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.
Personally, they need to put the iPad on a two-year release cycle and focus on improving iPad OS.
I think the percentage of iPad users actually using this level of processing power is small, but there are some ways to do it.
I do really wish they would just allow running a VM on an iPad though at this point. Running a linux or even MacOS VM would be a nice escape valve for a lot of things that can't be done natively.
It's cheaper to use an old generation CPU, than the effort needed to design and manufacture a custom iPad only chip.
Same reason why the Studio Display uses binned iPhone chips.
It's not like Apple is putting any thought into either the UX or the engineering side of utilising the compute properly (except calculating those glass effects extra inefficiently).
Minimise SKUs and get some use out of the binned chips who have a few failed cores.
Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.
Apple re-uses the same core across their lineup because it’s cheaper to build 100 million of the same core than to design and maintain two separate CPUs that go into 50 million devices each.
Because marketing? Seriously, the people I see using iPads in coffee shops are rich retired dudes looking at the news on it.
If your question is what do people use it for? Well thats different. iPads have a range of users from people who just browse the internet and will never stress this out, to people who do concept art and CAD who will appreciate the power.
But again, why do people always complain that a device got a spec bump?
8 years later the local apps still run fast, but it struggles with web browsing.
Which is to say, you need a fast processor or web developers will out-bloat your device capabilities in a few years.
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.
I had M4 iPad PRO and is just collecting dust. Too clunky to use.
It's stuck on iPadOS 17.7.10, which is fine. I can only imagine that these new generation iPads will easily go for the next 10 years.
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 Macs around to target older versions of the OS.
Since linux runs on it, I can run the latest versions of great pieces of software like ed, slack in a web browser, etc.
It is 100% apple's fault that they do not open up the bootloader for devices they'll no longer offer updates for and allow the community to build a custom darwin or linux fork. Even though we paid for the hardware, we are not allowed to use it any longer than apple says.
If someone has a work-around I'd love to hear it. Until then, or until Apple changes this design, I think I'm done with iPads. I don't want to pay that much to "own" something that Apple can simply make obsolete by reconfiguring or turning off a server somewhere.
Edit: fix typo
Except for the battery, which isn’t that easy to replace on an iPad. And apps relying on anything online (including browsers) stop functioning at some point, because you can’t replace the OS or install arbitrary apps.
I expected it to last a little longer, despite the cheap price of around $350 in 2022.
After the Liquid Glass update it became so sluggish that I had to turn off animations in the Accessibility settings. And it still is not enjoyable.
how is music production on it these days?
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.
yup, that kills it for me
For artists, there are a lot of good tools: Procreate, Art Set 4, Adobe Fresco, Artrage, etc.
90% of the people who use tablets I know (including myself) only has four use case: watching video, reading PDF and comics, taking notes, and playing mobile games.
All of which are very mobile-oriented tasks that are done on tablets solely for their screen sizes. With trifold bridging the gap between screen sizes and, more importantly, screen ratios, I would love to merge them into one device. This is in contrast with laptops, whose differences in OS and use cases are, to me, much bigger and necessary.
Of course, right now they are very much afar from consumers' pockets due to price and reliability. But normal foldables were once in the exact same state, and the fact that Apple is releasing one soon is a sure tale sign of the future of foldables.
iPadOS may not fully be to the point of being an OS UI that really utilizes the benefits of a tablet sized device, but it does have elements that are unique to it that would not really make sense on a phone.
That being said, if your tablet use case really is just a larger phone than a foldable would be great. But i know for myself the way I use my iPad it would not be a suitable replacement. Especially not now, maybe in 5+ years once someone figures out how to make an OS that actually manages different ways of interacting with it in different form factors work, but that has yet to happen.
I'd love a 10 inch screen in my pocket but maybe in 2035. Nokia imagined this 20 years ago and we're barely there yet.
-some people use it docked
-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that
* compact form factor allows her to study anywhere easily, especially on public transportation
* can access the internet almost anywhere
* note taking and drawing diagrams with apple pencil
* communication wit for both personal (imessage) and school study buddies (discord)
* can entertain herself with netflix, youtube, games etc when she wants to wind down
* ai apps like perplexity has helped her a lot with writing and research
She also has a laptop, but is rarely used. She even tends to type on her ipad keyboard. The larger form factor for the pro helps with that too.
Yes https://www.apple.com/v/ipad-air/af/images/overview/closer-l... from https://www.apple.com/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.
We have an entire generation who only knows how to interact with "usability optimized" interfaces with zero friction and zero learning curve.
For me — 13" laptop replacement with cellular connectivity.
If a 13" version of the base iPad existed, I'd probably get that, but as-is the iPad Air is the cheapest 13" iPad.
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