New iPad released 2017-03-21 called... wait for it... iPad

[Eug]

 

[HexiumVII]

Why?

Not impressed with this release. The above-mentioned screen downgrade would make me more inclined to buy an Air 2 over an "iPad" (what the hell is wrong with their marketing department), and they jacked up the price of the larger iPhone SE (instead of just increasing the storage).

I think Air 2 is superior to iPad 5th Generation (2017). (Yeah the retardedly refer to it as 5th gen on apples site.) The A9 is really not much faster than the tricore A8 as I switch between a Pro and Air 2 alot. Compared to the Air1 A7 though its a huge difference. The Pro's battery life is pretty abysmal for an iPad, i think the A9 sucks so much power they had to put the 34W battery in there to compensate. Maybe Target will blow out the Air 2. They were decently priced at $400ish for 128GB xmas time.

 

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[Eug]

AnandTech's review puts the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro 9.7" at nearly identical battery life.

 

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[Eug]

The site usually goes down when they intro new stuff.

 

[KeithP]

The refurb store seems to have gotten in a new allotment of Air 2 iPads. Unfortunately, they are the same price as they were before. I was hoping for a price drop with the new announcement.

-KeithP

 

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[slag]

recently went from an ipad 2 to an ipad air.. holy moley, what an increase. I tried an air2 but don't see the reason for it over the original air. The increase in price point just isn't worth it to me. Now, like others are saying, this new ipad looks like a downgrade.. weird.

 

[lopri]

The difference between Air and Air 2 might not be as dramatic as the one between iPad 2 and Air, but it is still quite huge. The Air 2's screen, weight, thickness, etc. all improved upon the original Air. And the 1GB of RAM.. enough said. Now, the difference (mostly $$$) between Pro and Air 2, well, that is something I do not care much for.

I wonder if this is where Apple is headed, recycling old stuff in a tick-tock-ish cadence? Does Apple not only have left-over parts, but have ownership/lease on production tools as well?

This does not bode well for tech enthusiasts. The iPhone SE was made from recycled parts, the "new" iPad is also made of recycled parts. Maybe the next will be the iPhones.. Recycle the body of the iPhone 6 for a couple more years at the usual price (those camera bumps..) while introducing an "iPhone Edition Pro" for a jacked up price.

I am playing devil's advocate here but nonetheless I am glad that I have not tied myself to Apple's ecosystem. ^^

 

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[lopri]

I did not say the iPhone SE's chassis was ugly. To the contrary I agree with you that it is better than the 6's design. And I do think the new design is ugly, and it got worse over the years. (heavier, top-heavy body and unseemly camera bulges) They had to do it though because the 5's design was not suitable for 4.7" and 5.5" screens. What I do not understand is why they do not even iterate on it like every other OEM does. Instead of improving the design via iterations they are doubling down on it by recycling..

 

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[Tegeril]

...Now, the difference (mostly $$$) between Pro and Air 2, well, that is something I do not care much for...

Wat?

Improved color accuracy / wider gamut display, brighter display, faster and more frequency coverage LTE modem, better rear camera, better front camera, twice the speakers, accessory connector, higher input sampling rate screen for compatibility with pencil, faster cpu/gpu.

 

[Eug]

I don't have great resistance to reflections on my Air 2 anyway, because I use a tempered glass screen protector. However, I prefer the Air 2 form factor.

That said, for new iPad for cheap vs. the Air 2 at the old price, I'd take the new iPad, given that it now has 2 GB RAM.

I specifically skipped the old iPad Air back in 2013 though, because it was limited to 1 GB RAM. Glad I waited until 2014 for the Air 2. Not only did I get 2 GB RAM, I got triple-core and a better form factor, TouchID, and better screen. It was a pretty significant upgrade over the Air.

 

[Commodus]

Given that I'm still using the original iPad Air and haven't had issues with the screen or design (I use it inside, mind you), I'll say this: for $329, the 5th-gen iPad sounds like a solid deal. It's inexpensive enough that you can get one without putting too much thought into it, but it's good enough that you won't immediately regret it. I suspect most of us would rather get the iPad Pro regardless, but that $270 price gap is difficult to ignore.

 

[amyklai]

Yeah, as an entry level deal, den new iPad isn't bad at all.

What IS negative is that now there's going to be a significant gap between entry level and pro. If you've got an Air 2 and want to upgrade, you HAVE to get a pro which contains a whole lot of stuff most iPad users don't want or need and is much more expensive..

There's basically no satisfying point for mid-range buyers, it's eather cheap entry level or overpay.

 

[lopri]

My choice is getting the Air 2 while supplies last. Of course if you already have an Air 2 the new iPad is a downgrade. And considering the price and limitation of the "Pro" model (2GB of RAM, are you kidding me) at this point you might as well wait for the next iPad Pro which is rumored to be out with a new chip.

 

[Oyeve]

I may as well sell my barely used Air 2. I use my pro more.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, as an entry level deal, den new iPad isn't bad at all.

What IS negative is that now there's going to be a significant gap between entry level and pro.

I think that's the point.

If you've got an Air 2 and want to upgrade, you HAVE to get a pro which contains a whole lot of stuff most iPad users don't want or need and is much more expensive..

There's basically no satisfying point for mid-range buyers, it's eather cheap entry level or overpay.

The new iPad is mid-range. Apple has no low end tablets. IMO, the Air 2 was upper mid-range.

However, now we have a mid-range tablet with a faster CPU than the previous upper mid-range tablet.

My choice is getting the Air 2 while supplies last. Of course if you already have an Air 2 the new iPad is a downgrade. And considering the price and limitation of the "Pro" model (2GB of RAM, are you kidding me) at this point you might as well wait for the next iPad Pro which is rumored to be out with a new chip.

Although I'm glad to have two of the Air 2 iPads, if I were buying today, I'd might buy the new iPad, mainly because of the faster SoC.

The Air 2 can play most mainstream 1080p h.265 HEVC, but sometimes its A8X gets pretty stressed out doing it. With long videos it can overheat, causing stuttering. I'm not sure about the A9, but I'm guessing that with its faster CPU and larger size it might be able to go longer without stuttering.

That said, my iPhone 7 Plus with A10 Fusion stutters with HEVC material a lot sooner than my iPad Air 2 does, probably because of its size.

The sadly ironic part of all of this is that likely all of these devices have hardware HEVC decode support built into the SoC (which started with Apple's A8/A8X), but it's not used because of stupid licencing issues. It's a total #$&*@$ mess.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic...ts-Time-to-Move-Forward-with-HEVC-113278.aspx

EDIT:

Hmmm... How well is HEVC decode parallelized?

It turns out in some multi-core benches the A9 and the A8X are basically the same. The A9 is the same 1.85 GHz as in the iPhone 6S. I had guessed the A9 in the new iPad would be faster clocked, but that is not the case.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/appl...017-review-not-the-ipad-air-3-but-still-great

BTW, that review states that the new iPad has a HUGE advantage for battery life, another good reason to buy the new iPad.

In our video-playback test with the screen calibrated to 170cd/m2 and flight mode engaged, the latest iPad lasted 14hrs 47mins; that’s more than four hours longer than the iPad Air 2 and over two hours longer than the original iPad Air.

 

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[manly]

I bought the new iPad yesterday for my mom. Best Buy has a targeted coupon where you basically get AppleCare+ for free. While I generally don't buy warranties and would never consider AC+ for $99, I'd value it at about $40.

Now the stupid part is that her old iPad mini backups are encrypted, and nobody in the family knows what the password is. This is not an uncommon problem:
https://hints.binaryage.com/itunes-asks-for-a-password-to-unlock-a-backup-that-you-never-set/

Apparently there are some 3rd party iTunes backup password recovery tools out there, but they usually cost money.

I think my next option is to backup the device to iCloud (currently disabled), and I can restore from that.

I understand why backups should be encrypted, and why allowing a password "reset" in this scenario would allow for easily "cloning" someone else's device. So I'm glad Apple has thought out the security issues here. However, automatically using an iTunes OR PC's admin password is not a sensible policy. You cannot disable backup encryption without knowing the password. Apple's support doc says use iCloud, or reset the device lol.

As far as iPad 2017 vs. iPad Pro, the actual gap is about $170. The Pro is often on sale for $499. For someone like my mom, the choice is easy. For myself? I'd probably get the Pro (esp. after it gets updated).

 

[lopri]

The screen ruins it for me.

For real. I saw one yesterday and it looked worse than the original Air's. Have to keep Foxconn happy, I suppose.

 

[manly]

For real. I saw one yesterday and it looked worse than the original Air's. Have to keep Foxconn happy, I suppose.

Sorry to change the subject, but I read something about Foxconn that didn't quite make sense. Figures I've seen state that Foxconn gross'd about $136B in revenue last year, and attribute (a little over) half of that to Apple. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of those words, but I'm inferring that Apple paid Foxconn $70B last year for manufacturing? That can't be right but the gross revenue figures are well known.

Something just doesn't compute. Apple is a humongous company and grossed a little over $200B. Samsung Electronics is incredibly diverse and pulled in some $180B. Foxconn is in the ball park just as a global contract manufacturer?

 

[Cappuccino]

My iPad Pro 12.9 is still the best. The only thing I dislike is the weight. My arms are ripped right now.