iPad Why was the physical rotation lock button removed from the iPad Air 2?

[saintforlife]

Anybody know? I use it all the time on my current iPad and I find it very useful.

 

[EldonChew]

To achieve it's thinness.. or maybe they thought not many people find it useful

 

[TheDeviceUser]

It could be for thinness reasons. However, I'm sure they felt that control centre made that feature very accessible anyway, so don't see it as an issue.

 

[mcdj]

Because less room. Because cheaper without.

 

[Tsuchiya]

Kind of a shame to see it go, it was useful. Control centre is fine and all but a simple flick of the switch is a more elegant solution.

 

[12vElectronics]

Gotta make things thinner right!!!?

 

[rkuo]

Let's be serious, they could have put the switch in there. Or at least a button.

 

[zaneliu]

It's about the same thinness as an iPhone 6 or iPod Touch so they could've kept it in

 

[puma1552]

whats the hole that replaced it? another mic?

 

[thedeejay]

Let's be serious, they could have put the switch in there. Or at least a button.

I feel the switch is redundant when you can do it using CC.

 

[Peter K.]

Apple's Thinness Obsession

IMO, Apple's obsession with thinness has gone too far. Whether or not one feels that the rotation lock/mute switch was necessary, I don't understand this hyper focus on thinness. IMO, I don't feel the trade-offs to achieve said thinness have been worth the cost(s) (i.e., loss of structural rigidity, removal of a switch, smaller batteries, etc.).

 

[Royksöpp]

I never even used it. I thought it was stiff and hard to switch on and off.

 

[GoingDark]

I use it all the time too, but that's only because I've become so used to it.

Swiping up from the bottom and hitting rotation lock from there is just as easy, and once it becomes learned behaviour, I don't think it'll be an issue.

 

[MrGuder]

It looks naked without the button.

 

[AllergyDoc]

I use the switch weekly, but moving the function to the Control Center isn't a big deal.

 

[justin216]

My thought is they've probably looked at some kind of analytics that showed the hardware switch isn't used that heavily on an iPad (I think I've used it once, maybe twice in a year on my Air?), so they didn't bother allocating the space and hardware design for it.

Do some people use it? Absolutely, the threads on here prove that. But against the millions of owners? Maybe not as much.

Now the switch on my 6 Plus? Use it a couple times a week. Just a different use case I suppose.