyboards in Safari/App Store, etc ... all the same blur effects on iOS 7.1.2 as iOS 8. The only area where my Air is sluggish compared to iOS 7.1.2 is on Spotlight and Safari, yet these blur effects have been used across the system for over a year since iOS 7 without any issue. It's like they just took existing code, slapped these extra bits of blur in, didn't optimise them, and shipped the junk.

It's shoddy coding and a negligence of optimisation on Apple's part, pure and simple. The Air 2 is a beast so obviously it's running things butter smooth all over, but given what the Air can do in terms of App performance it's just nonsense for the basic OS to be sluggish in places one year on. Hell, can't they use their own Metal API on the OS for Christ sakes?
 
RebornProphet said:
See, I'm not buying the "blur excuse".

I've got my old iPad 4 here running iOS 7.1.2 and the only areas where the blur has been added in iOS 8 is on Spotlight (home screen behind the keyboard) and on Safari with the new Favourites/Bookmarks box that appears when you tap the address bar.

The blur effect is present everywhere else, and this iPad 4 is smooth. The iPad Air I have now was smoother, in those areas (Spotlight and Safari) on iOS 7.1.2 because the blur on the home screen wasn't there on Spotlight and the daft box didn't appear on Safari ... the screen merely went white with your Favourites short cuts shown, rather than a transparent box with the webpage behind it).

The dock, Siri, Folders, Notification Centre, Control Centre, keyboards in Safari/App Store, etc ... all the same blur effects on iOS 7.1.2 as iOS 8. The only area where my Air is sluggish compared to iOS 7.1.2 is on Spotlight and Safari, yet these blur effects have been used across the system for over a year since iOS 7 without any issue. It's like they just took existing code, slapped these extra bits of blur in, didn't optimise them, and shipped the junk.

It's shoddy coding and a negligence of optimisation on Apple's part, pure and simple. The Air 2 is a beast so obviously it's running things butter smooth all over, but given what the Air can do in terms of App performance it's just nonsense for the basic OS to be sluggish in places one year on. Hell, can't they use their own Metal API on the OS for Christ sakes?
Click to expand...
I used to feel this way but it has been stuttery for so long that I've lost hope and now assume it's weak hardware. Hopefully Apple cuts the crap and fixes it in iOS 9. My iPad mini 2 has stuttered from the very beginning with iOS 7 and I'm sick of it, probably won't be buying another iPad again if I don't see soon that they actually care about iOS for iPad.
 
iMacmatician said:
My thoughts:
  • October 2015 announcement
  • No opinion on the maximum storage
  • A9X chip
  • Probably a 3x Retina display due to the 3x iPad asset leak
  • The same thickness as the iPad Air 2 or slightly thinner (it is more likely to be thinner if it remains at 2x Retina)
  • I think a (optional) stylus is likely if an iPad "Pro" is announced in or before October 2015 and the "Pro" has a (optional) stylus.
Click to expand...

What advantages does 3x have over 2x? Isn't 2x/Retina-class good enough for the human eye already, and that any further increases in pixel density has diminishing returns?
 
XTheLancerX said:
I used to feel this way but it has been stuttery for so long that I've lost hope and now assume it's weak hardware. Hopefully Apple cuts the crap and fixes it in iOS 9. My iPad mini 2 has stuttered from the very beginning with iOS 7 and I'm sick of it, probably won't be buying another iPad again if I don't see soon that they actually care about iOS for iPad.
Click to expand...

Just found out this morning that the corporate plan in our work will be run again this year, so it looks like come July I'll have an Air 2.

I've used the program in the last 3 years, hence why I've had iPad 3, 4, and Air in the last three years. It's a little annoying that it's in July given that iPad is updated in September but I think with the Air 2's benchmarks I might actually keep this one longer than a year.
 
I have a iPad Air and for the most part, it has everything I need for my use case. The one thing that would make me upgrade is hardware decoding of H265 HEVC. With HEVC, I don't need more storage. I know that VLC supports HEVC, but I'd rather have it be natively supported with hardware for no or little impact to battery life.

Honestly, I can't see any difference between videos at 720p and 1080p. It's only when I hook the iPad up a really good HDTV to see a difference. Going up in resolution isn't needed and doesn't help battery life. I don't view the back camera as necessary on a tablet. I don't play many games on my iPad, so the processor is fast enough.

Since FaceTime uses HEVC, I thought it would have been added already.
 
Not so interested in a new iPAD

I've been a very big PowerBook and now MacBook since the PowerBook 100, absolutely love them. I just pre-ordered the new ultra thin MacBook and can't wait to get my hands all over that beauty. The iPad though, well not the physical hardware as it's near perfection but the OS inside, iOS, is something I really dislike. Aesthetically it's nice, though I wish they would use more of that flat look with every app. Anyway here is a list of things that prevent me from embracing the platform.

Lack of full multitasking, running any app of my choosing in the background and not just those that Apple deemed worthy. I bought an iPad Air so I could run all of those wonderful music creation apps. The thing is I wanted to use it for live music, which means I need at least three apps running at once, the synthesizer, beat, melody. No go in iOS, I have to use a DAW to insert each individual sound bite and than play. So I would need to purchase three iPads to do what I wanted.

I can't choose the default apps that I want. I use Chrome as I have other gear that isn't Apple, Chrome allows me to have all of my sites, passwords, etc across all of my machines. Hangouts, not all of my friends have an Apple device so we all use BBM and Skype, which are both available on multiple platforms. Mail, I now use Outlook.

The Share functionality in iOS is pretty awful. Even though I have the app that I want to use with Share installed on the system, if the app you want to share from isn't preprogrammed to handle the destination app, it isn't listed. So things like a cloud storage is a crap shoot, where as in OS's like Android, once I've installed say Box, every app that can save to a file can access the Box client or pretty much everyone, there are still big corporate apps like MS Office that are hard bent on my supporting those services that they want. Still there are workarounds as some file managers can mount cloud storage services as local assets. Which brings me to my fourth.

The way iOS handles files, well, just sucks, it's not intuitive at all. On my Macbook I have a directory called, " Home", under that directory I have subdirectories, “Documents”, “Music”, “Videos”, “Photos”, “Programming”, etc. I always know where my files are, making things like backing up, searching, copying to an external device those files very easy, etc. Saving files under each individual app just makes no sense to me, even for security reason, by the way there is an unused home directory when you open up a terminal under a Jail-Broken iPad so it’s not like it isn’t possible for Apple to go back to the sane way of handling files. This walled garden concept might sound good on paper but in reality it’s a nonsense way of doing things which brings horrible inter-app communication, files spread out everywhere and making multi-user support a pipe-dream as iOS would have to reinstall each app again for each user.

Those are my big ones but there are lots of little issues like not being able to add or remove items in the quick settings panel or why do I have to log into each Apple service individually when I set up a new device, in Android it’s once, which gets me into my mail, messaging, etc. I still have my iPad for the aforementioned music creation apps, though unfortunately I can only use a single app at once so I use it mainly with the Roland Sound Canvas, Korg iMS-20 and PropellerHead Thor app, basically apps for my Alesis V125 keyboard. My other tablet functions go to my Nexus 9, Nvidia Shield and Surface Pro 3 which is actually a great machine for Avid ProTools.

I didn’t mean to talk trash about Apple as I do like their laptops and OSX a whole lot but their portable systems have much to desire. At least those are my feelings on the matter, hopefully Apple will one day stop treating us like we are children and give us a little more freedom in those devices.
 
nj-morris said:
Here are my thoughts.
To iMacmatician, I think most of what you said will be saved for the iPad Pro (if it exists). So the iPad Air 3 will have an A9, stay at 6.1mm and 2048x1536 (it will move to @3x eventually in any case). The iPad Pro will have an A9X, 12.2-inch 3072x2304 display and an optional stylus. Apple make their SoCs more power efficient every time, so no doubt that this won't be an exception. So this leaves Apple with 3 choices for the Air 3: Make it thinner, increase the resolution, or increase the battery life. I think the latter is the most likely, given the battery life complaints in the Air 2, and if they can increase it vastly, that would be great.
Click to expand...
Some people have pointed out that the iPad "Pro" probably won't sell in large enough volumes to justify a separate SoC just for the "Pro," unlike with the Air. Regarding the SoCs, the A7 can use a lot more power than the A6X (but also has much higher performance). Apple could also clock the A9X in the iPad Air 3 lower than the A9X in the iPad "Pro" to reduce power usage of the former. If this happens, I think we won't see a big difference in CPU clock speeds to preserve single-threaded performance, but the GPU clock speeds could see a considerably larger difference.

rekhyt said:
What advantages does 3x have over 2x? Isn't 2x/Retina-class good enough for the human eye already, and that any further increases in pixel density has diminishing returns?
Click to expand...
That piece of speculation is only due to the iPad 3x asset leak. nj-morris may be right in that 3x will only be for an iPad "Pro" at least for 2015, since the leak doesn't point to any specific iPad(s).
 
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