Apple announces iPad Air

[nando]

Innovation means doing something useful and new. Microsoft beat Apple to the tablet format by many, many years. What made Apple innovative with the iPad was that they realized that there was a consumer market for a cheap, underpowered tablet device that could only perform bare-bones functions such as web browsing.

Part of Microsoft's problem was that they overestimated the average consumer whereas Apple understood that most people were willing to settle for significantly inferior hardware and software if it were easy to use and able to accomplish a few basic functions, like web browsing, that increasingly dominated PC usage.

What makes the surface and surface pro innovative is that they took something that basically is in the form and similar in size to an iPad, and gave it many new, useful features. For instance, few tablet PC's before the Surface Pro 2 had such a slim size, weight, and long battery life. Few tablets as small had an active digitizer. Few tablets had a really good keyboard attachment or kickstand.

You mention some of the real problem with Apple in your post. Apple just does not give you options. If you want just a basic tablet, Microsoft gives you the Surface. If you want something that is light enough to replace a tablet, but heavy duty enough to replace a laptop, Microsoft gives you the surface pro. If you want to use your tablet to do word processing, Microsoft gives you Office, really high quality keyboard, and a built in kickstand.

Apple does not give you those options because the all-and-mighty Steve Mobs says you don't need to be able to write a cover letter on your iPad. If you want to do that, you should spend $1000 or more on a fancy new Macbook or struggle with the onscreen keyboard. If you want a tablet that runs photoshop and allows touchscreen stylus input, well, you're not going to find it from Apple because Apple thinks you don't need it. Instead, you should spend $10,000 on a Mac Pro and a Wacom digitizer input.



Well, it is not just that. I have owned several Microsoft Tablet PC's and, unlike the Surface Pro, they simply are too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for an extended period. By contrast, I have no problem holding something as heavy as a macbook air in my hand for extended periods and the Surface Pro 2 is lighter than a Macbook Air once you remove the keyboard cover.

The keyboard cases for the iPad add a lot of heft and bulk, and they still do not add the ability to use an accurate stylus or run an application like Office, Photoshop, Mathematica, or Matlab.

i wa gonna entertain your arguments but i won't, it's just too silly. plus neither product is for me. besides, the surface needs all the costumers it can get. so preach on.

 

[MegaBassBX]

Where the fuck is the touch sensor?

 

[Chocolina]

Android or Apple... almost half a devices value is almost dependent on the screen itself.

So the iPad Air, you get one of the lightest 9+inch tablets around, its super thin, likely pretty durable, has a great display, and is probably powered by the same CPU/GPU in the iPhone 5S

Sounds like a pretty solid device to me. Though $500 for 16GB is pretty lame.

I still don't know why 32GB isn't the standard already.

 

[Wisenheimer]

Android or Apple... almost half a devices value is almost dependent on the screen itself.

So the iPad Air, you get one of the lightest 9+inch tablets around, its super thin, likely pretty durable, has a great display, and is probably powered by the same CPU/GPU in the iPhone 5S

Sounds like a pretty solid device to me. Though $500 for 16GB is pretty lame.

I still don't know why 32GB isn't the standard already.

iPads (at least the full sized ones) are typically powered by some of the fastest ARM, low power CPUs and GPUs on the market, unlike the iPhone. If Apple included a microSD card like everyone else, the 16 GB model would be fine.

 

[stomp_442]

Just about any smartphone or tablet worth owning has one. Apple, where's the fvcking SD slot on your devices.

 

[raulpica]

iPads (at least the full sized ones) are typically powered by some of the fastest ARM, low power CPUs and GPUs on the market, unlike the iPhone. If Apple included a microSD card like everyone else, the 16 GB model would be fine.

I honestly don't get what people do with more than 16GB on board. My Android cellphone is loaded with emulators, and I still can't fill the 16GBs.

 

[KingVamp]

I really do not understand the usefullness of something between a phone and paper-sized tablet. The iPad mini and its ilk are too small to read a normal document such as a word, PDF file, or textbook, but too big to be a phone (bigger than the oversized Note 3)

I have a Kindle and I never think, "man, this is the perfect size". I always think, "man, I want something big enough to read a full PDF or textbook," or, "I wish this fit in my pocket".

Maybe there is something I am missing?

7.9in screen, 7in even, should be enough to read a document. ~6in with some sacrifice. People can fit these ~6in - 7in devices in their pocket and overall they are easier to carry around than a big tablet. If they are going to be that big, I rather just use a laptop.

 

[Qtis]

iPads (at least the full sized ones) are typically powered by some of the fastest ARM, low power CPUs and GPUs on the market, unlike the iPhone. If Apple included a microSD card like everyone else, the 16 GB model would be fine.

Adding a microSD card to the equation would fuggle up quite a few things in terms of the file system and OS. Using different file systems on mobile devices isn't optimal. Speeds can suffer greatly compared to integrated memory (pricing of which is purely something that can be blamed on Apple. If they hadn't done the $100 and double memory route, neither would have anyone else).

Apple isn't the only one with this idea. Google does the same thing with the Nexus devices. My Nexus 7 still has quite a big of space left even though I've got 5 or so humble bundles slapped on it.

 

[Wisenheimer]

Adding a microSD card to the equation would fuggle up quite a few things in terms of the file system and OS. Using different file systems on mobile devices isn't optimal. Speeds can suffer greatly compared to integrated memory (pricing of which is purely something that can be blamed on Apple. If they hadn't done the $100 and double memory route, neither would have anyone else).

Apple isn't the only one with this idea. Google does the same thing with the Nexus devices. My Nexus 7 still has quite a big of space left even though I've got 5 or so humble bundles slapped on it.

I think it is more of a design perspective. They don't want a hole to mess up their pretty little masterpiece. No well designed operating system has trouble with removable drives. My Windows and android phones never did.

7.9in screen, 7in even, should be enough to read a document. ~6in with some sacrifice. People can fit these ~6in - 7in devices in their pocket and overall they are easier to carry around than a big tablet. If they are going to be that big, I rather just use a laptop.

Based on my experience with the Kindle, it is large enough to struggle to read a regular sized document. It is not comfortable. Something larger, like a textbook, just doesn't work.

I honestly don't get what people do with more than 16GB on board. My Android cellphone is loaded with emulators, and I still can't fill the 16GBs.

Well, my old iPod is 60gb and only holds a fraction of my music, so just for music alone I need a 64gb chip.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I honestly don't get what people do with more than 16GB on board. My Android cellphone is loaded with emulators, and I still can't fill the 16GBs.

To be fair nowadays so much stuff is cloud-based. You don't need to download movies when you have Netflix and Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video. You don't need to download music with Google Play and I think iTunes does cloud streaming now. The only things left are some apps (most of which don't take up a lot of space), games will be taking up the majority but not a lot of people buy an iPad for gaming alone.

 

[raulpica]

Well, my old iPod is 60gb and only holds a fraction of my music, so just for music alone I need a 64gb chip.

I just fire up YT when I need to listen to some music.

Yeah, audio quality is crap, but I don't use (nor have) $600 hi-fi ear-buds

 

[Chocolina]

I honestly don't get what people do with more than 16GB on board. My Android cellphone is loaded with emulators, and I still can't fill the 16GBs.

Most devices 16GB is really like 14.5-15.3 GB, and even a portion of that is reserved for system files. Stock roms on feature-rich devices with bloatware take up 800MB-1800MB.
There are a handful of games on Android that exceed 500-1500 MB. Games like Asphalt reach almost 2GB, and a game like Bards Tale I think is 1.7GB, but gives you the option to go HD at the cost of another GB.

That doesn't include the other things people use devices like these for. 1000 tracks of MP3 VRB V1 is about 4-5GB
And if you're someone like me who torrents videos using work's wifi, you need atleast 3GB free each day.

After formatting and OS, my phone has 24.8 usable GB left and I have all but 500MB filled. My device does not have an SD so I'm hoping Stickmount can support my device someday so I can attach temporarily expand my storage.

 

[Wisenheimer]

I just fire up YT when I need to listen to some music.

Yeah, audio quality is crap, but I don't use (nor have) $600 hi-fi ear-buds

Unfortunately, a lot of newer portable devices don't have the best DACs. The ones in the old iPod videos were actually pretty good. They sound better on my $200 Klipsch earbuds than my Galaxy S4.

 

[Ericthegreat]

Isn't it the great advantage of choosing and developing for Apple products that there's few models? Yeah, 'bout that...
Isn't it the point of mobile development to be easy and inexpensive, which super-high resolutions work against?

Can I go knock some pundits heads now?

Well, tho I dislike apple, if you program for ios it will most likely work on all the devices, and you normally get hi res materials for your game anyway, then you downgrade them for space/technical requirements (if needed). Same cannot be said for android, where there are bugs between phones, that pretty much kill your app. (but norm can be fixed).

 

[Joe88]

if you program for ios it will most likely work on all the devices.

as long as said device is not more than 2 years old