I still have my iPad 4.
I bought an iPad 4 for my grandmother, may she rest in peace. All she used it for was FaceTime, Solitaire, and Yahoo! news.
Now my brother's kids use it for games.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Who would buy an iPad Air 3?
- Thread starter gadget123
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I bought an iPad 4 for my grandmother, may she rest in peace. All she used it for was FaceTime, Solitaire, and Yahoo! news.
Now my brother's kids use it for games.
Give me Apple Pencil support and that alone and I will upgrade
Yeah, I feel like any serious enhancements are going to slow down significantly. Even if an Air 3 came out, you're not going to be disappointed with a 2 because literally nothing even comes close to challenging its innards at the moment and I can't imagine anything will for quite some time. Honestly, if I didn't already have an iPad, I actually would wait until the Air 3 came out just so I could get a 2 for a lower price.
Now I have the pro screen it's going to be very hard to go back now. The smart keyboard has made me use it like a laptop but with tablet apps it really is great.
Im ready to upgrade from my original Air. I would really love a redesign, similar to ip6 with curved edge glass.
Why does everybody think that there even is more ram in air3? And the odd amount, 3gb?
Air with 1gb
Air2 with 2gb
Air3 with 3gb
Pro with 4gb
And then they would change the resolution too to something new? to get even more differences between the models?
That aint gonna happen...
Air with 1gb
Air2 with 2gb
Air3 with 3gb
Pro with 4gb
And then they would change the resolution too to something new? to get even more differences between the models?
That aint gonna happen...
I think I'd skip the iPad Air 3 and wait until this time next year.
With iOS 9.3 I'm finding the iPad Air 2 more than adaquate for my needs; and it should handle iOS 10 relatively well.
With iOS 9.3 I'm finding the iPad Air 2 more than adaquate for my needs; and it should handle iOS 10 relatively well.
Not me, I've got an iPad Pro. But the Unindicted Co-Conspirator is still using her Air 1. An Air 3 might be in her future.
The biggest impact of the Air 3 could end up being a larger uptake of the Air 2 when it drops to the second tier. The price will drop to $399/£269 new and hopefully lower refurbished of second hand. Even new, I would guess Apple will keep selling the 16 and 64 GB options will will be enough for most non-techie users (and even some techie ones too!) As has been pointed out, nothing has come close to stretching the Air 2 so far - the triple core A8X will ensure the Air 2 remains a powerhouse for years. The Air 3 will probably get a significant GPU update, but CPU wise I can't see it demonlishing the A8X in the same way the A9 demonlished the A8.
3 is an odd number, but 3GB isn't an abnormal amount of RAM. Android phones have been shipping with 3GB of RAM for over a year now.
Anybody who is interested in any of these things would buy it:
- Same general design as iPad Air 2 but a bit thicker
- Four stereo speakers
- A9X chip with 2GB of faster LPDDR4 RAM
- Display with the same resolution as the iPad Pro (352 PPI)
- Flash for the rear-facing camera
- 5MP front-facing camera
- LTE-Advanced with more LTE-band support
- 2nd generation Touch-ID
- 32 and 128GB models
- Rose gold color option
- No 3D-Touch but support for Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard
Last edited:
Considering that in Canada the price of the Air 3 will jump like crazy due to exchange rates, I don't think the above improvements are enough to justify the additional costs.
Of course it would be slightly more justifiable if the base storage was increased but for the time being I believe the Air 2 is a better value for the time being.
It'll be an even better value when you can get one on sale after the price decreases in the Fall.
In the US it will be. In Canada even after the price reduction it will cost more than it does now due to the exchange rate.
The iPhone 6 costs more now than it did when it was just released in Canada.
Android manufacturers like samsung has been claimed to increase the diversity too much among android devices by adding something new to each of their models.
Now there are already ipads with 1, 2 and 4gb ram. Would they add another ipad with 3 gb ram? Why? There are no limitation set by chips/cpu/os nowadays. So.. 3gb ram sounds abit odd.
If they added just 1gb ram more and let say changed the screen totally to something differend for example, it would make me to be suspicious - just 1gb more? Is it going to be another "air" and lacking of ram...
I quess Air3 has still 2gb ram and it gets some minor changes like newer cpu, better cam...
But who knows, it could have 2,5gb ram too...
I think realist are:
2GB ram, A9 (slightly faster than in iPhone), 4 speakers, roughly 10h battery time.
There will no big jumps and it won't beat the iPad Pro in features - That would be insane for Apple to do.
2GB ram, A9 (slightly faster than in iPhone), 4 speakers, roughly 10h battery time.
There will no big jumps and it won't beat the iPad Pro in features - That would be insane for Apple to do.
I'm not guessing how much RAM will be in the next iPad Air. I'm not saying it'll go one way or the other. I'm just saying 3GB of RAM isn't a weird amount. I think the iPad could use an extra GB of RAM, but I don't think it quite needs 2GB extra.
Of course, I would love to see as much RAM as possible in it.
Im also an Air 1 owner and skipped the Air2 because of the damned screen vibration problem. I DO envy the RAM of the Air 2 and if the Air 3 can sort out the chassis isolation and sound issues Id probably get one. Very interested...but they have to take care of what bothered me about the Air 2!
I'm thinking I might go for an Air 3 to replace my Air 2, unless it's a completely lackluster update. 3D Touch would be great if the Air 3 gets it. Any other features I'd have to think about if it's really worth it over my Air 2. Although, if the release cycles of iPads are getting longer I won't want to wait another ~18 months after March to get a new iPad
I have an iPad Mini 2 and when the Mini 4 came out I did not see to many differences and huge performance differences. I will buy the iPad Air 3 if it comes with 4 speakers,3-4GB of RAM and other noticeable improvements over the iPad Mini 2 otherwise I will just hang on to my iPad Mini 2
i'm on the iPad 4 still...didn't like the mushy screen on the Air so I returned it. Then i heard about the vibrating speaker/chassis on the Air2 so skipped that one. Now my 4 is getting a little slow to do ordinary tasks...i'd be interested in upgrading to the Air3.