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, which is fine. I can only imagine that these new generation iPads will easily go for the next 10 years.
kkylin 2 hours ago [-]
I had an even older iPad I was happily using for similar use cases. Until one day a family member bricked it and I needed to factory reset. No big deal, I thought -- nothing important on it. Turns out it needed to phone home to do the factory reset, and since the server it wanted to talk to was no longer up (or perhaps the address changed?) I couldn't factory reset the iPad.
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
saltwounds 2 hours ago [-]
You should be able to DFU, but when it phones home it'll require a software upgrade
vlovich123 2 hours ago [-]
Apple recently had an issue with expired certs they had to remedy. That tends to be their bottleneck now.
nicbou 1 hours ago [-]
My iPad Mini from 2020 is also surprisingly good today. It's one of those devices that just quietly do their job forever. They are a dying breed.
layer8 1 hours ago [-]
> It's one of those devices that just quietly do their job forever.
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.
tstenner 36 minutes ago [-]
That's what I use a 2014 Sony tablet for. The battery last surprisingly long, but heavy websites are an exercise (well, the other form of exercise) in frustration
maCDzP 2 hours ago [-]
I bought magnetic self adhesive tape and mounted in on my fridge. Now it’s the family calendar. So nice.
Insanity 2 hours ago [-]
That seems incredibly overpowered for a calendar lol. I imagine doing this with a kindle / e-ink display might also be more energy friendly.
dymk 5 minutes ago [-]
It might be much more energy efficient, but it doesn’t really matter when the annual energy cost is $2 for the iPad
enraged_camel 29 minutes ago [-]
When cleaning out my deceased father's electronics closet, I found a 1st gen iPhone. Fortunately its charging cable was nearby. I charged it and, miraculously, it turned on, and was in fact fully usable (minus calling, due to no SIM card). Note that the device is almost 20 years old at this point.
In contrast, none of the various Android devices he collected over the years turned on. One came close, then errored out right after booting.
ChrisMarshallNY 20 minutes ago [-]
Might actually be worth something, as there's not that many of them around (especially that work).
Sorry for your loss.
qingcharles 1 hours ago [-]
Have a 7th gen iPad from 2019 I use as my daily driver. Has iOS 18 and works great. Was $80 on eBay a year or so ago.
game_the0ry 1 hours ago [-]
Just curious, why don't you just use your iphone? Why the ipad? Why do you prefer it over an iphone?
spudlyo 1 hours ago [-]
The big screen fits perfectly over the elliptical’s display, the readability of ebooks (my most common use) is superior.
dogma1138 1 hours ago [-]
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.
t-3 2 hours ago [-]
How is the battery doing? I find sudden rechargeable battery/controller failures in the 5-10 year range to be my most common cause of upgrade or repair.
swiftcoder 2 hours ago [-]
Kind of luck of the draw on that one, I think. I have a first-gen iPad Mini on its original battery around here somewhere. Doesn't run for more than a couple of hours on a charge, but it also hasn't exploded yet...
spudlyo 1 hours ago [-]
It usually lasts 3-4 sessions. I power it off between uses to preserve battery.
davio 1 hours ago [-]
I have an iPad 4 that is now a single purpose scorekeeper for darts
Almondsetat 2 hours ago [-]
They can only go as far if Apple doesn't deprecate them, unfortunately
ChrisMarshallNY 18 minutes ago [-]
I use a 2012 MacBook Air 11" for Zoom meetings. Still runs like a champ. It's stuck on Catalina, but Apple still sends out patch releases.
dylan604 2 hours ago [-]
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.
TheDong 1 hours ago [-]
I have a google nexus 7 tablet from 2013. Thanks to Google unlocking all their bootloaders by default, I can install u-boot and a modern linux kernel on it (thanks PostmarketOS).
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.
doe88 36 minutes ago [-]
It will go as long as certificates chains are valid.
swiftcoder 2 hours ago [-]
> 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.
mantas 1 hours ago [-]
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.
user34283 46 minutes ago [-]
I have an iPad 9th generation here, from 2021, and it appears to be at the end of its life.
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.
Havoc 26 minutes ago [-]
To what end?
I genuinely don’t get the purpose of these high end processors in a tablet. Like more power is nice but what would I do on it that needs it?
Serious gamers mostly steer clear of Apple. Video editors presumably use desktops/laptops. Browsing doesn’t need power. Video watching doesn’t need it. Programming on iPads is cumbersome.
Who is the target audience that gains from this?
spudlyo 3 minutes ago [-]
It's a spec bump, soon they'll introduce M5 powered iPads. More GPU cores, more neural engine cores, more unified memory -- eventually iPadOS features will spring up to take advantage of this stuff. I assume the target audience for this is folks who want to make future-proof purchases or those who likely have more money than sense.
etchalon 16 minutes ago [-]
People who buy things, mostly.
vintagedave 2 hours ago [-]
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.
wlesieutre 2 hours ago [-]
I have an iPad Pro (2018) with A12X processor which at one point was a "holy crap this this is incredibly fast for how thin it is" device.
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.
neurostimulant 19 minutes ago [-]
The processor is still fast enough, the ram is too small for modern web apps.
Aurornis 2 hours ago [-]
The newer CPUs are more efficient and faster. In a mobile format you want the CPU to process everything as fast as possible and then return to a low power mode for battery life.
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.
nothercastle 2 hours ago [-]
The cpu is better but the software is worse and more bloated so they fight against each other
LoganDark 20 minutes ago [-]
Do they really do it just because it's cheaper? I thought they did it for each generation to offer the best of that generation; it makes sense for more powerful chips to have more cores and higher capacity, but it doesn't make sense for each core to arbitrarily be less efficient or less performant just because you didn't buy more of them. Especially because this approach makes the base models an extraordinarily high value compared to base models from competitors.
tiffanyh 2 hours ago [-]
It's Operations Management 101.
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.
pchew 2 hours ago [-]
I have an iPad for the purpose of 3D modeling in Nomad Sculpt and Shapr3D. It’s an M2 Air, it’s still way overkill, and I’m regularly frustrated at how limited every piece of iPadOS software is compared to the hardware. The dichotomy of prioritizing iPad hardware but iPadOS being arguably their worst actively developed software is baffling.
Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.
surajrmal 2 hours ago [-]
In theory it improves battery life by doing more for less power. It also future proofs it for future workloads giving it an extended lifespan. Also note that thermals will limit what this is capable of compared to your laptop.
dagmx 2 hours ago [-]
Can you explain, why not? If it’s easier for Apple to just maintain a fewer series of chips going forward, why not keep it up to date?
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?
harrall 1 hours ago [-]
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.
varispeed 1 hours ago [-]
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.
harrall 10 minutes ago [-]
You can attach a USB drive.
The Pro models have Thunderbolt.
g8oz 18 minutes ago [-]
The Files app can connect to SMB locations.
stetrain 2 hours ago [-]
There are some decently powerful apps available, like Final Cut Pro, and there is multi-window support including external displays.
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.
AnthonyMouse 2 hours ago [-]
In theory an iPad is a computer and then you could run whatever you want on it. So maybe the better question is, why can't you run whatever you want on it?
layer8 40 minutes ago [-]
It doesn’t necessarily need it other than for niche use cases, but they can’t well have the SoCs stagnate for many years, because SoC updates drive upgrades, whether the buyers really need it or not.
Marsymars 34 minutes ago [-]
Besides what the other commentators have said — if you're buying an iPad today, wouldn't you rather have the newest/best processor in it?
aNoob7000 2 hours ago [-]
They don't need it. Apple is introducing new hardware for the sake of introducing new hardware.
Personally, they need to put the iPad on a two-year release cycle and focus on improving iPad OS.
sh3rl0ck 2 hours ago [-]
I assume it's an economies of scale thing now.
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.
tonymet 1 hours ago [-]
Poor software quality, especially websites
Noaidi 2 hours ago [-]
> Can someone explain to me why an iPad at all, let alone an iPad Air, needs as powerful a processor as a M4?
Because marketing? Seriously, the people I see using iPads in coffee shops are rich retired dudes looking at the news on it.
bookofjoe 2 hours ago [-]
Because fanbois don't want to wait another year for M5?
kalterdev 2 hours ago [-]
Now you can bring the power and convenience of your laptop to iPad with just a single VNC connection. Oh wait…
kandros 2 hours ago [-]
Pure marketing, in a couple years it will start lagging doing basic web surfing, like every other iOS device
NetMageSCW 2 hours ago [-]
That has never been true. My iPhone 15 Pro and iPad M1 have no lag.
g8oz 16 minutes ago [-]
Those devices are too young to start lagging. Eventually websites will bloat to the point that you will definitely notice. My estimate is that it will be at the 7 year point.
JV00 15 minutes ago [-]
I don't understand why they still have such thick borders, compared to smartphone screens that almost get to the edge. Anybody knows if there's a technical reason for it?
OberstKrueger 11 minutes ago [-]
Tablets need an edge where you can grip it. Without thicker bezels, it’s harder to hold it without your fingers being on the screen. This is much less of an issue for phone-sized devices.
davidcollantes 10 minutes ago [-]
I don't think it is technical. Because of their size, they would be hard to hold without covering portions of the screen, if the bezels were thinner. As is, my fat fingers get in the way already.
Y-bar 10 minutes ago [-]
To each their own, but I would rather have a larger border where I can rest my thumb without causing an accidental press/scroll a few times a day. The software-based rejection is not good enough and I am very willing to go back to the older look of the iPad if offered.
jajuuka 8 minutes ago [-]
I think it's an ergonomic issue. Phones (even the Pro Max size) can be held with one hand or two hands without resting your palm or pinching the edge to hold it. You could but it could cause some erratic behavior.
A tablet though doesn't hold well when just pressing on the sides. So having some place to grab and rest your palm is more necessary here. They probably could go thinner with borders but it's a balancing act of usability and aesthetics. Also have things like the camera to account for and on tablets you don't have to make a punch-hole or teardrop. The iPad Pro's also package in FaceID cameras so it could be a product consistency choice too.
css_apologist 2 hours ago [-]
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?
DamnInteresting 59 minutes ago [-]
GarageBand is fun, and capable of making surprisingly complex music. Logic Pro is also available on iPad now, but it's only available with a $15/month subscription, so I haven't tried it.
For artists, there are a lot of good tools: Procreate, Art Set 4, Adobe Fresco, Artrage, etc.
piva00 1 hours ago [-]
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.
css_apologist 49 minutes ago [-]
> no support for VSTs
yup, that kills it for me
dgxyz 2 hours ago [-]
I had the same problem with my M4 Pro. So I sold it.
joezydeco 3 hours ago [-]
The word "value" appears four times in that press release. I sense a theme in the marketing this week.
harperlee 26 minutes ago [-]
Also "upgraders" (11 times, meaning a kind of buyer), that's a new one for me in these introductions.
jajuuka 5 minutes ago [-]
Between the iPad Air and iPhone 17e it's definitely the "value" day. It will just be a ramp up to the MacBook Pro. Makes a good contrast and marketing scheme.
dylan604 2 hours ago [-]
At least they are not using "affordability"
2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago [-]
If they wanted to provide value they'd add MacOS to their tablets.
geerlingguy 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, instead we'll have a slightly cheaper MacBook Air, I'm guessing, that still costs more than the perfectly adequate iPad.
sneilan1 27 minutes ago [-]
If it can be used for inference, who cares right? Just have claude vibe code some objective-C or run the Enclave app.
anentropic 8 minutes ago [-]
and Claude is remote inference anyway, just an http api
manmal 2 hours ago [-]
Tangential, iPadOS 26 is absolutely unusable on iPad Minis. Who needs window management on an 8" screen?
crims0n 2 hours ago [-]
-you can turn it off globally in settings
-some people use it docked
-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that
layer8 53 minutes ago [-]
As the sibling says you can turn it off, but even the non-windowed UI is still not well-adapted to the small form factor. Apple doesn’t put any work into it. One can hope that some improvements might carry over from the upcoming foldable iPhone, whose inner display will only be slightly smaller, but I’m not holding my breath.
easton 2 hours ago [-]
Memory increase to 12GB, guess they still have reasonable pricing.
mathis 55 minutes ago [-]
The base model has only 128GB of storage. IMO they are pushing uses to upgrade storage more aggressively than ever. This should make up somewhat for the increased cost of volatile and non-volatile memory.
jghn 2 hours ago [-]
At this scale, don't companies lock in their prices well in advance instead of paying spot prices?
48 minutes ago [-]
functionmouse 2 hours ago [-]
Don't vendors as big as Apple lock in their prices and contracts years in advance?
wpm 2 hours ago [-]
Rumor has it that Samsung hit them with a 100% price increase on RAM and Apple took it without even trying to negotiate
bombcar 2 hours ago [-]
If that rumor's true then Apple has a memory fab hidden somewhere that's going to be revealed soon.
throwaway85825 1 hours ago [-]
Apple is likely a large enough consumer to fully utilize a fab.
extraduder_ire 57 minutes ago [-]
Floating 100% price increase, or did they lock that number in as a ceiling for some period of time?
xd1936 2 hours ago [-]
Bringing their profit margins down from ludicrous to just absurdly high.
amoss 1 hours ago [-]
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?
morganw 1 hours ago [-]
> does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?
I hate apple. Can't they just add a second bump on the other side? They're being a PITA with this wobble and it's been going on for like 15 years now (iPhone 7 forward)
fumeux_fume 1 hours ago [-]
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.
miohtama 35 minutes ago [-]
Is it fast enough to run Liquid glass?
sneilan1 28 minutes ago [-]
That's very funny. Bravo.
revolvingthrow 1 hours ago [-]
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.
happyopossum 24 minutes ago [-]
Larger screen option, much better screen, better pencil support - not better support, but a much better pencil (this is HUGE for my daughter for example).
It's crazy to me that someone can look at a $350 device and a $1000 device and say there's not room for something in the middle...
Marsymars 31 minutes ago [-]
> I don't understand the target audience of ipad air.
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.
raw_anon_1111 51 minutes ago [-]
A large screen and my wife uses it as her only computer and uses it with a regular $30 Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
halapro 53 minutes ago [-]
I live in Asia and I see all students using iPads instead of laptops. The limitations of the OS are really not felt by the general public. Whatever you listed doesn't even make sense to them, they buy things based on what they can afford. Every iPad works the same to them.
cj 33 minutes ago [-]
You're not wrong, but I hate the idea of an entire generation growing up without ever using a full powered computer. (Full powered is the wrong word, more like fully capable computer)
We have an entire generation who only knows how to interact with "usability optimized" interfaces with zero friction and zero learning curve.
layer8 32 minutes ago [-]
The Air has a better display (laminated, AR coating, P3 colors).
piyh 1 hours ago [-]
It's the cheapest iPad that supports pressure sensitivity on the better apple pencil.
eknkc 1 hours ago [-]
I still have no idea wht to do with my previous gen iPad Pro..
waynecochran 1 hours ago [-]
When will I be able to run Xcode on one of these?
css_apologist 40 minutes ago [-]
looks like never
chorkpop 2 hours ago [-]
I wish Apple hadn't decided that colors weren't for pro users. I would love to have any of those.
jajuuka 2 minutes ago [-]
That's true of most OEM's. Most phones will be cases so I can at least understand that argument, but I don't think as many tablets are in cases.
criddell 2 hours ago [-]
I'm still upset that they dropped the Smart Keyboard Folio. For me, that was the perfect keyboard case. I was hoping some third party would copy the design and release a new case but it never happened.
Marsymars 28 minutes ago [-]
The Smart Keyboard Folio is great! I got one on clearance a few months ago and use it whenever I'm using the iPad around house/town. (If I'm travelling out of town with my iPad where I won't be able to use my desktop keyboard, I bring my Magic Keyboard instead.)
It's so good that if Apple changes the form-factor of the iPad Air, I'll probably take that opportunity to buy the last Smart Keyboard Folio-compatible iPad Air to stretch my use of it as long as possible. (Though I worry that at that point I'll wear out the internal ribbon connectors eventually.)
t1234s 2 hours ago [-]
Any chances of getting a new Apple TV 4k this week in time for F1 launch on AppleTV+?
mikestew 1 hours ago [-]
Sure, there’s a chance. Don’t know why you’re asking, though, because those that know aren’t talking and those that are talking…
raw_anon_1111 51 minutes ago [-]
What’s wrong hardware wise with the current one?
2 hours ago [-]
franze 2 hours ago [-]
I love my iPad, best TV i have ever owned.
Noaidi 2 hours ago [-]
Ha, yes. I have a Galaxy A7 lite that is my TV. Much cheaper and has a 500GB SD Card in it as well.
jonplackett 2 hours ago [-]
Bet they were hoping for a quieter news week for these announcements.
Mindwipe 2 hours ago [-]
The Pro really looks like it's struggling for a reason to exist given how much cheaper this will be and the difference in feature set.
game_the0ry 1 hours ago [-]
FWIW, my wife is a student and her ipad has probably helped out her out a lot, for a lot of reasons:
* 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.
Hamuko 2 hours ago [-]
I fucking love my OLED display on my iPad Pro.
bm5k 2 hours ago [-]
Heavier than the iPad Pro. Again. Still.
deviation 2 hours ago [-]
I know it's semantics, but Apple has never actually marketed their Air products as lighter than their Pro counterparts. The 11" variant is ~460g.
knallfrosch 34 minutes ago [-]
Are we meant to associate it with "hot air" marketing or what else?
halapro 48 minutes ago [-]
What are you talking about? Air literally always meant thin and light. Now they're treating it a premium product between normal and pro instead (see iPhone Air too)
unstatusthequo 2 hours ago [-]
FFS I cannot believe this. I went and looked it up, and you’re 100% right. It’s slight, but it’s real.
Noaidi 2 hours ago [-]
Please do not buy any Apple products until Tim Cook takes that gold bar back from Trump? Thanks.
irenetusuq 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
magnio 2 hours ago [-]
To me, the tablet form factor is dead with the arrival of the trifold.
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.
halapro 46 minutes ago [-]
IMHO technology (and price) is just not there yet. I can buy a phone and 2 tablets for less month than a foldable.
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.
nerdjon 2 hours ago [-]
A properly built tablet OS UI would also have those differences in the OS that make it more than just a larger phone screen, which so far seems to be most of what the foldables are doing with a gimmick thrown in here or there.
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.
herrherrmann 2 hours ago [-]
I wouldn’t put too much hope into foldables, at least not because of Apple’s involvement. They also released the Vision Pro. And there’s still the unsolved(?) problem of the screens getting easily scratched/destroyed if they’re not heavily protected and kept clean. (There are some informative teardown videos, e.g. by JerryRigEverything.)
raw_anon_1111 50 minutes ago [-]
I can get a foldable phone that extends to a 13 inch screen.
pokstad 1 hours ago [-]
I’d rather have no moving parts in my screen.
Hamuko 2 hours ago [-]
I have a hard time justifying buying a trifold when my 13-inch iPad Pro was 1263€ and the Samsung trifold is probably gonna be closer to 3000€ for a 10-inch display. If I assume that it'll be 2999€, you can get a 13-inch iPad Pro (1519€), a Magic Keyboard for the iPad (399€), an iPhone 17 (999€) and still have money left over. And this is straight from Apple.com. It's possible to get better deals elsewhere.
LoganDark 2 hours ago [-]
Dunno if Apple's foldable will support Apple Pencil. (For that matter, not sure a touchscreen MacBook would either.) That's one use case for a properly rigid, solid, flat surface.
Rendered at 17:09:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
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.
In contrast, none of the various Android devices he collected over the years turned on. One came close, then errored out right after booting.
Sorry for your loss.
TL;DR sometimes it's not Apple, it's the app devs that deprecate them.
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.
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.
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.
I genuinely don’t get the purpose of these high end processors in a tablet. Like more power is nice but what would I do on it that needs it?
Serious gamers mostly steer clear of Apple. Video editors presumably use desktops/laptops. Browsing doesn’t need power. Video watching doesn’t need it. Programming on iPads is cumbersome.
Who is the target audience that gains from this?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.
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?
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.
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.
Personally, they need to put the iPad on a two-year release cycle and focus on improving iPad OS.
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.
Because marketing? Seriously, the people I see using iPads in coffee shops are rich retired dudes looking at the news on it.
A tablet though doesn't hold well when just pressing on the sides. So having some place to grab and rest your palm is more necessary here. They probably could go thinner with borders but it's a balancing act of usability and aesthetics. Also have things like the camera to account for and on tablets you don't have to make a punch-hole or teardrop. The iPad Pro's also package in FaceID cameras so it could be a product consistency choice too.
how is music production on it these days?
For artists, there are a lot of good tools: Procreate, Art Set 4, Adobe Fresco, Artrage, etc.
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
-some people use it docked
-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that
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.
It's crazy to me that someone can look at a $350 device and a $1000 device and say there's not room for something in the middle...
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.
We have an entire generation who only knows how to interact with "usability optimized" interfaces with zero friction and zero learning curve.
It's so good that if Apple changes the form-factor of the iPad Air, I'll probably take that opportunity to buy the last Smart Keyboard Folio-compatible iPad Air to stretch my use of it as long as possible. (Though I worry that at that point I'll wear out the internal ribbon connectors eventually.)
* 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.
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.
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.
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.