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iPad Air Review

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Re: iPad Air Review

#81

Post by jasonpbecker »

ohwp wrote: post #64
ScottWhigham wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to understand how you would use that information. Other than "product dimensions" and "product weight", why do you need to calculate/know more? It's interesting and all - I just don't guess I see what the value of knowing the g/cm3 is.

"It's interesting and all" Well it's just that. Apple is promoting their size/weight ratio so I just wanted to know there progress. Nothing more nothing less ;)

No, they are not advertising the ratio. They are advertising reducing both. By your size/weight ratio, the original iPad would be the "ideal", but any one who has used any of these devices knows that's absurd.

Density is far less important than the actual size and weight. High density is a demonstration that they've utilized all the available space (since the density of the components themselves are not changing) for components and need less room for heat. Alternatively, it could be a sign that the internal structure matters less than less and only the exterior components (aluminum and glass) are meaningfully different from one version to another.

What makes the iPad Air attractive is not density, it's that there's less of it all around.

Re: iPad Air Review

#82

Post by blinkingled »

simonh wrote: post #56
InclinedPlane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way someone suffers, kind of a silly dichotomy. Especially when modern android smartphones, let alone tablets, have 2GB of RAM. Also, Apple has the power to mandate that all apps have to run well on whatever old hardware Apple wants to keep supported. There's no good excuse.

Android devices switched up to high ram co figs because they had to. A typical Android device runs a ton of stuff in the background such as Facebook uploaders, sync services, location trackers, carrier services, manufacturer UI shells and crapwear, etc you just don't get on iOS devices. To be fair, a lot of these services can do useful stuff and the freedom to run stuff like that is one of the reasons some people lik…

Whether to keep background processes and how many to keep is trivially configurable in Android though. So if Samsung wanted to skimp on RAM they could totally do so. My wife's Galaxy Nexus had 1GB RAM and Android 4.3 works fine there but compared to my Note 2 the multi tasking suffers. Anecdotally though I have had much lesser page reloads on Android devices even with 1GB RAM.

So yes Android will use more memory if there is some available but there's no evidence to suggest it needs more than iOS.

Re: iPad Air Review

#83

Post by Glide »

qq66 wrote: post #25
Segmentation wrote: post #20

I wasn't planning on buying an iPad Air, as I'm still happy with my iPad 2, but that comparison chart on the first page really sold me that the iPad Air is the first real upgrade to the iPad 2. My only complaint is I want high capacity, and I find it so ridiculous that to go from 16GB to 64GB I have to pay $200 extra. Two hundred dollars for 48GB. I think the last time I paid that much for 48GB was ten years ago. Edi…

I think the main reason that Apple doesn't include MicroSD is that they want to control the entire product experience, including data ingress and egress. Not only to protect lucrative margins, but also because they know that if the user screws something up by deleting files off the SD card etc, they'll blame Apple whether that's fair or not. That assertion of control makes iOS unsuitable for many users, but Apple has…

I wonder what the genius bar lines would be like if Apple products were a lot more open and allowed for that kind of customizability.

There's probably some correlation between simple(r) products and good customer service.

Re: iPad Air Review

#84

Post by rsynnott »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #63
yalogin wrote: post #4

Looks like Apple hit home runs with all of their updates this cycle. Interestingly I haven't seen this universal praise for any other Apple update cycle before. Unfortunately I am not in the market for any device right now.

I would disagree that they hit homeruns on everything. The most obvious "single" would be the iPhone 5C which, by all accounts, is underselling expectations significantly. As a consumer, Apple "lost the game" by not introducing an iPhone with a larger screen size. Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen. If Apple had introduced a…

> The most obvious "single" would be the iPhone 5C which, by all accounts, is underselling expectations significantly.

Hrm? Apple's first-week iPhone sales significantly beat analyst estimates and their own records. It doesn't seem plausible that those were all 5Ses.

> Why are HTC and Samsung doing so well in the phone market? Because they offer what clearly millions of people want: a 5" screen.

HTC are not doing well in the phone market. As for Samsung, the Note 3 managed 5 million channel sales in one month, with total sales of the series over a couple of years of only 40 million. 40 million sales over two years is a drop in the bucket for Samsung's sales; the bulk of their sales are of low-end devices (with small screens).

> If Apple had introduced a 5" screen iPhone this cycle, how many would they have sold?

Well, I know I wouldn't have bought one, whereas I did buy a 5S. Not everyone wants giant phones.

Re: iPad Air Review

#85

Post by Glide »

jason_wang wrote: post #6

The device I really wish exists is an iPad Air minus the computing power. Just a screen to stream videos to from a iPhone, a laptop or a cable box. A portable screen that's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame. Surprisingly this is for my parents. They watch videos all the time and watching videos on an iPhone is too small, on a laptop is too bulky and on an iPad is to…

This is basically why I bought an Apple TV for my parents. There's a good chance if a video loads on an apple device that it can be streamed to an Apple TV. They were watching videos all the time on iPads and the TV in the living room wasn't being used anymore.

Re: iPad Air Review

#86

Post by simonh »

blinkingled wrote: post #82
simonh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android devices switched up to high ram co figs because they had to. A typical Android device runs a ton of stuff in the background such as Facebook uploaders, sync services, location trackers, carrier services, manufacturer UI shells and crapwear, etc you just don't get on iOS devices. To be fair, a lot of these services can do useful stuff and the freedom to run stuff like that is one of the reasons some people lik…

Whether to keep background processes and how many to keep is trivially configurable in Android though. So if Samsung wanted to skimp on RAM they could totally do so. My wife's Galaxy Nexus had 1GB RAM and Android 4.3 works fine there but compared to my Note 2 the multi tasking suffers. Anecdotally though I have had much lesser page reloads on Android devices even with 1GB RAM. So yes Android will use more memory if t…

So what you're saying is that in your personal experience Android devices with 1GB of RAM suffer in multi-tasking. And yet you also say there's no evidence Android devices need more RAM?

BTW, there's another class of software Android devices run that consume more RAM. UI widgets. Now that's perfectly legitimate. If you like widgets, Android or WP are the way to go. It's just that they have a cost in RAM utilization, and therefore device memory specs and power consumption. If Apple supported UI widgets, they'd have to also increase memory capacity to maintain system performance and stability, so they don't. This is an area where reasonable people can have a difference of opinion. Apple prioritize battery life and lean system design, Android emphasizes features and customization.

Re: iPad Air Review

#87

Post by glhaynes »

blinkingled wrote: post #16
nwh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS7 does have memory compression though.

Right. But it still seems to be an overall increase of 20-30% for lightest of the use cases. >In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment. At worst, the device’s total memory usage never exceeded 60% of what ships with the platform but these are admittedly fairly light use cases. With more apps open, including some doing work in the background, I do…

I've always expected they would start to serialize open tabs to the flash storage to keep from having to reload them from the network. Seems (to me) like that'd be easy to do.

Re: iPad Air Review

#88

Post by blinkingled »

simonh wrote: post #86
blinkingled wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether to keep background processes and how many to keep is trivially configurable in Android though. So if Samsung wanted to skimp on RAM they could totally do so. My wife's Galaxy Nexus had 1GB RAM and Android 4.3 works fine there but compared to my Note 2 the multi tasking suffers. Anecdotally though I have had much lesser page reloads on Android devices even with 1GB RAM. So yes Android will use more memory if t…

So what you're saying is that in your personal experience Android devices with 1GB of RAM suffer in multi-tasking. And yet you also say there's no evidence Android devices need more RAM? BTW, there's another class of software Android devices run that consume more RAM. UI widgets. Now that's perfectly legitimate. If you like widgets, Android or WP are the way to go. It's just that they have a cost in RAM utilization,…

> So what you're saying is that in your personal experience Android devices with 1GB of RAM suffer in multi-tasking. And yet you also say there's no evidence Android devices need more RAM?

No. I am talking relative here. Relative to my iPad my 1GB Android devices ( N7 (2012) and GNex) reloaded browser pages or lost background audio/video playback noticeably lesser. However on my Note 2 which has 2GB RAM, I very rarely see browser page reloads and don't remember having lost background audio for example at all (something that happens routinely on iPad and sometimes on the N7.)

So what I am saying is that Android devices don't _need_ more than 1GB - anecdotally they offer slightly better multitasking performance for the same 1GB than the iPad. But both on Android and iOS - the experience will get appreciably better with 2GB RAM given how smoother my Note 2 is and given how many times my iPad reloads/loses stuff. (Just check the diagnostics logs for low memory on iOS devices.)

Re: iPad Air Review

#89

Post by rsynnott »

psbp wrote: post #27

I'm waiting for the iPad Pro. Assuming "Air" and "Mini" are hints of a mac to tablet replacement (coalescence?) strategy, an iPad that challenges the Microsoft Surface's role as a hybrid device would be spectacular.

With MacOS 10.9? That sounds pretty awful, really. Apple has shown little indication of going remotely as far as Microsoft on trying to merge desktop and tablet interfaces.

Re: iPad Air Review

#90

Post by joakleaf »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #49
forrestthewoods wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"given the switch to 64-bit iOS 7 seems to be causing 20-30% higher memory consumption" I've not read about this. Can you cite a source?

larger pointers mean more ram is taken up by programs, its something that's a given with a transition from a 32bit to a 64bit architecture.

Yeah, pointers are double size, but the majority of RAM for iOS apps is used by images and other resources. These do not grow in size.

Most apps are not using tens of megabytes for pointer based graph-structures etc. or code.

They are however using loads of megabytes for image data, offscreen buffers, etc.

So I doubt that 64-bit changes much.

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