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iPad Air

arstechnica.com

101–110 of 286 posts

Re: iPad Air

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac Pro is over a year old now. And touch id has been around in some form for years. Both are nice, though neither is very revolutionary.

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.

Re: iPad Air

#102
post #50

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 gett…

Read the comments. Anything but praise.

Re: iPad Air

#103
post #23

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.

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.

Re: iPad Air

#104
post #79

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…

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.

>Why is this comment at the top?

People tend to upvote valuable and truthful comments around here, so it seems.

Re: iPad Air

#105
post #24

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.

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 a…

Nice anecdotal strawman, so here's my contrary experience: I have owned iphones and android devices and never encased them nor broken them.

Re: iPad Air

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: iPad Air

#107
I find it slightly odd that Apple goes into a decent amount of technical detail on the processor in the iPad - calling out the number of registers and transistors - but still doesn't ever disclose how much RAM is in the thing. This is especially vexing, as my biggest complaint with my current iPad is that it doesn't have enough of it.

Re: iPad Air

#108
post #24

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.

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.

Re: iPad Air

#109
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: iPad Air

#110
post #77

Why does Apple depart from the series numbers with the iPad? New iPad, now iPad Air... seems silly?

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 ve…

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.
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