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Yes, your post is the one I'm talking about. I wonder when Apple will update the iPad air next - my iPad 1 and iPad 4 are pretty old now so the Air 2 will be a good upgrade.

0.0009% of me thinks they might give a silent slight bump for the Air next month. But again if not... We aren't losing any features. I'm a broken record but, I still think the Air 2 was born before its time. ;) lol


K.
 
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I hear you, but even though the A8X was released almost a year ago, it was more powerful then any iPad or tablet ever had, it was even more powerful then Apple promoted

I'm such a nerd, but if you take the A7 as a baseline and go by Apple's typical "40% faster than the previous generation...blah blah, you see that the standard A9 chip is actually faster than the A8X. Let alone the A9X.

Screen Shot 2015-09-14 at 11.54.54 AM.png
 
I'd wait at least through October as that is the month some new iPads have been introduced in the past.

Yet, as to whether to buy it or not... aren't there still several issues with the iPad Air 2?

1) Speaker vibration.

2) The loss of the side slider for rotation lock or mute.

3) The battery life being less than the original Air (some reviewers said substantially less; others reported little difference).

A substantially discounted Air 1 would thus have some things going for it, although with its older processor, it won't be as future-proofed.

Incidentally, I've noticed in the past several months a huge upswing in attention being paid to the chip inside the i-devices. Is that just happenstance? Or, a brilliant tech leak, news leak, and public commentary by Apple to get everyone talking about the CPUs-- and thus more likely to upgrade? A different form of RDF and one that just affected my post, too!
 
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I'm such a nerd, but if you take the A7 as a baseline and go by Apple's typical "40% faster than the previous generation...blah blah, you see that the standard A9 chip is actually faster than the A8X. Let alone the A9X.

View attachment 581461

Hmm, I wonder why the GPU is very close but the CPU is a bit more. Also where is that graph from? As it seems like the numbers are off on the A8X. It's supposed to be 1.5Ghz, also are the GPU numbers just 2x or 5x the power of the 7 or what?... Sorry but this graph is kind of throwing me off.
 
I'd wait at least through October as that is the month some new iPads have been introduced in the past.

Yet, as to whether to buy it or not... aren't there still several issues with the iPad Air 2?

1) Speaker vibration.

2) The loss of the side slider for rotation lock or mute.

3) The battery life being less than the original Air (some reviewers said substantially less; others reported little difference).

A substantially discounted Air 1 would thus have some things going for it, although with its older processor, it won't be as future-proofed.

Incidentally, I've noticed in the past several months a huge upswing in attention being paid to the chip inside the i-devices. Is that just happenstance? Or, a brilliant tech leak, news leak, and public commentary by Apple to get everyone talking about the CPUs-- and thus more likely to upgrade? A different form of RDF and one that just affected my post, too!
The Speaker is only an issue to Audiophiles and some other folks, i only see the complaints on this website. I have heard no negatives about the speakers anywhere else. Mine were amazing, no matter what I was listening to. Vibration was not an issue.


Kal.
 
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I struggled with the same thing when buying the iPad Air 2 a few days ago. On the one hand I felt I was buying year old technology and on the other I just wasn't willing to put up with reloading web pages anymore. So I sold my Air and bought the Air 2. Apple TV's and Mac Mini's don't get updated on a yearly basis so perhaps Apple is going to slow down now, who knows. If they do come out with a new Air in a few months or a year I'll just cross that bridge later. For now I'm going to enjoy what I have.
 
All of this talk about an "October Surprise" is quite a bit of a stretch. Here are the dates for iPads.

iPad 1: Apr 2010
iPad 2: Mar 2011
iPad 3: Mar 2012
iPad 4: Nov 2012
Air 1: Nov 2013
Air 2: Oct 2014

Mini 1: Nov 2012
Mini 2: Nov 2013
Mini 3: Oct 2014
Mini 4: Sep 2015

Pro: Sep 2015
 
Yes, your post is the one I'm talking about. I wonder when Apple will update the iPad air next - my iPad 1 and iPad 4 are pretty old now so the Air 2 will be a good upgrade.

It will be a fabulous upgrade. Even if Apple introduces an Air 3 later this fall, it's not like the Air 2 is going to roll over on its back and point its feet at the sky. If you're still coping with those two, the Air 2 has years of life in it for you, really.
 
Amazing to see how many people love the Air 2's upgrades but when it was released were losing their minds about how nothing had changed from the original Air.
 
I bought one yesterday. A great upgrade to my almost 2-year-old Air 1. Staples has the 16GB for $399 and 64GB for $499.

I would say buy right now, wait till Black Friday, or don't buy at all/wait another year.
 
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Having waited for Apple's latest media event to decide if now is a good time to buy an iPad Air, I've learnt that an upgrade is not due till fall 2016. So why would the Buyers Guide recommend "Don't Buy"? They surely don't expect buyers to wait 12 months?
How do you know that you'll have to wait until Fall 2016 for an update? Apple could easily release an update at any time.
 
I was just looking at that page myself. I wonder the same thing, why should one not buy the Air 2 if an update isn't for 6-12 months?

Really depends on what you have, right? I have the air 1 and when air 2 came out I decided not worth the upgrade for me personally. Nothing changed. So I wait.
 
Really depends on what you have, right? I have the air 1 and when air 2 came out I decided not worth the upgrade for me personally. Nothing changed. So I wait.

That was my take until iOS 9. I'm enjoying SplitView and really look forward to it when non-native apps are supported.
 
Hmm, I wonder why the GPU is very close but the CPU is a bit more. Also where is that graph from? As it seems like the numbers are off on the A8X. It's supposed to be 1.5Ghz, also are the GPU numbers just 2x or 5x the power of the 7 or what?... Sorry but this graph is kind of throwing me off.

I made it in like 10 seconds with excel.

Apple said that the A8 had 25% more CPU power and 50% more GPU power than the A7 and that the A9 was up to 70% at CPU tasks and 90% faster at graphics tasks than the A8

The A8X was 40% faster at CPU tasks and had 2.5 the graphics potential of the A7. The A9X had 1.8x the CPU power and twice the graphics power of the A8X.

I simply multiplied based on their marketing materials using the A7 "1" as the baseline.
 
Wonder which allow spilt screen
iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro implement this feature 100%. Any app can be split-screened, and the split is adjustable.

iPad Air and iPad mini 2-3 implement movies in PIP mode and the ability to have a fixed-size sidebar open, but the sidebar app and main app will not both work at the same time, and sidebar apps are basically limited to Apple-delivered apps unless developers modify their apps to work in this mode.
 
Thanks guys. I'll go with Addictzz's comment that it is just coded that way. I note too that the Buyers Guide now lists the iPad Air as 'Caution', which seems to make more sense than 'Don't Buy', even if the next upgrade is not expected for many months. Time to go shopping!! Thanks again everyone for your advice.
 
Wonder which allow spilt screen

iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro implement this feature 100%. Any app can be split-screened, and the split is adjustable.

iPad Air and iPad mini 2-3 implement movies in PIP mode and the ability to have a fixed-size sidebar open, but the sidebar app and main app will not both work at the same time, and sidebar apps are basically limited to Apple-delivered apps unless developers modify their apps to work in this mode.

MY comment was Air vs. Air 2 and why I bought an Air 2: for SplitView, which the Air doesn't support.

We can hope/expect that devs will update their apps to allow SplitView. Otherwise the whole thing is at best a half-baked cake.
 
But I don't know why people here are talking about waiting before buying the iPad Air 2 in any circumstances the Apple Pencil feature is never going to come on the iPad Air as they need something to differentiate between the iPad Air and the iPad Pro at the most the iPad Air can have Force Touch so if someone wants that on his iPad he should wait or else go for the iPad Air 2.
 
I wouldn't worry about what some article says. The main thing is this: if the price is right then ANY iPad can be a great buy. In other words, I wouldn't advocate buying an Air 2 for full price right now but if you can score a deal then by all means go for it. Same for an Air or even an older iPad. No one really knows what the Air 3 will bring anyways. Life's too short. Get a tablet and enjoy it.
 
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