Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Dont get me wrong Air5 seems fine overall, M1 + colors and $599 and toucHID in the power button...

just seems increasingly we are becoming more and more aware of Apple shipping things that have cut corners

Notably the Studio Display that has nothing in display tech to write home about in a premo price.
$429 A15 drop in Se3, why not an SE Plus or Se3 that's Mini.

Now rumors of base iPhone 14 having A15 chip and only A16 reserved for Pro models... if true, meh.
 
Uh-oh is this the iPad Air 1 all over again? That was a junk iPad, I returned mine and went iPad-less for a year until the excellent iPad Air 2 came along.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: sorgo †
Of course the early reviewers didn’t mention anything, they don’t want to get dropped from their early access perks
That is why I would avoid sites that get early access because it create a conflict of interesest when they are unable to tell their viewers about problems since they would lose their early access by telling the truth.
 
My Mom just got the M1 and I noticed it while setting up her iPad. I can feel the enclosure around the Apple logo slightly creaking and I can feel it slightly pushing inward with a normal grip.
I would recommend returning or exchanging it for another model of iPad. If you decide to keep it make sure to get Apple Care plus.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: sorgo †
This happens with every Apple product release. If I'd listened to naysayers, I wouldn't own the iPad Mini 6 -- but I bought one and use it every day and consider it the best iPad I've ever owned. But YMMV, and that's what a return period is for.
The problem is some people did not buy it directly from Apple and may not be able to return their device.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sorgo †
Apple can and should absolutely do everything they can to ensure as few customers as possible experience issues with their iPad Air.

But at the same time, reports of issues like these are going to be amplified in the early days of a products release cycle. Of those genuinely affected, the small numbers of people that go on to share their experience, will naturally be searching for related terms and congregating around similar support threads and discussion groups.

What that doesn’t mean is that this is a certified wide spread issue. Even if 1000 people have reported it online somewhere in the first few days, across a population of several million devices in customers hands, that’s a pretty tiny number.

So let’s not blow something out of proportion until there is more data. It isn’t great for anybody that is affected. But at the same time just blanket assuming that it’s a wide spread issue may not be factually correct.
 
What was wrong with iPad Air 1?

-64bit and 1gb ram - as the 64bit OS used a lot more ram than 32bit, very little left to work with. This meant unstable OS, crashy apps, and constant refreshes. Listen to a podcast, pause it with Control Centre (or whatever it was called back then), do anything else, press play in CC again and, oops, Podcast app flushed, music starts playing. Equally, partially write a forum post or equivalent, leave Safari to do something else, come back, oops, page flushed and refreshes sans the text you’ve typed. The painful workaround was c&p everything before leaving Safari etc.

-Plasticky feeling screen versus the glass of iPad 4 and iPad 3, less vivid colours.

The iPad 3 rightly gets panned for it’s launch time relative to the 4, and it was slow and heavy BUT it worked and was stable as it was 32bit & 1gb RAM. In hindsight I of course wish I’d waited for the iPad 4, but nonetheless I enjoyed the 18 months with the iPad 3. The iPad Air 1 went back within 14 days. Perhaps later iOS updates mitigated it somewhat, but I wasn’t prepared to take the chance, and there’s no escaping the fact that 64bit and 1gb RAM never should have happened. Had a similar experience with the 6 Plus, the worst iPhone I’ve had by far. The iPhone 3G was crappy in hindsight, lousy battery and splintered back, but it was great during the time I used it.
 
These early reviewers should be ashamed of themselves. They have fallen victim to the marketing machine and are just lining their pockets with Ad revenue, given the first mover advantage... they get more views and clicks earlier in the release cycle, relative to reviews that come out a few days or weeks after the product launch.

But they aren't doing the community justice. They treat Apple and other companies with kid gloves so as to not piss off the giants, and risk their relationships and freebies. Especially in this day and age of chip shortages, they want to avoid having to wait to push videos out.

But then they don't tell the community what's really going on. Like the camera on the Studio display is garbage, and these build quality issues of the iPad Air should have been mentioned. Instead, I've heard early reviews of the iPad Air 5 saying the Air is "like magic!!" WTF is "magic[al]" about sub-par build quality? Shame on them!
 
Just buy a Samsung Tablet.
Stop giving Apple your hard-earned money.
Try new eco system to see if it fits you better...
Then
Move back to Apple after awhile.

That's my life right now.

Honestly, even with this thiner outer shell, the experience with the iPad is still very much better than most tablets. So, I guess we have to pick our own poison.
 
These early reviewers should be ashamed of themselves. They have fallen victim to the marketing machine and are just lining their pockets with Ad revenue, given the first mover advantage... they get more views and clicks earlier in the release cycle, relative to reviews that come out a few days or weeks after the product launch.

But they aren't doing the community justice. They treat Apple and other companies with kid gloves so as to not piss off the giants, and risk their relationships and freebies. Especially in this day and age of chip shortages, they want to avoid having to wait to push videos out.

But then they don't tell the community what's really going on. Like the camera on the Studio display is garbage, and these build quality issues of the iPad Air should have been mentioned. Instead, I've heard early reviews of the iPad Air 5 saying the Air is "like magic!!" WTF is "magic[al]" about sub-par build quality? Shame on them!

But the fact that reviewers have mentioned the camera issues, (the verge for example rated the studio display a pretty dismal 6/10 citing the camera as one of the reasons) does demonstrate that reviewers haven’t treated Apple favourably.

So if they’re happy to trash the studio display, why not the iPad Air? Because if the argument is ‘let’s not upset apple’ then why not gloss over the issues with the studio display?
 
These early reviewers should be ashamed of themselves. They have fallen victim to the marketing machine and are just lining their pockets with Ad revenue, given the first mover advantage... they get more views and clicks earlier in the release cycle, relative to reviews that come out a few days or weeks after the product launch.

But they aren't doing the community justice. They treat Apple and other companies with kid gloves so as to not piss off the giants, and risk their relationships and freebies. Especially in this day and age of chip shortages, they want to avoid having to wait to push videos out.

But then they don't tell the community what's really going on. Like the camera on the Studio display is garbage, and these build quality issues of the iPad Air should have been mentioned. Instead, I've heard early reviews of the iPad Air 5 saying the Air is "like magic!!" WTF is "magical" about sub-par build quality? Shame on them!
They did not fall victim to anything. They made a choice to mislead if not outright lie to their viewers in exchange for early access, perks, and or money. What does not help is consumers are not patient enough to wait for the product to come out and wait for it to be reviewed by an unbiased person.
 
Dont get me wrong Air5 seems fine overall, M1 + colors and $599 and toucHID in the power button...

just seems increasingly we are becoming more and more aware of Apple shipping things that have cut corners

Notably the Studio Display that has nothing in display tech to write home about in a premo price.
$429 A15 drop in Se3, why not an SE Plus or Se3 that's Mini.

Now rumors of base iPhone 14 having A15 chip and only A16 reserved for Pro models... if true, meh.
I suspect the iPhone 14 base models having the A15 chip is more about supply chain issues than Apple cutting corners.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: sorgo †
Someone will for sure strip both 4 & 5th gen and measure the thickness of the chassis fairly soon and we'll have the answer. Or maybe its lower quality aluminum? Kind of like what they did in iPhone 6, then upgraded the aluminum in iPhone 6s?
 
But the fact that reviewers have mentioned the camera issues, (the verge for example rated the studio display a pretty dismal 6/10 citing the camera as one of the reasons) does demonstrate that reviewers haven’t treated Apple favourably.

So if they’re happy to trash the studio display, why not the iPad Air? Because if the argument is ‘let’s not upset apple’ then why not gloss over the issues with the studio display?
I wouldn't be surprised if the procedure is to first communicate the concerns to Apple, and see what the response is. The fact that they had an answer already for the camera quality, "Apple is aware and will be fixing it", kinda points in that direction. And nobody will ever know the procedure it's all under NDA, unless someone blows the whistle so to speak.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki
In addition if this is a widespread issue with the entire iPad Air 5 line, I see Apple getting sued over this if they do not issue a recall or an extended warranty program that covers the display and internal component failures due to the issues of the build quality.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.