1lb! finally a reasonable weight for the full size iPad, I was worried they'd lower it back to the same weight as the iPad 2 rather than make a dramatic change like this.
How can the iPad 5 have x2 the graphics power over the iPad 4, when the iPad 5 has the same A7 as the iPhone 5S - rather than an A7X, as they've done previously.
Have they just stopped using the A7X style name? Have they just x2 the GPU frequency? (seems implausible, but it's Rogue, which is apparently extremely efficient, and maybe could handle x2 frequency?).
At 200MHz that would give the A7 twice the peak theoretical performance of the GPU
in the iPhone 5. And from what I’ve heard, the G6430 is clocked much higher than
that.
If 200MHz is correct, I bet the iPad 5 just doubled the GPU frequency to 400MHz.
It's possible they wanted to be misleading like that. So the A7 in iPhone 5S could have a certain level of performance, while the "A7" in iPad Air has its GPU clocked twice as higher, but the same name.
You may be incorrectly assuming all A7 SoCs are identical. The Apple TV has an A5, but it's only single core, unlike it's dual core phone and tablet brethren. Maybe they just dropped the X moniker.
You could be right, but have a read of the review I linked above, search for the text I quoted, and read around that. To me, it's compelling that the iPhone 5S's GPU is severely underclocked, leaving headroom for reuse in the iPad 5. And of course higher-clocking is usual in iPads, with their larger battery.
BONUS: for next year, the G6630 gives 50% performance increase + the expected node shrink allows a further ~30% overclock. 1.5*1.3 = 1.95 ~ 2.0.
For the following year, they could go for G6630MP2 (the 6 clusters can be multicored as a whole). Next (three years from now), they could go G6630MP3 plus another node shrink. By that time, there could be 8/10 clusters available G6830, G6A30 etc, and an entirely new architecture in the works, though probably not yet available.
Yep, lighter faster version. Realistically, they probably realized that people want to be able to tell what version it is from the name. The previous two iterations were just the "new iPad".
I really need to get more creative with my personal apps now that someone can be carrying an iPhone 5S and iPad Air, both that can be iBeacons and accurately track motion. Ugh, there has to be something there!
I know that not everyone uses a keyboard case, but I am saddened by the fact that the new one is too small to support a usable keyboard case.
When I purchased a Clamcase Pro, I started using my iPad for pretty much everything, from term papers to code. While it was still pretty small, I could comfortably type about 90wpm on it, which is only about 10-15 less than I normally type.
For everyone else, this looks like pretty good upgrade.
Just because they make something, doesn't mean it works well. Only someone with relatively small hands will be able to type accurately and comfortably on that thing. It's also not the kind of keyboard case that works well on your lap.
The Clamcase Pro, on the other hand, did a pretty good job of converting my iPad into a MacBook Air that runs IOS. I'm curious to see if they'll manage to come out with a usable solution for the new one. If not, I don't really need to upgrade my iPad 4 for another year or so anyways.
I use this logitech keyboard every day and absolutely love it. The overall package is thinner than the Clamcase Pro, too. I basically use this iPad everywhere not my desk, and can't go back to lugging my laptop around.
One of the more interesting aspects of this is that they're keeping the iPad 2 at $399 (compared to the Air's $499). I can't imagine the value proposition for a new iPad 2 is at all attractive at that price point (I bought mine used for ~$250 last summer.)
Maybe some kind of appeal to institutional buyers who want that form factor (and maybe the old port / shape) to keep their fleet of device consistent? Maybe just a lot of extra components / panels for that design?
This is definitely for enterprise and school purchases. We have an educational app, Kodable, and a huge number of our users are still on iPad 2s. When you buy in volume, that extra $100 goes a long way, and, for better or worse, schools and enterprise don't always want cutting edge tech.
It surprises me that they've just ditched the iPad 3/4 altogether from the comparison page, though they still sell refurbished iPad 4s for $379 in the store.
It seems to me that this is to put a floor under the second hand value; in terms of bang-for-the buck, the right price for a used iPad 2 should really be about $175 by now, but it's rare to see one under $200.
One reason the iPad 2 remains attractive to many (especially musicians) is that peripherals - there hasn't been that much take-up of Apple's Lightning connector by people who make add-on hardware.
I think keeping the iPad2 as an entry level iPad is fine, the problem is the price imo. I got my iPad2 for about that price a year ago...
But then again, Apple is known to do that..the outgoing Mac Pro is pretty overpriced given how outdated the hardware has become.
they've done it for the ipad mini and the macbook pro as well. their product line involves one retina and one non retina model ( except for the iphone). i believe it's done that way purely because it's easier to explain to people when it's consistent.
next year will probably see the switch to pure retina across all product lines.
No it is compared to iPad one. Which makes it ridiculous. They are just keeping up with Moore's law (or are slightly ahead of the curve). And I suppose the GPU is mostly increased die area - will wait for the teardown.
I think that apple is having a case of "taking ourselves too seriously" lately and have believed all the praise parts of the pundits are pouring on them so they cannot see how absurd that sounds.
An interesting guess would be that they're going to repurpose the generic iPad name for something beefier like the Surface. In that case, the iPad Air would sort of be the lighter portable version similar to the Macbook Pro/Macbook Air. Just an idea that popped into my head.
It's presumably only a matter of time before the heart of Apple's PC line is converted to touchscreen. Whether they will carry the Macbook branding or iPad branding or a mixture of both will be interesting.
I think Apple leaves the number on the iPhone because carrier contracts make it a naturally cyclical purchase: When users come off contract, Apple wants them to know that there's a new phone available with a big +1 number.
Conversely, Apple wants you to buy a new iPad as soon as you want one, and not sit around waiting for the N+1 model. Spreading out purchases over the device lifecycle gives them better margins as manufacturing and components get cheaper.
If you look at the back of the iPhones, the iPhone 3GS was the last one to name itself. Recently an Apple store employee wasn't to happy that I kept saying iPad 4.
I suppose in a world where change is frequent and incremental rather than dramatic and rare removing the version number is appropriate to minimize consumer confusion.
What strikes me more about this iPad Air is the price points. $499 16GB wifi only is a very hard sell to the mass market when a Nexus 7 16GB comes in at $230. Size matters here, but I can see Apple being in big trouble when Google's tablet is half the price and has a handful of more advanced features. I guess that is why Apple hired that Burberry executive last week. They can sit right next to the Vertu store.
About the Android tablets - what they seem to get wrong is the aspect ratio and / or dimensions. I have a rooted Nook Tablet, and I dislike the it because both portrait and landscape are too narrow. I grab my sister's iPad and it seems to be much more natural. Even the iPad mini just shrinks what the iPad has. So yes, Nexus, et. al are cheaper, but the dimensions, for me personally, stink.
Disappointing. What happened to doing something revolutionary? Where is the the text input? Apple are driving by creatives. When can I write my book on my Apple tablet?
And what's with the 16gb model. As they said, it has been almost 4 years now. And the 16gb model persists.
And if anyone had said the Kindle was better, this snark would be relevant. But this is clearly a discussion of tablets' weight and whether the iPad Air's weight is a significant advance.
The weight does not exist in a vacuum. It has to be evaluated in light of not just the other specs, but also the user experience.
Think about this: if the Honda Civic was upgraded to be able to do everything my SUV can, including towing, off-roading, cargo capacity, and overall comfort, but its size AND price stayed the same, would that not be considered revolutionary?
I guess that is a reasonable argument, but it was not at all what I got from your original post. Obviously all the features must be considered in concert under the umbrella of "user experience" but that is also nearly impossible to discuss as everyone's experience is personal and difficult to express. I don't think the iPad shaving off 200g is anywhere near upgrading a Civic to be able to do everything my SUV can for the same price and size, but I can see someone thinking that.
I'm impressed that Apple got the weight down to 1lb, but shrinking the size of a consumer electronics device is par for the course, not really something that I would consider "revolutionary."
> Revolutionary would be something like eye tracking and constant voice input to make it possible to do completely hands-free usage.
Ah, I see. "Revolutionary" is a code-word for "gimmick which will not work properly, but will look good in the marketing". As in "Siri is revolutionary".
It's 2013 and most people's data is in the cloud rather than on local devices?
Just because something is capable of doing something doesn't mean it should. A Truck is capable of street racing, but you'd be better off in an actual racing car. Make devices for specific use cases, not for everything. That's how you end up with Windows 8.
Games can easily kill 16GB of storage, no matter what other media you might have on the device, and apps in general are bigger than they used to be with Retina resources. And "the cloud" really does me no good on a plane or a road trip or anywhere else fast wifi may not be available.
16GB is small enough to require active storage management, even for fairly casual users. It's becoming a real issue.
If Boeing made a jet that everyone over 4' tall had to bend in half to sit in, would you say "hence why larger sizes are available"?
16GB iPads are a poor (or at least mediocre) user experience, even for ordinary users. It's contrary to Apple's ethos to continue making them at all.
It's even sillier when you consider that everything else about the baseline $499 model has been drastically improved several times over since 2010, and Apple has taken steps that clearly reduced the utility of the 16GB baseline (retina graphics, full HD video).
32GB should be the new $499 baseline. It's way past time.
I know some users. I don't know if they are ordinary. I think they are. My parents in their 50's. A grandmother of 80. Some friends which are 30 with a very average computer literacy.
Every one of them took fast with the iPad (that's how Apple is good), but no one of 'em'll fill 16gb of space.
Yes, it's 2013 and both Verizon and ATT are still charging $50/month for 5GB. Until unlimited plans at reasonable prices become available, cloud+mobile is useless to me and it'd be more affordable to store media on my device instead of streaming it.
T-Mobile may work for your use case (if you're in a coverage zone), with 5GB of their 4G and unlimited EDGE (it was good enough for the original iPhone which relied exclusively on HTML5 apps, right?) for $30/mo prepaid. I don't know how well the iPad works on T-Mobile's network though, YMMV.
So god forbid you watch your movies on the go in SD in order to eke out a few extra showings. 5GB is still worlds better than AT&T offers, and there's still unlimited EDGE.
EDGE is not remotely useful in the context of this conversation, I have no idea why you keep bringing it up. The only thing you might possibly hope to stream at EDGE speeds is audio, video is simply not an option. And (re-)installing apps of any substantive size is likewise impractical.
I am in no way ignorant of the mobile data options available to me in the United States. I simply know them to be an utterly inadequate to substitute for adequate local storage, and I can't even begin to understand how you consider them to be otherwise. Feels like you're just here to shill for T-Mobile.
Yeah, I'd love T-Mobile, but pretty much every friend/coworker who uses T-Mobile complains about coverage. It's apparently pretty dismal in my area (North Jersey/Hudson Valley.)
My, how entitled we are! Your priorities may differ from the tens of millions who have bought these, the most popular tablets in the world. Apple is making safe, welcome changes to their products, which is something you can do in times of plenty. Personally, I will be happy to have an iPad that lasts longer, doesn't take ages to turn a page in a high-rez PDF, and is half a pound lighter.
What happened to doing something revolutionary? Lord! Do it yourself! Who says you can't write a book? And why do you have to do it on an iPad? Why not a Surface or whatnot, if that's your priority? Why not a MacBook Air or ultrabook? Your complaints infuriate me!
a) Apple didn't post this, an interested user did.
b) It's interesting to hackers and has plenty of upvotes.
c) To a lot of people using this site, it is something important.
a) No, you merely insinuated it, b1) no, the 210 [at time of writing] make it a substantiated fact, (b2) who do you think you are to suggest whether or not some votes for a article. It's how the set works. Don't like the article, don't click the link it really is that simple, (3) absolutely. It would've helped if you'd applied tha before posting first.
a) No, you merely insinuated it, b1) no, the 210 [at time of writing] make it a substantiated fact, (b2) who do you think you are to suggest whether or not some votes for a article. It's how the set works. Don't like the article, don't click the link it really is that simple, (3) absolutely. It would've helped if you'd applied tha before posting first.
Apple is making safe, welcome changes to their products, which is something you can do in times of plenty.
Apple is also the company that made risky, aggressive bets cannibalizing their own products during times of plenty and was highly praised for doing so. (I speak of the iPod) I'm not surprised when people wish to see that kind of movement again.
There is nothing particularly brave about cannibalizing a rather cheap product (iPod) with an insanely more expensive one (iPhone), that also turns out to become obsolete much more quickly. I should know: I bought one iPod Nano and my sister-in-law is still using it today, however I'm on my third iPhone already.
The iPad Mini cannibalizing the iPad, or the iPad cannibalizing the MacBook are much bolder moves. That iPad Mini Retina does look good...
OP may have meant iPhone, but the best example is the iPod -> iPod Mini, as well as the iPod Mini -> iPod Nano. Both products were flying off the shelves and racking up massive sales when Apple undercut themselves with the cheaper product (the Mini) or completely replaced it with a radically different form factor (the Nano).
In both cases it seemed like money on the table, but in both cases the products became the core of Apple's product offering and dramatically out-sold their predecessors.
If I took the meat out of the sandwich, the sandwich would go downhill, too. Selectively quoting just the crust of a comment and loudly disclaiming about the quality of the discourse - possibly you're right about the quality, but if so then I'm exhibit A, and you're exhibit B.
I'm sure they have some real 'revolutionary' products on the road map, but from a business standpoint, why change what they are doing? They are profitable with their current product releases because of their crazy following. Small iterations to their technology that (my guess) cost very little but they can sell at a higher margin? Money in the bank. That 16gb HD is to make sure you pay them monthly for your necessary iCloud space. We are slaves to the Apple ways!
I'm sure we'll see something in the next year or two that is actually brand new that's not just a small upgrade to their current line up.
I acknowlledge your point that people only innovate when they really NEED it. That's why disruptive innovation comes from more downtrodden companies. But apple is famous for the opposite of this. That even when at the top, they keep innovating to REMAIN at the top. And that is why its always a let down to see a new product with no innovation
I don't understand why you would want to write your book on a tablet. Sounds counterintuitive. Why not just use a real keyboard and OS on a Macbook Air? They are marginally thicker than the iPad.
Why not just use a goddamn type writer? Man I love typing on those things. I still write up my programming assignments on it just to hear the clickity clackity.
Computer Science in hard mode: Do your programming assignments on a type writer. Once.
Poor analogy. I already said that a Macbook is almost just as thin and light, with a superior OS and input mechanism. Tablets were never intended to be the next generation of word processing devices.
I know at least 2 people who'd love to have the option to buy Wacom pens for iPads. Right now it doesn't really work unless you use some very hacky solutions. I wish Apple supported pressure sensitive pens.
I'n also still hoping for an 11"-12" 16:9 iPad Pro (they can just make it longer like they did with the iPhone 5 that comes with a keyboard. It should basically be an iPad laptop (not hybrids, no point) that costs $700, and comes with a new A8 processor in spring, or at least A7X, and maybe 64 GB by default.
Yeah, it might be pressure sensitive, but I doubt it's anywhere as close to accurate as active digitizer pens. It looks like a capacitive pen with a thick rubber tip, so I doubt it's much more useful than a $20 capacitive stylus.
Great idea - the top half of the computer is an 11" iPad that detaches from an 11" MacBook Air (keyboard part only) - could be awesome, especially if Remote Desktop worked via Wifi... Software integration would need loads of thought though, as would the hinge/detachment mechanism!
If you look back at their last decade or so, Apple only rarely releases revolutionary things. The bulk of Apple product releases have been incremental upgrades. We just forget about those more easily.
Revolutions are notable because of their rarity. Were they commonplace they would be "events". 10, 20 years ago these incremental changes would indeed have seemed revolutionary but now they are just "boring upgrades". Anyway, all these "lack of innovation, where is the revolution" comments are really just Apple haters complaining that there is nothing sexier for Samsung or Microsoft to copy.
Tried a Bluetooth keyboard? I have a cheap Chinese knock-off of an Apple keyboard and it works fine. In fact, when using my Motorola Xoom, I use the Bluetooth keyboard plenty when typing because a) typing on a screen is really slow and b) the onscreen keyboard isn't the most responsive in the universe, particularly when in a busy browser.
Possibly a top-notch first-party keyboard from Apple that turns the iPod into more of a laptop form factor when you want to use it as such. The kind of thing Microsoft is doing with the Surface. As much as Windows RT is pretty useless, the Surface keyboard is a really nice piece of kit.
There are already very good third-party solutions (though the better ones tend to be expensive); not sure why Apple making one would make a huge practical difference.
But having that color covering a whole laptop does seems a lot tackier. Now, a black Macbook Air would be interesting - or perhaps even a "space grey" one.
So their new commercial for the iPad focuses on the fact that so many people use it for productivity, so why can't Apple create a decent, first-party pressure sensitive stylus, so we don't have to deal with expensive, clunky, third-party solutions.
Obviously because Apple does not want you to use a stylus with it. Or perhaps, they don't want to be the ones to tell you that you could use a stylus with it if you wanted. They want to perpetuate the idea that it's self contained; a stylus would contradict that.
That statement gets used a lot to downplay the concept of a stylus, and in that context it is flatly incorrect to be blunt. Viewing it that ways makes the assumption that you intent to use a stylus as a finger replacement. The finger and the stylus are different input devices with different levels of ease of use and accuracy. It is wrong to assume they are meant to accomplish the same tasks. No device should be limited to either one... finger or stylus. I use the stylus to draw on my Surface and quite frankly I love what it allows me to do. But when I go back to surfing, fingers all the way.
Lets pretend paper is the leading technology for communication. The leader in the paper industry thinks you should write/draw with your finger. You have ten of them.
But, some people, need more precision than a human finger allows. They use an object with a finer point than our fingers. But, the rest of us are okay with just finger painting. The paper was designed to be large enough for fingers to use.
It would be nice to sometimes use a different input method on paper when the finger won't cut it. I see nothing wrong with having more than one input method. There is no right or wrong way.
Ship it without a stylus. Require that all apps be usable with fingers. Make a sweet pressure-sensitive stylus available for extra precision. Everyone wins.
They are doing a piss poor job of filling that space because all they can do is work within the limitations of the capacitive touch screen and/or the wireless capabilities of the device. If Apple implemented a proper digitizer, it would be far better than any third party solution.
He was talking about driving the interface. The iPad has been designed from the ground up with capactive touch so that you can navigate an iPad with your fingers. Adding a pen digitiser changes nothing.
Steve Jobs also said you'd write your apps for the iPhone using JavaScript. Or that you don't need multitasking.
Here's the thing, it's not the stylus that is the problem. It's the dependency on a stylus. There is a difference between doing it, and doing it right.
I would wager that Steve Jobs was not very interested in drawing or painting. I'll bet he would understand someone who was into drawing and painting who used a stylus, especially a pressure sensitive stylus.
Jobs was strongly against the stylus and famously said something like "God gave us 10 styluses at birth". Maybe part of his legacy is a company filled with people having the same opinion.
Yeah, and we learn to finger-paint very early, it being quite intuitive and all... but then we grow up and the overwhelming majority of people learn to use writing implements (and other such tools of numerous sorts). I haven't been able, nor wanted to, turn in finger-painted work since early elementary school. Adults use pens (and other such) to write, as well they should, since doing so increases the efficiency of complex output from mind to page.
Steve Jobs isn't working at Apple anymore. He was great for Apple, but they aren't obligated to agree with every idea that he ever had, and integrate them into their business model.
He has often said that he thought something was stupid. More often than not, at the time he said these things, he was right. He once disliked the entire idea of the tablet, because the technology hadn't matured enough to deliver a positive experience for the customer. Long after he criticized tablets, he introduced the iPad to the world. It doesn't mean he's a hypocrite, it just means that the technology matured enough to change his mind.
Its hard to argue that Wacom technology isn't sufficiently mature, and there is clearly a market for such a thing. Art and note-taking apps are wildly popular. Both would be significantly enhanced by the presence of a true touch-sensitive stylus.
Apple didn't intend for the iPad to be a content creation device, but now they seem to be embracing it as such, because that's what many customers want to do with it.
If a person never changes his mind about anything, that person has stopped learning.
Because every other tablet pc/tablet with a integrated pressure-sensitive stylus is much better than anything released thus far for the iPad by third parties.
Samsung and Microsoft license Wacom digitizer technology for their stylus tablets. It's not just that they provide a stylus--the tablet itself has additional capacitive sensors. Apple would have to totally re-engineer their touch sensor to accomodate that.
The reason iPad styluses have fat tips is that they have to simulate a fingertip, which is the only thing that an iPad can sense. The tradeoff is that an iPad is faster and more accurate at sensing fingers than other tablets.
Wacom has released a pressure-sensitive stylus for iPad. I have not tried it though...not much of an artist.
The digitizer is actually a separate layer in most cases. There are lots of products that have both a digitizer and a capacitive touch layer. The lack of a digitizer isn't what makes the iPad more responsive. If Apple wanted to do it, it would be trivial.
Wacom fucked up this particular product, because they opted to use a large rubber tip. It might be more precise than a normal dumb stylus, but its still terrible. Trying to write like a normal person, or draw thin lines is absolutely horrible with a fat-tipped stylus.
Right. It was never debatable whether or not the current iPad has a digitizer. It doesn't. I'm just saying if they are starting to embrace productivity, they should have added one.
The current iPad has a capacitive touch screen, that's why the current styli use a large tip, the stylus isn't replicating a pen, its replicating a fingertip. That's why they all suck. Its hard to write / draw with your finger, so until we stop making styli that replicate fingers, note taking and drawing on the iPad are going to be suboptimal.
> the tablet itself has additional capacitive sensors.
Inductive, actually, which is why the stylus doesn't need to have a big fat tip.
Wacom also make a stylus for the iPad, which obviously has to be capacitive rather than inductive. I think it has batteries in it and sends tip pressure information to the iPad over Bluetooth.
(How the inductive sensing works: You have some conductive loops behind the display, and in the pen there is a ferrite rod with a conductive coil around it together with a capacitor to make a resonant circuit. You pass an alternating current at approximately the resonant frequency through some of the loops; it couples to the pen circuit by electromagnetic induction, the pen circuit resonates, and for a short time it produces, by induction again, a signal in all the other conducting coils behind the display. How much signal depends on the position and angle of the coil in the pen. If you have enough loops behind the display you can work out where the pen tip is accurately enough to draw with it. The capacitor in the resonant circuit is variable and adjusted by the tip pressure, and small changes in the resonant frequency produce phase changes in the signal that comes back, so you can measure the tip pressure too. Similar technology is used in some interactive whiteboards.)
There are quite a few third-party styli available for purchase. Apple doesn't want to include one because they don't want developers assuming the user has a stylus, and thus, crafting interfaces that require that level of precision. The iPad/iOS is about touch.
If the argument is that Apple should build one, but not include it by default, specifically for people who need one, I guess the response is "Why bother?"
A stylus for a capacitive touch screen needs to be deeply integrated to work well - i.e. it needs some sensors along with the screen to anchor its position, simply because capacitive screen don't work well with pointy counterparts. That's why the stylus of MS surface is way better than any third party solution for iPad as far as I understand.
IMO Apple should integrate appropriate sensors and release an API for stylus makers or create it as an accessory themselves. I've bought two iPads since its initial release, and they work very well for me for some light browsing, but in order to integrate it into my workflow it'd have to become better at note taking.
I loved the MS Courier concept, it's too bad they instead created a solution that does everything, but nothing really well - you can either have desktop OneNote that only works with a stylus or mobile OneNote with nowhere near the features you'd need. Apple's iPad apps tend to have exactly the features you need except stylus support - so there's that.
The iPad doesn't have the same finger+stylus sensor tech that other tablets like the Samsung and Microsoft ones have. A real stylus simply won't work on an iPad because the iPad lacks the technology. So, as much as Apple says the iPad is for creative productivity, you won't find professionals using it like this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/02/22/the-ms-surface-pro
Can someone explain to me the obsession with "thinner"? This model is 2mm thinner and it's touted as taking "years of work". Lighter, I understand. Thin is a good goal, but 2mm is pretty pointless when you're just going to put a 5-10mm thick cover/case on it anyway.
The parent commenter isn't arguing the engineering feats required to achieve the extra bit of "thin-ness"; They're asking why that extra 2mm is so desirable in the first place. At the risk of sounding small-minded, I really don't see why today's phones and tablets should need to be much thinner than they already are. Sure, keep miniaturizing the internal components, but use the saved space for extra battery cells or storage. I'm not trying to fit a second phone in my pocket.
Exactly. I have a thin Nexus 4, but I have to carry a chunky extra USB battery because a) no replaceable battery and b) thin built in battery doesn't last long enough (yes, this is also Android's fault but that's not my point)
It's not only about being thin, but making it light as well. Making it thicker and same weight and/or heavier is noticeable to more potential customers than even more CPU performance.
That's the argument I make when people say my Lumia 920 is too thick and too heavy compared to their iPhone or Galaxy, then proceed to take the case off their phone to show me the difference. The real difference is, my Lumia has been naked since day 1, and dropped many times over. It's a Nokia. Yeah, it's thick and heavy compared to an iPhone, but it also doesn't need a case. An iPhone with a normal case is thicker and heavier.
Anecdotal strawman? It's hardly anecdotal to say that the Lumia, being made of solid polycarbonate plastic, can withstand impacts more than an iPhone made of glass and rigid metal. There are multiple YouTube tests that show how much force a Lumia 920 can withstand without breaking. Your example is an anecdote, since there are many forms of proof that the iPhone is quite fragile as well as, for example, the Nexus 4. (anecdote: I shattered my Nexus 4 dropping it from a window sill onto carpet)
Likewise, how is it a strawman? The original comment was that the person doesn't care about thinner because it becomes thicker when you put a case on it. A phone that doesn't need a case need only be thinner than a comparable phone with a case on it to be thinner in practice. That's a direct response to the original comment, providing a case where the comment is true.
So you don't have a case and you protect your phone quite well. That is a pure anecdote. Just because you want it to be an anecdotal strawman doesn't mean it is one.
The screen of pretty much all smartphones/tables nowadays are made of tempered aluminosilicate glass.
One of the properties of tempered glass is that it can withstand great impact on the front, but can shatter if dropped on the side. If you look closely at those Youtube videos, they will all probably be hitting the glass dead center. If you want to see a smartphone shatter, look for a video where the brunt of the impact is focused on one edge of the glass. Like this one:
You said that people often comment on how your phone is too thick, and then take the case off their phone to compare the size. The story characterizes the owners of those phones as imbeciles. This is the strawman anecdote I was referring to.
You also say that iPhones need cases, which is not true.
The person I responded to said iPhones need cases. I was just agreeing with him.
And the story I told is called "storytelling". It's a way to emphasize a point that's entertaining to read. Point 1: people use cases on their iPhone. Point 2: the Lumia is thinner than an iPhone with an average case. Point 3: The iPhone is thinner without a case. There's your facts, without entertaining storytelling.
Totally agree with this. In the keynote they played one of their new ads like they normally do, with the usual monologue from Jony Ive and he said something like "It's difficult to make something smaller AND more powerful at the same time" Well... stop trying to make it smaller then. Would prefer bigger improvements in battery life or performance or some new feature over a 2mm gain of um... space...
My obsession with thin is because of my bike bags. Long time MacBook Pro user (3 diff models), bought a 2013 MacBook Air and now it's nothing to throw it into my bag(s) and schlep it around.
The ideal of a self-effacing tool that disappears in every way physically manageable. A weightless window that is, physically, almost not there at all. The antithesis of a heavy brick that never lets you forget its physical dimensions. That is the ideal Apple inches toward.
Many people use these devices without cases, as they were designed to be used. Some don't, for reasons that make sense for them. Many will appreciate the less obtrusive dimensions. Others will never give a crap. Can you explain an obsession with sweets to someone without a sweet tooth? As usual in threads like this, people argue about idiosyncratic tastes.
The modern electronic gadget focus on "thinner" is similar in thought to the "longer, lower, wider" focus of cars from the late 40s and 50s. It gives marketers and salespeople something to talk about. Customers want to hear about "What's new" and not about a perfectly serviceable alternative that has been on the market for years.
For six years of my life I owned a Snap-on Tools franchise. Every week people would jump on the truck and ask "what's new?" and then purchase the same sockets that have been made for 90+ years. "Thinner" is just the latest talking point. If it wasn't "thinner" it would be something else. I would see my customers on a weekly schedule, and I was asked "what's new" 100 times a week. If a marketer wanted to give me the words to tell the people who asked that question, then I would gratefully accept as a salesperson, unless I could think of something that would work better.
If you would like a thin case, I am getting this rolling http://sascase.com Apologies for the blatant self promotion.
"Thinner" is also a good sales talking point because unless you know a lot about computer hardware it sounds self-evidently better. Why wouldn't you want something you carry around to be easier to carry? To the average person it's a no-brainer, because they don't connect "thinner" to things like "smaller battery you have to pay $100 to have pried out when it dies."
Recently, Apple seems big on iteration and small on innovation. Miniaturising an existing product is definitely a good iteration, but when I see Microsoft experimenting with touch covers and the like, I do wish Apple would try one or two new things again.
Huh? The new Mac Pro isn't even available for sale yet. That revolution design was only announced at WWDC a few months back. Are you sure you are not confusing it with the MacbookPro?
Erm, yup. You're right; I was thinking of the Macbook Pro. I think I've put a mental block on the Mac Pro, but that's due to my use cases for a computer having no intersections with the Mac Pro's use cases.
That said, calling it revolutionary seems a bit much - the form factor is certainly new and unique, but none of its components (or its roles) are distinct from that of the previous Mac Pros. Certainly not on the scale of differences between the original iPad and its competitors at the time, or the iPhone, or the iPod.
It could safely be argued as a simple iteration on the PC's form factor.
If your bar is so high that the new Mac Pro's case is not called "innovative" I don't know what to tell you. It is almost self evidentially a out-of-the-box, non incremental approach to how to design the case of a desktop machine. You can decide you don't like it, but it's clearly innovative.
Apple is going for even higher margins, and it will still sell well since who doesn't want a lighter iPad?
* SoC: A5X was 165mm^2. A6X was 123mm^2. A7 is only 102mm^2 with a 64-bit memory interface instead of 128-bit. They can do PoP memory too for even smaller PCB area. So much cheaper.
* WiFi/LTE: same chips probably used on iPhone 5c, 5s, iPad Air, and iPad mini. Simpler inventory and buy in even higher quantities.
* Screen: same screen as all previous retina generations likely.
* Battery: much smaller since the GPU is more efficient. More cost savings.
> * SoC: A5X was 165mm^2. A6X was 123mm^2. A7 is only 102mm^2 with a 64-bit memory interface instead of 128-bit.
This was pretty inevitable; the A5X was _absurdly_ large for a mobile SoC, and they only did it because they had to. Even the A7 is on the hefty side; it's about the biggest of its process node.
No TouchID? Surprised they'd introduce a new feature on their premium phone and not include it on the (currently) premium iPads, especially since the other 5s hardware (motion coprocessor, 64-bit architecture) has been carried over.
I would have thought they'd want to build a basic foundation for the future, e.g. "all devices better than the 5s include 64 bit, motion, and TouchID". When you vary on a feature (like TouchID), you discourage people from building cutting-edge experiences that require it.
Mostly agree - although you can only use TouchID now to unlock your phone and buy stuff from Apple. So I think they probably want to give it a year out in the wild to see exactly how secure it is, so they can then unleash it with an API to developers.
I agreed 100%. I'm assuming that it will come next year (or whenever) when/if they have multi-user support in iOS. Scan your finger, get logged in as your user.
I don't think that they'll add multiuser support because then the incentive for e.g. each family member getting their own idevice would be less. instead people might get a family ipad...
The benefit from having multiple iPads is that multiple people can use theirs at once. Multi-user doesn't help that fact, you end up with a family iPad that's just shared without separate user accounts.
I think TouchID is way more useful on the phone which you unlock tens of times daily vs the iPad which maybe you unlock once or twice depending on your usage.
Interesting, not sure if its enough to make be upgrade but still. Weirdly when the 'ipad air' moniker leaked I figured they were going to a do an iOS version of the Macbook Air to capture the 'appliance laptop' market that the Chromebook and Surface 2 are gunning for.
The graphics and cpu boosts are nice (and nice that they are accompanied by a run time boost) but what about the camera? What about the sensors? Looking forward to the full appraisal post event.
The 'appliance laptop' market is too similar to the failed netbook market for Apple to approach or care about, I think. If Apple were to come out with an new or hybrid category I don't think it would resemble an 'appliance laptop'.
Afterall, the MacBook Air wasn't a competitor to the netbooks - it was a competitor to the ultrabooks being touted by Intel et al. The iPad was the sleeper competitor to the netbook and killed that market (with help from Windows and Intel desperate to not have the PC platform not go that far down market).
If Apple comes out with something to address the 'appliance laptop' market I expect it to be an official Apple design and manufactured keyboard for the iPad line* and not an entirely new product.
I've not seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but the "iPad Air" and "iPad Mini" monikers leave room for the simply "iPad" moniker to eventually refer to something entirely re-imagined or ultra-premium. At the least it leaves room for a larger "iPad".
* What is the state of the art in usability in the 3rd party iPad keyboard market these days?
"Afterall, the MacBook Air wasn't a competitor to the netbooks - it was a competitor to the ultrabooks being touted by Intel et al."
This is backwards: the original MBA was introduced in 2008, and Intel only introduced the "Ultrabook" branding several years later. The MBA was largely panned as a far-too-expensive Apple attempt to cover their flank from the inexorable advance of the netbook. It was only when the iPad and competitive Android tablets put paid to netbooks that Intel came around to the design.
> What is the state of the art in usability in the 3rd party iPad keyboard market these days?
Logitech ultrathin is very expensive but a must buy for ipad productivity. Ergonomics are excellent for dual keyboard and screen driving (iOS doesn't make sense completely from keyboard) and it can be used as a full laptop replacement for a lot of business applications.
Revolution and innovation don't happy everyday, that's what makes them special and amazing. Expecting one company to be revolutionary and innovative once a year is expecting too much, once every ten years is probably expecting too much. Good incremental steps is not only expected, it's probably all that's possible.
Most people go through their entire life without thinking up something innovative, much less making it.
True. Nonetheless, I find myself a bit disappointed. At this point, the only thing iPad has is a first mover's advantage aka the App Store. There are very compelling alternatives available in both 7 inch and 10 inch range with interesting experimentation - Surface Blades for example. Nexus 7, Lumia 2520, Surface can match the build quality.
With all due respect, I really hope HN doesn't end up turning into an Apple fanatic site as was the case on certain tech blogs a few years ago.
Also 2mm thinner warrants the "Air" title? I seriously think Apple are parodying themselves sometimes...
Disclaimer: I am not any sort of "fanboy", I own an iPad and an android phone because they seem to be most suitable for me in those areas, I just feel as though HN is getting a bit caught up in the "hype" of Apple today.
They needed to change the name, and have been trying to get away from the numbering scheme. Remember how they tried to call the iPad 3 the "New iPad" but it failed to catch on?
It would be interesting to see a HN poll on this. It seems to me that HN is mostly pro-Google/Android, anti-Apple, anti-MSFT, anti-FB and anti-Twitter.
Also 2mm thinner warrants the "Air" title? I seriously think Apple are parodying themselves...
Have you considered that the term "Air" may be a name change that sets up space in the product line-up for a future higher-tier tablet – just like they have done in laptop line – rather than being mere braggadocio?
From Apple's tech specs, the only differences I can see between the Retina Mini and the Air is the weight and size of the screen (the resolution is the same). So the extra $100 is for bigger heavier pixels?
Basically, yes. I personally will be buying the Air because I like my older iPad's size vs my iPhone. The mini is a great product, but it's just a little too small for me to fit the bedroom/travel entertainment category that I'm looking for. Plus, playing board and light-3d games on the 10" screen is really a joy.
More materials and more battery. That's what you are paying the extra for. The larger device is better for collaboration and creative use whereas the smaller one is better for casual use and reading, but both are equally capable when it comes to choice of software.
At this point they are not even trying anymore. They put up the same tactic as with the iPhone 5C (marginally cheaper, definitely worse device than the top line just to make the step to the high-end device seem more reasonable and will be taken faster whilst getting rid of their old iPad supply), made everything a bit thinner, did some software updates and upgraded the hardware components.
So, enjoy your time waiting for the NEW IPAD AIR 2014, TWICE AS LIGHT, NOW WITH FINGER PRINT SCANNER. RETINA MACBOOK AIR 2014. You can say anything you want, but this is nothing new. Gimmicks, I tell you. Which is absolutely fine if it weren't for Apple to market this stuff as revolutionary, insane new concepts beating the competition at every point. They are basically scamming customers and they don't even care as long as they get an Apple logo with it.
To those Apple zealots down voting me: do you really need to suppress criticism this bad? Maybe it is because you are in denial or something? Feel bad, because it hurts to know you are being scammed?
Why is this comment at the top? I don't know what else people want. You can't rewrite the script every year, iteration after iteration apple has improved this device and it only gets better. There is nothing wrong with that.
I downvoted you because your comment adds nothing to the conversation. This is a rehash of comments you can find anywhere else on the Internet. Your subjective opinion is that you don't care for these products or find them interesting, therefore Apple products are a gimmick/scam/whatever?
And then you follow it up with the suggestion that people who disagree with you are "zealots" who are "suppressing criticism?" How the heck else would you have expected people to respond to an ad hominem like that?
You are of course entitled to your opinions. Feel free to post them. But as long as they continue to add little value to the conversation they'll probably get downvoted, at least until you say something with more nuance or insight.
The performance and weight are exciting, but does anyone else prefer the old thick bezel? I always loved that about the original iPad design, that there was seldom any concern about accidental touches and where to put your thumb(s).
Still as thick on top and bottom. It's just the sides that are thinner. I guess it depends how you hold it most of the time. Personally, I mostly hold it in landscape view, so I will have the thick bezel most of the time. There are just a few apps that make use of the portrait view and of course there are the eBooks I read, but that doesn't happen to often.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 301 ms ] threadHave they just stopped using the A7X style name? Have they just x2 the GPU frequency? (seems implausible, but it's Rogue, which is apparently extremely efficient, and maybe could handle x2 frequency?).
edited above for clarity
BTW: The anandtech iPhone 5S review (http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/7) noted that the A7's rogue G6430 is more powerful than was utilized in the iPhone 5S:
If 200MHz is correct, I bet the iPad 5 just doubled the GPU frequency to 400MHz.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A6X
BONUS: for next year, the G6630 gives 50% performance increase + the expected node shrink allows a further ~30% overclock. 1.5*1.3 = 1.95 ~ 2.0.
For the following year, they could go for G6630MP2 (the 6 clusters can be multicored as a whole). Next (three years from now), they could go G6630MP3 plus another node shrink. By that time, there could be 8/10 clusters available G6830, G6A30 etc, and an entirely new architecture in the works, though probably not yet available.
When I purchased a Clamcase Pro, I started using my iPad for pretty much everything, from term papers to code. While it was still pretty small, I could comfortably type about 90wpm on it, which is only about 10-15 less than I normally type.
For everyone else, this looks like pretty good upgrade.
[1] http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-min...
The Clamcase Pro, on the other hand, did a pretty good job of converting my iPad into a MacBook Air that runs IOS. I'm curious to see if they'll manage to come out with a usable solution for the new one. If not, I don't really need to upgrade my iPad 4 for another year or so anyways.
The margins will only get better on the older hardware, and there's no way they'd walk away from that stream.
It seems to me that this is to put a floor under the second hand value; in terms of bang-for-the buck, the right price for a used iPad 2 should really be about $175 by now, but it's rare to see one under $200.
One reason the iPad 2 remains attractive to many (especially musicians) is that peripherals - there hasn't been that much take-up of Apple's Lightning connector by people who make add-on hardware.
I am always amused by this.
I may have misheard. I had the video minimized while working on other things.
I think that apple is having a case of "taking ourselves too seriously" lately and have believed all the praise parts of the pundits are pouring on them so they cannot see how absurd that sounds.
New iPad, now iPad Air... seems silly?
It's presumably only a matter of time before the heart of Apple's PC line is converted to touchscreen. Whether they will carry the Macbook branding or iPad branding or a mixture of both will be interesting.
Conversely, Apple wants you to buy a new iPad as soon as you want one, and not sit around waiting for the N+1 model. Spreading out purchases over the device lifecycle gives them better margins as manufacturing and components get cheaper.
I suppose in a world where change is frequent and incremental rather than dramatic and rare removing the version number is appropriate to minimize consumer confusion.
What strikes me more about this iPad Air is the price points. $499 16GB wifi only is a very hard sell to the mass market when a Nexus 7 16GB comes in at $230. Size matters here, but I can see Apple being in big trouble when Google's tablet is half the price and has a handful of more advanced features. I guess that is why Apple hired that Burberry executive last week. They can sit right next to the Vertu store.
Sigh.
Disappointing. What happened to doing something revolutionary? Where is the the text input? Apple are driving by creatives. When can I write my book on my Apple tablet?
And what's with the 16gb model. As they said, it has been almost 4 years now. And the 16gb model persists.
Plenty of people are writing books on Apple tablets, it's easy to attach a keyboard and many do. Or maybe you meant that as a non sequitur?
It's a welcome incremental upgrade, but that's not what most people would consider revolutionary. The 10" Sony tablet is 1.09 pounds.
Revolutionary would be something like eye tracking and constant voice input to make it possible to do completely hands-free usage.
Think about this: if the Honda Civic was upgraded to be able to do everything my SUV can, including towing, off-roading, cargo capacity, and overall comfort, but its size AND price stayed the same, would that not be considered revolutionary?
Signed, Physics pedant.
Ah, I see. "Revolutionary" is a code-word for "gimmick which will not work properly, but will look good in the marketing". As in "Siri is revolutionary".
Just because something is capable of doing something doesn't mean it should. A Truck is capable of street racing, but you'd be better off in an actual racing car. Make devices for specific use cases, not for everything. That's how you end up with Windows 8.
Retina apps are big, and are the reason why my iPad 2 is stuck on iOS 5 and that I've not upgraded a lot of apps. They're too big.
16GB is small enough to require active storage management, even for fairly casual users. It's becoming a real issue.
16GB iPads are a poor (or at least mediocre) user experience, even for ordinary users. It's contrary to Apple's ethos to continue making them at all.
It's even sillier when you consider that everything else about the baseline $499 model has been drastically improved several times over since 2010, and Apple has taken steps that clearly reduced the utility of the 16GB baseline (retina graphics, full HD video).
32GB should be the new $499 baseline. It's way past time.
I know some users. I don't know if they are ordinary. I think they are. My parents in their 50's. A grandmother of 80. Some friends which are 30 with a very average computer literacy.
Every one of them took fast with the iPad (that's how Apple is good), but no one of 'em'll fill 16gb of space.
They've all had storage issues on 16GB.
EDGE is not remotely useful in the context of this conversation, I have no idea why you keep bringing it up. The only thing you might possibly hope to stream at EDGE speeds is audio, video is simply not an option. And (re-)installing apps of any substantive size is likewise impractical.
I am in no way ignorant of the mobile data options available to me in the United States. I simply know them to be an utterly inadequate to substitute for adequate local storage, and I can't even begin to understand how you consider them to be otherwise. Feels like you're just here to shill for T-Mobile.
What happened to doing something revolutionary? Lord! Do it yourself! Who says you can't write a book? And why do you have to do it on an iPad? Why not a Surface or whatnot, if that's your priority? Why not a MacBook Air or ultrabook? Your complaints infuriate me!
Apple is also the company that made risky, aggressive bets cannibalizing their own products during times of plenty and was highly praised for doing so. (I speak of the iPod) I'm not surprised when people wish to see that kind of movement again.
The iPad Mini cannibalizing the iPad, or the iPad cannibalizing the MacBook are much bolder moves. That iPad Mini Retina does look good...
In both cases it seemed like money on the table, but in both cases the products became the core of Apple's product offering and dramatically out-sold their predecessors.
Oh, that'd what I'd been planning to do. Only it turns out that the battery only lasts 6hrs, compared to 12hrs in the otherwise comparable MBA :(
Lord! Do it yourself!
Your complaints infuriate me!
It feels like at some point the quality of the discourse on hackernews went downhill.
I'm sure we'll see something in the next year or two that is actually brand new that's not just a small upgrade to their current line up.
Computer Science in hard mode: Do your programming assignments on a type writer. Once.
sigh If only that we're true. iWork for iPad was announced at the first iPad announcement.
I'n also still hoping for an 11"-12" 16:9 iPad Pro (they can just make it longer like they did with the iPhone 5 that comes with a keyboard. It should basically be an iPad laptop (not hybrids, no point) that costs $700, and comes with a new A8 processor in spring, or at least A7X, and maybe 64 GB by default.
Personally I was hoping for two products; a retina iPad with 11"-13" screen -- and a Macbook Air with the same screen!
(If they could reuse the screen and electronics it wouldn't be expensive, but drivers etc would hardly be easy to move over processor architecture?)
Er, attach a keyboard to it? What were you expecting, mind-reading?
Can't tell if sarcasm or not.
This is really what I want to see. An updated mac mini with Haswell would be really nice.
I hope they just update it even if it didn't make it to the main announcements.
But, some people, need more precision than a human finger allows. They use an object with a finer point than our fingers. But, the rest of us are okay with just finger painting. The paper was designed to be large enough for fingers to use.
It would be nice to sometimes use a different input method on paper when the finger won't cut it. I see nothing wrong with having more than one input method. There is no right or wrong way.
Ship it without a stylus. Require that all apps be usable with fingers. Make a sweet pressure-sensitive stylus available for extra precision. Everyone wins.
Here's the thing, it's not the stylus that is the problem. It's the dependency on a stylus. There is a difference between doing it, and doing it right.
He has often said that he thought something was stupid. More often than not, at the time he said these things, he was right. He once disliked the entire idea of the tablet, because the technology hadn't matured enough to deliver a positive experience for the customer. Long after he criticized tablets, he introduced the iPad to the world. It doesn't mean he's a hypocrite, it just means that the technology matured enough to change his mind.
Its hard to argue that Wacom technology isn't sufficiently mature, and there is clearly a market for such a thing. Art and note-taking apps are wildly popular. Both would be significantly enhanced by the presence of a true touch-sensitive stylus.
Apple didn't intend for the iPad to be a content creation device, but now they seem to be embracing it as such, because that's what many customers want to do with it.
If a person never changes his mind about anything, that person has stopped learning.
The reason iPad styluses have fat tips is that they have to simulate a fingertip, which is the only thing that an iPad can sense. The tradeoff is that an iPad is faster and more accurate at sensing fingers than other tablets.
Wacom has released a pressure-sensitive stylus for iPad. I have not tried it though...not much of an artist.
Wacom fucked up this particular product, because they opted to use a large rubber tip. It might be more precise than a normal dumb stylus, but its still terrible. Trying to write like a normal person, or draw thin lines is absolutely horrible with a fat-tipped stylus.
The current iPad has a capacitive touch screen, that's why the current styli use a large tip, the stylus isn't replicating a pen, its replicating a fingertip. That's why they all suck. Its hard to write / draw with your finger, so until we stop making styli that replicate fingers, note taking and drawing on the iPad are going to be suboptimal.
Inductive, actually, which is why the stylus doesn't need to have a big fat tip.
Wacom also make a stylus for the iPad, which obviously has to be capacitive rather than inductive. I think it has batteries in it and sends tip pressure information to the iPad over Bluetooth.
(How the inductive sensing works: You have some conductive loops behind the display, and in the pen there is a ferrite rod with a conductive coil around it together with a capacitor to make a resonant circuit. You pass an alternating current at approximately the resonant frequency through some of the loops; it couples to the pen circuit by electromagnetic induction, the pen circuit resonates, and for a short time it produces, by induction again, a signal in all the other conducting coils behind the display. How much signal depends on the position and angle of the coil in the pen. If you have enough loops behind the display you can work out where the pen tip is accurately enough to draw with it. The capacitor in the resonant circuit is variable and adjusted by the tip pressure, and small changes in the resonant frequency produce phase changes in the signal that comes back, so you can measure the tip pressure too. Similar technology is used in some interactive whiteboards.)
If the argument is that Apple should build one, but not include it by default, specifically for people who need one, I guess the response is "Why bother?"
IMO Apple should integrate appropriate sensors and release an API for stylus makers or create it as an accessory themselves. I've bought two iPads since its initial release, and they work very well for me for some light browsing, but in order to integrate it into my workflow it'd have to become better at note taking.
I loved the MS Courier concept, it's too bad they instead created a solution that does everything, but nothing really well - you can either have desktop OneNote that only works with a stylus or mobile OneNote with nowhere near the features you'd need. Apple's iPad apps tend to have exactly the features you need except stylus support - so there's that.
To explain this to you one would have to explain the concept of marketing.
Likewise, how is it a strawman? The original comment was that the person doesn't care about thinner because it becomes thicker when you put a case on it. A phone that doesn't need a case need only be thinner than a comparable phone with a case on it to be thinner in practice. That's a direct response to the original comment, providing a case where the comment is true.
So you don't have a case and you protect your phone quite well. That is a pure anecdote. Just because you want it to be an anecdotal strawman doesn't mean it is one.
One of the properties of tempered glass is that it can withstand great impact on the front, but can shatter if dropped on the side. If you look closely at those Youtube videos, they will all probably be hitting the glass dead center. If you want to see a smartphone shatter, look for a video where the brunt of the impact is focused on one edge of the glass. Like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Nyr...
You also say that iPhones need cases, which is not true.
And the story I told is called "storytelling". It's a way to emphasize a point that's entertaining to read. Point 1: people use cases on their iPhone. Point 2: the Lumia is thinner than an iPhone with an average case. Point 3: The iPhone is thinner without a case. There's your facts, without entertaining storytelling.
The larger device is far more usable for collaborative work than the mini, and the weight difference makes it far more portable.
Many people use these devices without cases, as they were designed to be used. Some don't, for reasons that make sense for them. Many will appreciate the less obtrusive dimensions. Others will never give a crap. Can you explain an obsession with sweets to someone without a sweet tooth? As usual in threads like this, people argue about idiosyncratic tastes.
For six years of my life I owned a Snap-on Tools franchise. Every week people would jump on the truck and ask "what's new?" and then purchase the same sockets that have been made for 90+ years. "Thinner" is just the latest talking point. If it wasn't "thinner" it would be something else. I would see my customers on a weekly schedule, and I was asked "what's new" 100 times a week. If a marketer wanted to give me the words to tell the people who asked that question, then I would gratefully accept as a salesperson, unless I could think of something that would work better.
If you would like a thin case, I am getting this rolling http://sascase.com Apologies for the blatant self promotion.
Recently, Apple seems big on iteration and small on innovation. Miniaturising an existing product is definitely a good iteration, but when I see Microsoft experimenting with touch covers and the like, I do wish Apple would try one or two new things again.
That said, calling it revolutionary seems a bit much - the form factor is certainly new and unique, but none of its components (or its roles) are distinct from that of the previous Mac Pros. Certainly not on the scale of differences between the original iPad and its competitors at the time, or the iPhone, or the iPod.
It could safely be argued as a simple iteration on the PC's form factor.
* SoC: A5X was 165mm^2. A6X was 123mm^2. A7 is only 102mm^2 with a 64-bit memory interface instead of 128-bit. They can do PoP memory too for even smaller PCB area. So much cheaper. * WiFi/LTE: same chips probably used on iPhone 5c, 5s, iPad Air, and iPad mini. Simpler inventory and buy in even higher quantities. * Screen: same screen as all previous retina generations likely. * Battery: much smaller since the GPU is more efficient. More cost savings.
This was pretty inevitable; the A5X was _absurdly_ large for a mobile SoC, and they only did it because they had to. Even the A7 is on the hefty side; it's about the biggest of its process node.
I would have thought they'd want to build a basic foundation for the future, e.g. "all devices better than the 5s include 64 bit, motion, and TouchID". When you vary on a feature (like TouchID), you discourage people from building cutting-edge experiences that require it.
That's my hunch.
A phone is often in public spaces, and unlocked dozens of times a day. That's rare for a tablet.
The graphics and cpu boosts are nice (and nice that they are accompanied by a run time boost) but what about the camera? What about the sensors? Looking forward to the full appraisal post event.
Afterall, the MacBook Air wasn't a competitor to the netbooks - it was a competitor to the ultrabooks being touted by Intel et al. The iPad was the sleeper competitor to the netbook and killed that market (with help from Windows and Intel desperate to not have the PC platform not go that far down market).
If Apple comes out with something to address the 'appliance laptop' market I expect it to be an official Apple design and manufactured keyboard for the iPad line* and not an entirely new product.
I've not seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but the "iPad Air" and "iPad Mini" monikers leave room for the simply "iPad" moniker to eventually refer to something entirely re-imagined or ultra-premium. At the least it leaves room for a larger "iPad".
* What is the state of the art in usability in the 3rd party iPad keyboard market these days?
This is backwards: the original MBA was introduced in 2008, and Intel only introduced the "Ultrabook" branding several years later. The MBA was largely panned as a far-too-expensive Apple attempt to cover their flank from the inexorable advance of the netbook. It was only when the iPad and competitive Android tablets put paid to netbooks that Intel came around to the design.
Logitech ultrathin is very expensive but a must buy for ipad productivity. Ergonomics are excellent for dual keyboard and screen driving (iOS doesn't make sense completely from keyboard) and it can be used as a full laptop replacement for a lot of business applications.
I'd like to get it.
Most people go through their entire life without thinking up something innovative, much less making it.
Whereas a 30% weight reduction and 100% performance improvement makes the iPad air far more useable in every situation
Also 2mm thinner warrants the "Air" title? I seriously think Apple are parodying themselves sometimes...
Disclaimer: I am not any sort of "fanboy", I own an iPad and an android phone because they seem to be most suitable for me in those areas, I just feel as though HN is getting a bit caught up in the "hype" of Apple today.
You obviously haven't been around HN very long. Major apple announcements get significant coverage on HN. Always have, always will.
> 2mm thinner
Did you miss the ~30% weight reduction?
Have you considered that the term "Air" may be a name change that sets up space in the product line-up for a future higher-tier tablet – just like they have done in laptop line – rather than being mere braggadocio?
So, enjoy your time waiting for the NEW IPAD AIR 2014, TWICE AS LIGHT, NOW WITH FINGER PRINT SCANNER. RETINA MACBOOK AIR 2014. You can say anything you want, but this is nothing new. Gimmicks, I tell you. Which is absolutely fine if it weren't for Apple to market this stuff as revolutionary, insane new concepts beating the competition at every point. They are basically scamming customers and they don't even care as long as they get an Apple logo with it.
To those Apple zealots down voting me: do you really need to suppress criticism this bad? Maybe it is because you are in denial or something? Feel bad, because it hurts to know you are being scammed?
People tend to upvote valuable and truthful comments around here, so it seems.
And then you follow it up with the suggestion that people who disagree with you are "zealots" who are "suppressing criticism?" How the heck else would you have expected people to respond to an ad hominem like that?
You are of course entitled to your opinions. Feel free to post them. But as long as they continue to add little value to the conversation they'll probably get downvoted, at least until you say something with more nuance or insight.