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New iPad Air, powered by M4

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Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#72

This is an incredible piece of hardware, I just don't know what to do with it how is music production on it these days?

Still subpar, only real DAW available is Logic Pro, the audio stack behaves differently than macOS, no support for VSTs but has support for the AU format.

A friend who I make music together had an iPad that we tried to add to the setup, in the end after some months we chucked it aside and just got a MacBook for our shared studio instead.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how you look at it. While the hardware might keep functioning and current software might keep running, some devs also deprecate their software. I have an old 6S+ that I keep software that I don't want to install on my actual device. Slack informed me that it will no longer function after a date set later this year. Other apps have already stopped working on it because the devs do not want to deal with it.…

> TL;DR sometimes it's not Apple, it's the app devs that deprecate them. Are the app devs deprecating just because their support matrix is too big, or because current SDKs will no longer build apps compatible with those devices? I think the later case is less common on the Android side of the fence, but Apple is not great about keeping old versions of the dev tools functional, and you end up needing to keep elderly M…

As ex-iOS dev, usually it's because devs want the new shinny APIs. And after some point stakeholders are OK to stop supporting a tiny percentage of users stuck on old iOS versions. In my experience it was never because of Apple.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#74
post #18

I'm about to head to the gym with my 12.9-inch 2017 vintage iPad Pro, which is still going strong. I prop it up on the elliptical trainer every other day or so for entertaining me while I grind out an hour of cardio. I use it for reading, watching YouTube, listening to music, audiobooks, etc. It's been my regular gym buddy for years, and is showing no signs of needing to be replaced. It's stuck on iPadOS 17.7.10, whi…

Just curious, why don't you just use your iphone? Why the ipad? Why do you prefer it over an iphone?

Can’t speak for the OP but I do the same because the screen is bigger and you don’t have to look down as much and strain your neck.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#75
post #65

My current iPad is the iPad Air 3 (the one with the backlight issue that's never been acknowledged, to my understanding.) Can someone explain to me why an iPad at all, let alone an iPad Air, needs as powerful a processor as a M4? That's stronger than my laptop (a M2) where I run multiple VMs and more.

Photoshop and video editing. Until the M chips, the app options were slim, and now iPads get new M chips as they come out. You might ask — doesn’t it suck to do either on an iPad? Yep, yet even on my iPhone, I use Photoshop all the time. VMs are not very CPU demanding usually — usually more RAM demanding.

How do you do any productivity on it if getting files in and out is such a pain?

I had M4 iPad PRO and is just collecting dust. Too clunky to use.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#77
post #68

No side profile pics on the page. My only concern would be can it lay flat on a table for taking notes or does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?

FWIW, the iPad Air I bought a couple years ago has a small protrusion for the single camera lens, but does not wobble when laying flat and is not really noticeable. This latest iPad Air has a similar design.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#79
post #68

No side profile pics on the page. My only concern would be can it lay flat on a table for taking notes or does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?

> does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?

Yes https://www.apple.com/v/ipad-air/af/images/overview/closer-l... from https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#80
I don't understand the target audience of ipad air.

The base ipad is "really big iphone, with a few laptop-esque features". It's reasonably cheap for what it offers, especially if you want a highly mobile media consumption device and handwritten input.

Then there's ipad pro, which is wildly overpriced for its specs -- m4 pro has half!! the ram that the cheaper m4 macbook air has, which is laughable for a 'pro' anything, especially if you have apple intelligence enabled - you get what, 3GB of usable ram once you take OS and apple intelligence into account? Yet, aside from the crazy sticker price, the hardware is a lot better - the 120 Hz OLED display looks amazing and is way brighter, the speakers are quite an upgrage, full blown thunderbolt port for external display and so on. The OS is still toy-like, and ram is pitiful, but there is place for an ipad pro.

And then there's air which is... base ipad with an M-series chip and pretty much nothing else? The display is barely any better than base ipad, the storage and ram are pitiful, the speakers are from the baseline ipad and so on. Just about the only saving grace of the M4 one announced here is 12GB ram, which is the absolute lowest those really ought to have, and really puts into perspective how utterly miserly Apple was about ram pre-AI. I don't understand the value proposition - you want the baseline you buy a much cheaper base model, you want more you get the pro, right?

To be fair the asking price is far less than pro but the upgrades over base model seem so minuscule that I just don't know.

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