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iPad The new iPad Air. Thinner, lighter?

ron7624

ron7624

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 14, 2011
2,228
437
Houston, Texas area
What to you think the next gen Air will be like? I want one. My wife has an Air and I have a rMini. (My wife is an awful and stingy person ).
I love my rMini and take it everywhere. It is a wonderfully portable and useful device. It will always be my main squeeze. That being said, I also have an iPad 3 which I use it home mainly watching Netflix and reading news articles. But even at home I find myself using the Mini more often than not because of its light weight.
The iPad 3 is simply too heavy for me to hold for long periods of time. It is just too uncomfortable, but I love the larger screen that it offers.
So I'm hoping that sometime around Thanksgiving, Apple will offer the new version of the iPad Air and it will be lighter because it seems like that is what Apple is doing with every upgrade in every device.
What ate your thougts?
 
Last edited:
I have no problem holding any of the iPads for extended period of time. But I am in good shape.

Apple is expected to introduce the new iPad two seasons away. At this time, there aren't any rumors out except for wild guesses.
 
Consultant said:
I have no problem holding any of the iPads for extended period of time. But I am in good shape.

Apple is expected to introduce the new iPad two seasons away. At this time, there aren't any rumors out except for wild guesses.
Click to expand...

Right. And, lighter and thinner aren't areas they need to improve upon, IMO. It's very svelt, light, portable, whatever ya wanna call it. :)
 
Apple does seem to have a love affair with making products thinner. I think we're at a point where you'll not see the iPad get too much thinner.
 
Its hard to see where the iPad Air could be any better...yes more RAM, a faster processor but as it is, I think the current Air is what the iPad was really meant to be - hardware at a minimum and the internet just flows from it.

Thinner and lighter? I guess it could be but the current form factor is pretty compelling. If it was 6mm and 50 grams less I guess it would be better but as it is, its a pretty impressive package.
 
Booji said:
Its hard to see where the iPad Air could be any better...yes more RAM, a faster processor but as it is, I think the current Air is what the iPad was really meant to be - hardware at a minimum and the internet just flows from it.

Thinner and lighter? I guess it could be but the current form factor is pretty compelling. If it was 6mm and 50 grams less I guess it would be better but as it is, its a pretty impressive package.
Click to expand...

As the op I see where I gave a false impression of my wants. I also think the Air is wonderfully useable and portable. I will buy one for personal use in the latter part of this year regardless. The weight of the Air is just fine with me, but given that Apple seems driven to always wow us with a new device being more powerful yet thinner and lighter, I'm wondering if they are going to do that again this fall.
 
ron7624 said:
What to you think the next gen Air will be like? I want one. My wife has an Air and I have a rMini. (My wife is an awful and stingy person ).
I love my rMini and take it everywhere. It is a wonderfully portable and useful device. It will always be my main squeeze. That being said, I also have an iPad 3 which I use it home mainly watching Netflix and reading news articles. But even at home I find myself using the Mini more often than not because of its light weight.
The iPad 3 is simply too heavy for me to hold for long periods of time. It is just too uncomfortable, but I love the larger screen that it offers.
So I'm hoping that sometime around Thanksgiving, Apple will offer the new version of the iPad Air and it will be lighter because it seems like that is what Apple is doing with every upgrade in every device.
What ate your thougts?
Click to expand...

Sooner or later, the front of an iPad will be a complete screen. Of course, not this year or next...
 
cababah said:
The current air's experience is crippled by poorly optimized software; the hardware is sufficient.
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself.

For PDF use, notes, website viewing (sorry, I generally don't go to nin.com (one of the "test" sites that generally crash safari..)), reddit viewing, message board viewing, bill management, podcasts, - the air or rmini is hardly crippled or unoptimized.

I was an early android tablet adopter - I know all about unoptimized.

The air and rmini are vastly surpassed that.
 
Would Apple consider using a different material for the body? The Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 feels noticeably lighter than even the Air and I don't think it can all be attributed to the small size difference. The material used also likely has something to do with it.
 
I think that eventually Apple will make the iPads even lighter and thinner. But for 2014, I think it highly likely that they'll keep the same form factor and just upgrade the internal hardware, like they did with iPads 2-4, and with original iPad mini to the retina mini.
 
Most likely the same design but with:

- Touch ID
- A8 chip
- 2GB RAM
-Faster Wi-Fi with 802.11ac
- Better cameras (maybe?)
 
Count Blah said:
Add more ram, and I agree. Ios7 has an obscene number of crashes.
Click to expand...

I agree that more RAM would definitely help but the current ipad iOS 7.0.x is so poorly optimized that I still think with 2GB we would see a lot of crashes. iOS 7.1 is a glimmer of hope and proves that a proper focus on software can greatly improve the ipad air experience. Quite sad that my year old iPhone 5 seems to run more smoothly than the ipad air...
 
The only area of improvement I can see is two front speakers without looking ugly, a big challenge for Apple engineers but only Apple can do it.
 
Next comes Helium

Yes, you read it here first. Apple is going to release the iPad Helium this Autumn. Think about it, there are so many advantages:

1. It floats. You don't have to hold it. It would just hover in the air where you set it.

2. Is drop proof. Can't drop something that hover. Duh!

I am pissed of at them for holding back features. They should have release the Helium instead of the Air. Come September my Air is obsolete. But worst of all, it's too light to be a door stop so I am not sure what to do with it.
 
I hope they do NOT make it lighter and thinner. Structural integrity will be compromised if it gets thinner, there are already several bend iPads and MANY bent iPhone due to Apple making them thinner and thinner.

Just work on the guts and give us some more RAM and keep working on the OS.
 
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