
iPad Air 2 - abhshkdz
http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/
======
kaolinite
I'm surprised nobody is talking about the Apple SIM which personally I feel is
one of the most incredible features they've shipped this year: no more SIM
cards, just pick the carrier you want in the Settings app and you're signed
up. Fed up with them? Switch carrier in an instant. Going abroad? Switch to a
local carrier. Just wow. I really hope they bring this to iPhone.

[http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-air-2/wireless/](http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-
air-2/wireless/) (near the bottom, search for "Apple SIM")

~~~
eloisant
With a regular SIM, I can put any SIM from any carrier, and they don't have to
be blessed by Apple.

I'm not going to let go this freedom, thank you. I'd rather have a physical
operation to do than give even more control to Apple.

~~~
mrcwinn
There are greater freedoms to protect and care for. :) What's happening here
is not a company taking freedom from you. It's that old balance of convenience
for the many, or customization for the few who care. For most people, this
will mean an increased convenience, more competition, better pricing, easier
signup. That's an obvious win, in my book, and clearly a positive innovation
for Apple to focus on.

------
post_break
The fastest new processors, whiz bang features, and the boat anchor of 16GB
starting memory. At this rate we'll still have new devices in 2020 that start
with 16GB.

Yes I know it's a sale tactic to get you to "upgrade" to 64GB and recoup some
nice profit margin, but 16 is too low for a lot of people, and 64 is a waste.

Android suffers this a lot. Brand new high end model $650 phone, 8GB of usable
space.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
What high end android phone ships with 8? The only one I can think of is the
old Nexus 4, but being a $299 phone it obviously had to cut corners somewhere.
I wouldn't call it high-end either considering its weak battery and lack of
LTE support.

I find a lot of phones and tablets are stuck at 16gb, as you mentioned,
regardless of OEM. End users don't seem to be making space a priority, instead
they just want thinner and sexier, which has led to the problem of low battary
capacities, bending issues, and screens that are easily cracked.

I think think we're in the infancy of mobile and wearables. I suspect a big
sturdy 6" phone will become the status quo soon enough with a smartwatch
companion for notifications. I'm kinda doing this now with my N5 and my Moto
360 and its a great combo. Moving to the N6 with its massive battery and
gorgeous screen is a no brainer. Also, constant 24/7 LTE or wifi makes storage
much less of an issue, but I suspect it might be an issue for me as I migrate
away from using a tablet to just using a phablet and then that 16gb limitation
will be painful.

~~~
masklinn
> What high end android phone ships with 8?

None, but they usually ship with 16, sometimes upgradable to 32, and these
days often no SD slot. The Nexus 9 is 16/32 with no SD, the Nexus 6 is 32/64
with no SD. The Air 2 and 6's are 16/64/128 (though the 16GB is a bloody sham,
especially when the next OS will most likely require even more available space
than iOS8's already humongous 5GB for OTA) (it was really funny seeing the
proud 47%-a-month-in graph when iOS7 was at 71% a month in:
[http://fortune.com/2013/10/15/mixpanel-apples-
ios-7-hit-71-p...](http://fortune.com/2013/10/15/mixpanel-apples-
ios-7-hit-71-penetration-in-27-days/))

~~~
elithrar
No SD I can live with, but max. 32GB on a tablet (where you are like to store
larger apps/more HD media) is crazy. My 32GB iPad Mini can be a bit
restrictive at times when travelling - 1.07GB TV episodes means I can fit a
set of 720p TV w/ maybe enough room to spare for a couple of movies.

------
MattHeard
I see that Monument Valley is the "beautiful app" that both Google and Apple
are showing off for their devices.

[1]
[http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeveryth...](http://www.google.com/nexus/new/images/nexus6/N6-moreeverything-1600.jpg)

[2] [http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-
air-2/a/images/overview/apps_...](http://images.apple.com/v/ipad-
air-2/a/images/overview/apps_large.png)

~~~
pradn
Anyone know what the bottom-left app is? It seems to be a puzzle game.

~~~
morley
That's Monument Valley.

~~~
pradn
Oh, cool. I thought that referred to one of the photo apps.

------
yeasayer
Any info about the amount of RAM? They should've bumped it to 2GB. No words
about it during presentation, not a single mention in tech specs on apple.com
site.

If this new iPad still has 1GB of RAM, it's a dealbreaker for me. Lack of RAM
causes Safari to reload webpages from inactive tabs, which is a HUGE flaw. It
really hurts websurfing experience and I think websurfing is one of the
primary purposes of iPad.

~~~
swang
This was a huge problem on the original iPad. I still don't understand why
Apple skimps on the RAM.

~~~
awolf
Less RAM more battery life. Less RAM bigger margins.

Two pretty good reasons.

~~~
2510c39011c5
I am not sure if a single stick of 2GB DDR3 RAM would consume much more power
than a sinlge stick of 1GB RAM...At least on a PC, the difference seems to be
negligible (such as indicated in [http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-
consumption-of-pc-compon...](http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-
of-pc-components.html))...

Assuming ipad Air 2 has roughly the same power consumption as Air 1 (32.5 w),
even if 2GB memory consumes twice the power than 1GB (on PC a DDR3 stick,
which has much greater capacity, would be 2~3 w), comparing to the power
consumption of CPU and screen, still the power consumed by memory is only a
small fraction of the whole...

Well, I am not quite familiar with this energy aspect...Perhaps some experts
here could provide more insight or pointers?

~~~
ema
When the iPad is just laying around you can turn of the screen, the cpu, and
the gpu, you can't turn of the ram. So while the power consumption of the ram
might be negligible when the iPad is in use, it might be the majority when it
isn't. So for usecases where the iPad is only used for a few minutes every
hour double the ram might cut the battery lifetime by a third.

Also I'm pretty sure the 32.5 watt power consumption represents the maximum,
otherwise that thing would overheat without a fan.

~~~
2510c39011c5
Yes, I agree that even if every other component is put into sleep, the memory
would still drains the energy; and no matter how slow that process is, if not
recharged, there will be a time the battery finally runs out.

But the thing is, it looks like there is not much difference between a single
stick of 1GB RAM and a single stick of 2GB RAM in terms of the power
consumption rate. This is indicated in this article
[http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-
compon...](http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-
components.html) ; well, it's for desktop RAM but I would assume tablet RAM
will behave similarly, as seen from other tablets that upgraded from 1GB to
2GB.

From the user experience perspective, if there is no noticeable penalty -- the
physical size and the power consumption are the same for 1GB and 2GB RAM, then
why not just put in the one with larger capacity, for a better user
experience? (and possibly much better for those of heavy multitasking
tendency).

Is that because 2GB is much more expensive than 1GB, for tablet RAM? I could
not find any tablet RAM price information through googling -- it's not for
retail to individual consumer but only sold in batch to manufacturers...

------
nnx
It is so disappointing that the iPad Mini 3 did not get the A8 upgrade.

[http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/specs/](http://www.apple.com/ipad-
mini-3/specs/)

~~~
abc_lisper
Sneaky! I was assuming the brother pads had the same chip. Can't get a mini
now.

~~~
Synaesthesia
The A8 isn't a huge improvement over the A7, and the A7 was a collosal jump in
performance, still more than good enough IMO. I mean there are people out
there using A5 processors and the A7 is 4-5X faster. The A8 is only about 30%
faster at best than the A7.

------
IkmoIkmo
Absolutely amazing device, but also wholly unexciting.

That's completely okay, but I'm left with this feeling 'there's nothing to see
here, nothing to discuss'.

Curious to see the new screen on the Air 2 in the store, though. Might be a
significant difference.

As for the mini 3... that's just a mini 2 (2014 version). Literally no change
except the fingerprint scanner. I'd call it the '3', too, just to prevent
confusion, but it's utterly unremarkable otherwise versus the '2'.

~~~
bobbles
There's no mute switch, so thats something

------
cryptoz
From the Compare page
[http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/](http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/), it
looks like the "iPad Air 2" is the first iPad to carry a barometer as an
additional sensor. I missed the keynote, did they discuss this? Doesn't seem
as usable as a step-counter since it's in a tablet, how does Apple intend to
use the barometer for this tablet?

Also, is there a single Technical Specifications page for the iPad Air 2? I
can't find a list of sensors in the device, outside of the linked Compare
page.

Edit: Here's the full specs page: [http://www.apple.com/ipad-
air-2/specs/](http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/specs/)

~~~
shurcooL
Did the iPhone 6 get a barometer sensor too?

~~~
andrewmunsell
Yes-- both the 6 and 6+

------
azurelogic
What's really sad is that the iPad mini 3 is an iPad mini 2 with a TouchID
sensor. Looks like I'll be saving $100 and getting a mini 2.

~~~
webXL
But you can get the 3 in GOLD! Gold, Jerry... Gold!

Edit: Okay, some people are a little sensitive about the lack of new iPad mini
features or don't get the reference. It's from Seinfeld. And it's worth noting
that Gold is an option now, since apparently gold models are selling well for
Apple.

------
stevep98
Also no NFC chip. It would have been nice to have some nice point-of-sale
capability for merchants who current use square or something similar.

------
hbosch
Surprised to see that the Nexus 9, announced yesterday by Google, can compete
almost exactly with this device toe-to-toe (minus the storage options, in
which I believe Apple wins).

Usually Apple always seems so far ahead.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Also minus the apps. I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork
etc. on Android when I had an Android tablet.

~~~
personZ
_I never found any apps close to Garageband, iMovie, iWork etc._

I have all three of these apps on my iPad. I recently removed iMovie, and
never touch Pages choosing to instead use superior options (where there are
also superior options on Android). Garageband was interesting for a while (and
it is a superlative implementation), but hasn't been intentionally opened by
anyone in the family in many, many months.

They are good apps, but I doubt they're within even the top 100 most used apps
across platforms. They aren't compelling for the average user.

~~~
k-mcgrady
My point was that they are incredibly high quality.

~~~
personZ
Sure, but for someone using Facebook, LinkedIn, the web browser, gmail, Google
Maps, and so on, the fact that one platform has Garageband and the other
doesn't is meaningless, regardless of how well built of an app Garageband may
be is.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Sorry I don't think I'm being clear enough. My point was that app quality in
general for iPad is higher than app quality for Android tablets. Garageband
was an example of one of those apps.

------
nikon
Looking on the Apple website, there are now _5_ different iPad models to
choose from.

Sounds silly but it feels so un-Apple to have that many different variations
of one product line.

~~~
newppc
Completely agree - I mean there has to be a good amount of people inside Apple
who have brought this up already. Maybe they ran the numbers and decided all
these options are better than fewer options?

I'm counting 22 variations of the iPads for a customer to choose from -
[http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/](http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/)

------
kunstmord
What's with ditching the 32GB options?

~~~
dkrich
They did the same thing with the new iPhones.

I'm no Apple insider, but my hunch is that 32GB is right in the sweet spot of
what most people probably realistically expect to use. So, basically, they
could easily give you the 32GB in the baseline model, but they know that if
they do that, they'll be leaving a lot of money on the table because there
isn't a stark difference for a large percentage of users between 32GB of
storage and 64GB. 16GB on the other hand is a different matter.

The fact that so many people are complaining about this is probably a sign
that, if that is indeed the reasoning behind the lack of 32GB model, it was a
smart choice from a profit perspective.

~~~
CmonDev
As calculated as the Nexus-muting "leak".

------
ChuckMcM
Sigh, I love the performance improvements, just wish they had made a larger
format one. Can't wait for the ifixit guys to tear it apart. Looking at all
the "air" in my old Thinkpad 750C reminded me of how far we have come in terms
of making these things practically a single slab.

------
downandout
This is a generally unimpressive upgrade, though I have become addicted to
Touch ID and will upgrade my iPad for that specific reason. Touch ID, the iOS
UX, and the massive app ecosystem are Apple's competitive advantages these
days. For this and probably next year, they will be enough to keep billions of
dollars rolling in and the launch day lines long. I think without some real
innovation in the next two years though, the tide may start turning.

------
nraynaud
I like the mix of units on the front page: "6.1mm, 0.96 pounds". I guess the
general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or thousandths?

~~~
DannyBee
"I guess the general US public can't really grasp small fractional sizes or
thousands?"

The fractional sizes would get weirded and weirder as they get smaller.

1mm is ~1/32 (5/128ths is a really close approximation, but let's assume
nobody is that crazy).

Right now it's ~1/4 of an inch Let's say they reduce the size 1mm.

Now which sounds better: 5.1mm, or 7/32 of an inch (or 13/64ths, which is more
accurate)

~~~
Tloewald
434g would seem like a reasonable way to express the mass of the thing too.

~~~
chrisdroukas
Ah, but then you're mucking with the advertising. 0.96 pounds seems _so_ much
lighter than 434 grams, right?

A similar thing happened to A&W [0] with their "1/3 pound" burger selling
fewer than a competitor's "1/4 pound" burger — effectively because "3" is less
than "4" and fractions aren't for everyone.

[0][http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-
po...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-pound-burger-
ripoff)

------
milhous
I don't understand why they continue to omit the LED flash for the camera.
Theres no reason to leave it off.

------
bsaul
i thank the evil lords of screen production issues for the iPad air 2 to
remain with the same resolution.

Damn, i had a look at this "Size classes" feature a week ago and i REALLY
didn't feel like recoding my 40-screens iPad app during the next two weeks.
Now i'll have a year, which feels much better.

~~~
Tloewald
Careful examination of the specs reveal the iPad Mini 3 is basically an iPad
Mini 2 with touch ID, and less expensive memory options. It doesn't have the
CPU, screen, thinness, or improved camera. It's kind of like the iPad 3 which
was replaced by the iPad 4 within six months. There may well be an iPad Mini
3S or somesuch early 2015.

My guess is the rumored screen production issues for the Air 2 led to the Mini
3 being a less ambitious update.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
It might get more ram, although I doubt it. Seems like the only unknown factor
still.

~~~
Tloewald
Good point. It does create some very interesting price points. The iPad Mini 2
at 16GB is a really good deal (and definitely worth $50 more than the iPad
Mini 1). Similarly, the iPad Mini 3 at 16GB is a terrible deal, but the iPad
Mini 3 at 64GB is a much better deal than the iPad Mini 2 at 32 GB. I think
Apple has actually done itself a bit of a disservice here -- they should
probably have done something like: iPad Mini $229, iPad Mini 2 $299, iPad Mini
3 32GB $399, iPad Mini 3 64GB $499. Instead they have a bunch of SKUs that
will just confuse people.

But I suspect that they'd planned to roll out an A8X iPad Mini 3 with the new
screen and had to pull back from that plan, and this is where they ended up.

I frankly find it amazing that Apple can ramp up stuff this effectively, year
after year. Consider that they're building a bazillion new screens in a new
way and shipping it to a bazillion customers who are going to complain about
the smallest defects.

------
pertinhower
Help me. I want to care about this. But what does this model have that will
make a substantial, observable improvement over my—say—iPad 3?

~~~
parasubvert
I have an iPad 3, and I bought my father last year's iPad air. The speed
difference is large. 802.11ac wifi is also a big deal. With the new one, it's
even faster, and touchID is nice. Plus it has the iPhone 6 camera which is
truly one of the best mobile device cameras out there.

