iPad

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple announced the new 2020 fourth-generation iPad Air in September, but the new tablets just started shipping out to customers last Friday. We picked one up and thought we’d do a hands-on comparison with the iPad Pro, which was last updated in March, because both tablets are about as powerful and share many similarities.

If you are in the market for an iPad, you are likely comparing the pros and cons of the new iPad Air against those of the most recent iPad Pro. Juli does an excellent job digging through those differences so you don’t have to.

Most significant to me:

There’s no ‌Touch ID‌ Home button, but there is ‌Touch ID‌ built into the power button at the top of the device. It’s fast and effortless, but you do need to reach up to the top of the ‌iPad‌ to unlock it, and it’s not as seamless of an experience as Face ID, especially when you’re using accessories like the Magic Keyboard. On ‌iPad Pro‌, you can wake it with the keyboard and then it instantly unlocks after scanning your face, but on ‌iPad Air‌, this is a two-step process.

If you plan on shelling out for the Magic Keyboard, think about Face ID and the process of unlocking your iPad. Can you live with the extra steps a lack of Face ID adds to the process? Might not matter to you, but worth thinking about.

The big question for me, when it comes to the new iPad Air, is how it compares to the iPad Pro.

Jason Snell:

The release of the fourth-generation iPad Air feels kind of like that. Apple is apparently so confident in the roll that it’s on with the iPad that it’s happy to take the iPad Air, which it previously defined as a more expensive version of the low-end iPad, and transform it into an iPad Pro.

No, the new iPad Air doesn’t offer every single feature of the iPad Pro. There are still some reasons for some users to opt for the more expensive model. But this isn’t a move that a company terrified of undercutting its own high-margin products would make.

So what are those differences?

The iPad Air has two speakers rather than four. There’s no second rear camera, no portrait mode support, and no Lidar scanner. And the screen refreshes at 60Hz, not the buttery-smooth 120Hz found on Pro models.

No Face ID, but you do get Touch ID in the power button. And no Face ID means no face-reacting Animoji or Memoji. And the new iPad Air has a 10.9″ screen.

If the above sits well with you, the new iPad Air is a no-brainer. Starts at $599.

From Thord Hedengren’s iPad newsletter:

The new iPad Air is in a weird place though, or rather, it muddies the iPad lineup a bit. It can use the Magic Keyboard originally made for the 11” iPad Pro, but the Air’s screen is 10.9”, so the bezels must be a tiny bit bigger on the Air compared to the 11” iPad Pro. It also uses the second generation Apple Pencil, the magnetic one.

So far, not much different. But:

The iPad Air doesn’t have the full camera array, just the one 12 megapixel wide lens. The front facing camera isn’t the TrueDepth like on the Pro either, so while they’re both 7 megapixels, it can’t do Portrait mode or be used for Animojis or Memojis, nor does it work with Face ID. Instead, the iPad Air has Touch ID built into the top button. Furthermore, the Air has two speakers placed for landscape mode, whereas Pro models has four speakers. The Air screen doesn’t have ProMotion and is somewhat less bright (500 nits compared to the Pro’s 600 nits). It’s also a wee bit thicker, but weighs a little less. And, to wrap all the differences up, the Air comes with up to 256 GB storage, starting at the puny 64 GB, which will disqualify an otherwise truly capable machine for many users.

As I was watching yesterday’s event, I was wondering about the differences between the iPad Pro and the new iPad Air. Good to know the specifics.

Note that the new iPad Air has an A14 Bionic, while the iPad Pro is built on the A12Z Bionic.

If you are considering buying a new iPad, here’s the iPad Pro spec page, and here’s the iPad Air spec page.

Apple:

Apple today introduced the eighth-generation iPad, featuring the powerful A12 Bionic chip that brings the Neural Engine to the entry iPad for the first time. Starting at just $329, the upgrade packs even more value into the most popular and affordable iPad, featuring a stunning 10.2-inch Retina display, advanced cameras, and great all-day battery life.

And:

The eighth-generation iPad with the A12 Bionic chip delivers a huge leap in performance, with 40 percent faster CPU performance and twice the graphics capability. This makes the new iPad up to two times faster than the top-selling Windows laptop, up to three times faster than the top-selling Android tablet and up to six times faster than the top-selling Chromebook. For the first time on iPad, A12 Bionic introduces the Neural Engine for next-level machine learning capabilities, including people occlusion and motion tracking in augmented reality (AR) apps, enhanced photo editing, Siri performance, and more.

Available to order now, availability beginning Friday.

[VIDEO] This is an amazing project, a tactile (think interactive simplified Braille) interface, attached to an iPad with Lidar. The idea is that you walk with this device and the camera tells you about obstacles in your path via this interface. Video embedded in main Loop post.

While this is a relatively simple interface, it does show a path towards something much more complex. I can imagine adding audio (via AirPods, say) to the interface to give you even more clues about the path and obstacles ahead.

Bowdoin College:

Students will receive an Apple iPad Pro with available Wi-Fi and cellular data connectivity (activated and covered by the College for those students who have internet connectivity needs), an Apple Pencil 2, and the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad, which includes a trackpad.

And the teachers?

All interested faculty members and the staff who support teaching and learning will receive iPads that use Wi-Fi only to connect to the internet.

This is great. The college is covering the cost of the cell plan for students with no WiFi access. Well done, Bowdoin.

Jabari Young, CNBC:

As part of the league’s Covid-19 health and safety protocols, MLB said it would ban traditional video stations shared throughout clubhouses. The league took advantage of its 2016 partnership with Apple to expand the dugout iPad program. It will now distribute 15 iPads to each team for players and staff to dissect performances and additional team content like scouting reports.

Far more interesting to me is the fact that teams will pump in fake crowd noise so the players, as well as viewers at home, can get a sense of how excited the crowds would be if they existed.

If you made it this far, you might be interested in knowing that Opening Day is tomorrow (Thursday), with the World Champion Nationals vs the Yankees at 7p ET and the Giants vs the Dodgers at 7p PT.

Someone tell Siri.

[VIDEO] This iPhonedo video (embedded in main Loop post) was really well done, gives a great sense of how well the Magic Keyboard enhances the iPad Pro experience.

The framing shows both the trackpad and keyboard as well as the screen, so you can see the gestures and the results they produce in a single shot.

Immersive.

Saw this tweet, my brain kind of exploded:

https://twitter.com/MattVanOrmer/status/1253826835529584641

Thought it might be some kind of trick, but no, I asked, Matt assured me that it was real.

And got this video from Matt Birchler in reply:

https://twitter.com/mattbirchler/status/1254760427277475841

I absolutely love the balance here, the stability. And look forward to a day when I can try one of these out on an airplane tray table.

Jeremy Horwitz, VentureBeat, delivers a real-world review, warts and all. A few highlights, just to give you a sense of the whole thing:

The Magic Keyboard has a vinyl body rather than metal (or Apple’s other iPad accessory material option, leather), so it’s highly likely to show signs of wear after a year or so of typical use. My unit’s exterior showed smudges within seconds of sitting on my dining room table.

And:

Both the top and bottom of the case appear to be reinforced internally with sturdy metal plates, However, the parts of the Magic Keyboard that are exposed to air will likely wear like plastic, including the entirely plastic palmrest area, which will probably become shiny over time as it rubs against your hands.

And:

Hidden in the new hinge: an additional USB-C port. Initial testing suggests that this port delivers power (at a reduced speed) to both the iPad Pro and keyboard, but Apple makes no guarantees about its data performance. In other words, the iPad Pro’s own USB-C port is now free for any type of accessory you might want to connect, while the keyboard port can be reliably used for charging.

And:

The iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard is not as impressive as either the Mac’s Magic Trackpad 2 or Magic Trackpad. It’s much smaller — almost identical to the size of a business card, just a little wider — and it’s fully mechanical rather than haptic, so you actually press it down rather than just feeling click vibrations. Apple’s only remaining “magic” here is its thinness, which is aided by this Magic Keyboard’s lack of any internal battery.

Great work, Jeremy. Lots more to this review, well worth reading.

New York Times:

In a flatlining economy, the $399 iPhone that Apple introduced last week might sound attractive. But there’s a better gadget deal in the pandemic: the iPad.

And:

It’s time for us to reconsider the iPad. Last week, I wrote about how the coronavirus had revealed our most essential tech and weeded out the excess. The tech we have turned to over and over boils down to a computing device, communication tools, entertainment and an internet connection. The iPad delivers on all of those needs even better than a smartphone.

And:

So why the iPad and not another tablet computer? After all, many of the same tasks can be done on cheaper tablets, like Amazon’s $50 Fire HD 8.

Yet those other devices are generally much slower and have inferior screens. The iPad is ultimately the best tablet on the market.

Brian X. Chen, hard to disagree with any of this.

Love this opening salvo:

Greatly anticipating its arrival, I unboxed the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard as soon as it appeared at my door, and before I even attached my iPad Pro, I was put off. It felt too stiff to open. Then I did attach my iPad Pro (immediate thought: “Man, these magnets are strong”), closed and opened the iPad-as-laptop configuration a few times, and formed a crushingly disappointing first impression. I didn’t like it.

But read on. The rest of the review is a bit of a love letter to the Magic Keyboard. Chock full of fascinating detail, this is the Magic Keyboard review to read, Gruber at his best.

A few useful tips, along with links to details on keyboard shortcuts and trackpad use.

[VIDEO] The video is available in 4K (you’ll need to switch to Google Chrome for 4K). At the default 720p, I could not make out the Apple logo on the case. Interesting.

I love how stiff the hinge is. Exactly my preference for a touchscreen stand. I don’t want taps changing the viewing angle. Well done.

Also worth noting is that the trackpad might look a bit small, but it maps exactly from the top of the iPad Pro 11″ screen to the bottom.

Jump to about 7:52 in for details on shortcuts and gestures.

Great video. Embedded in main Loop post.

If you know someone considering a tablet purchase, this is a good resource to slide their way.

It makes a reasonably easy-to-understand case for the iPad as best-in-class. But it also talks through the differences between all the current models.

Jason Cipriani, CNET:

Being able to control your tablet without touching the display brings the iPad closer to working as a laptop, and in turn, makes it easier to get more work done.

And:

However, not all trackpads or mice are created equal. There’s a big difference in overall experience when using Apple’s first Magic Trackpad or its newer Magic Trackpad 2, which we’ll cover more in-depth below.

Really nice collection of animations, very useful.

Android Police:

Even if you don’t like Apple, or you think iOS is derpy and restrictive — which is, in my opinion, unarguably true — iPads really do offer the best big-screen tablet environment.

The first half of that sentence is what I expect from Android Police. But what I didn’t expect is the linked post’s rave about the iPad.

Consider how I got here. The linked post’s headline is Do yourself a favor and buy an iPad during lockdown. And they’re not wrong.

John Voorhees wrote a terrific appreciation piece, for MacStories, on the under-appreciated iPad mini. Worth reading, especially worth scrolling through to see all the use cases for which the iPad mini is just perfect.

At the very least, I think the iPad mini is perfect for reading. It’s got the right screen proportion, bigger than iPhone, but still very light. And it supports trackpad and mouse input. Spot on.