Well, Apple do their USB-C transition in stages, so you will still have some stuff using Lightening cables. They also include them with some of their products. Even the cheapest Beats Flex come with a tiny USB-C to USB-C cable rolled up in their small box.
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Next-Generation iPad Air With Spec Bump Reportedly in Development
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Well, Apple do their USB-C transition in stages, so you will still have some stuff using Lightening cables. They also include them with some of their products. Even the cheapest Beats Flex come with a tiny USB-C to USB-C cable rolled up in their small box.
I have a 64 GB Air 5 with about half of it free. I guess I fall into your “iCloud people” group, as my photos, videos, notes, etc. indeed all are stored there.
Music and films are usually streamed or put on the iPad temporarily and then erased. M1-2 do not do much for storage, but they do make our devices much more quick & responsive.
The fact that the file I work on sits in the cloud does not slow me down, as we actually work on its local copy which then gets uploaded back to the cloud. With a fast Internet connection it all works quite smooth in my experience.
I agree that a baseline 64 GB in 2023 can be tight for some people, yet in my case going up to 128 GB would just mean that I have around 90-95 GB of that space unused.
So I will update my iPad Air 5 only after it gets an OLED screen, which would probably be in late 2024-2025 at the earliest, as Apple still need to sell those iPad Pros. 😉
Edit: I have just checked and I actually overestimated my storage needs, as I currently use just under 1/3 of those 64 GB!
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Not unpopular, just plain wrong. We get ~80% of our sensory impressions from our eyes and the cheapest iPad will always have the worst display. So as with every Apple product there's a sweet spot on the upsell value ladder and it's very rarely right on the first step. The cheapest iPad however will always represents the biggest one-step benefit over not having an iPad at all. Value always depends on the comparisons you choose to make. Just make sure that you make them on what's most important to you. Wanting to spend as little as possible is a legitimate priority.
Well, there will be different opinions on which features should be Pro and which non-Pro. Of course I’d like all features important to me in the regular
. But my basic point was that feature set and size should be orthogonal, and that for a given size two “levels” should be sufficient.Love my 5th Gen iPad Air and with the M1 chip Apple can still wait for an upgrade until they M3'd the Pro and give the Air an M2.
For what I require of my iPad, the current specs do quite nicely already.
For what I require of my iPad, the current specs do quite nicely already.
No no, now that I have this M2 iPad Pro I’m not changing it. That’s why I said I’m going to keep it for many years.
What I meant is that if I had known the Air models would be getting the Pro-motion display, I would have rather wait and get the Air instead.
But all of that is speculation, I don’t think the Air is getting a Pro-motion display any time soon.
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Apple and those behind Pcalc had some pow-wow going on between them!
Consumers would love this. I def. would b/c I'd like to spend less $$ on an iPad. Apple won't b/c they want to charge more for them. Oh well. At least I was able to get a 9th gen iPad for $300.
The last two Airs (4 and 5) did not coincide with the Mini, but I think you could be right this time. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a new Air and Mini this Fall. Just spec bumps for both, as the rumors have stated.
That’s a sweet spot for consumers. $300 new iPads with say two generations behind the M2 would sell like wildfire. All the subscriptions and apple care apple could sell. A $299 iPad mini. A $499 iPad ( replacing the iPad air ) and then a $799 entry pro model. That would get units moving.
Never understood that argument... First of all, iPadOS is not "limited" any more than the hardware is limited in how far it can actually push the SoC in such a cramped space before it gets thermal throttled. Second, "overpowered" is relative to time... as the years tick by, features added, more powerful apps created, all that extra horsepower will let it live on longer before it starts showing its age.
My iPad Pro has an A9X in it and it has lasted over 7 years. It was a beast of an SoC at the time, but is now starting to feel a bit slow. These M-series iPads should last even longer.
Timing-wise they didn’t, but spec-wise it seemed like the 6th gen Mini was just a year late. It would be great to see these two aligned again with releases as they have been in the past. I don’t foresee Apple releasing the 5th and 6th gen Airs before giving the Mini a bump, at the least.
It seems appropriate to refresh the Mini again to keep it interesting. I could see a new processor (A17), more RAM (6GB), mmWave 5G support, updated Bluetooth (5.3) and new color choices.
With the Air, obviously M2 chip (which means Apple Pencil hover support), Bluetooth 5.3, mmWave 5G support, new colors and Thunderbolt support for the USB-C connector.
Maybe add the new SOS feature to the cellular model iPads to align with the iPhone 14? I see them throwing in something else beyond the more expected changes.
Besides the fun reading all these articles, that only state an upgrade is expected with a spec bump…
Apple is actively developing a sixth-generation iPad Air, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who briefly touched on the mid-range tablet in his latest Power On newsletter. However, it's unclear exactly when the next model will be released.
Gurman said the first Macs with the M3 chip could be announced as early as October, but he does not expect any major upgrades across the iPad lineup this year. Given a spec-bumped iPad Air would likely not be considered a major upgrade, it's unclear if the device will be updated later this year or at some point in 2024.
"For those wondering about the iPad — another product that typically gets refreshed in October — I wouldn't expect any major upgrades until the M3 iPad Pros with OLED screens arrive next year," wrote Gurman. He added that "an iPad Air model that boosts its specifications is also in development," but did not provide any further details.
Apple last updated the iPad Air in March 2022 with the M1 chip, an upgraded 12-megapixel front camera with Center Stage support, a faster USB-C port, 5G support for cellular models, and new color options. Pricing starts at $599 in the U.S. for 64GB of storage.
It's unclear what new features the next iPad Air will offer, but possibilities include the M2 chip, a Thunderbolt port like the iPad Pro, a horizontally-oriented front-facing camera like on the 10th-generation iPad, and new color options. Read our iPad Air roundup linked below for additional details about the current model.
Article Link: Next-Generation iPad Air With Spec Bump Reportedly in Development
I think that iPad lineup is confusing nowadays. Skip ordinary iPad, skip ipad mini, make air the usual one. And let air have several different screen sizes, from small to very large.
Have one pro with one or two screen sizes that just max out processor power and memory.
My fifty cents 😊