New iPad Air, powered by M4(apple.com) |
New iPad Air, powered by M4(apple.com) |
- Why is grip a feature of the bare tablet and not part of a case accessory?
- Why is the grip point the flat glass front of the display, instead of anything more ergonomic for actually holding it?
Phones don't do this, not even 7" phablets, nor for holding them horizontally, nor holding them with two hands gamepad-style during gameply. Why do tablets?
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.
What a spiteful company
iPads usually aren't used as much for these things. They're used for browsing, streaming, gaming, reading... mostly things that don't take up nearly as much space.
It's not spite, just matching device capabilities to user needs without unnecessary upgrades that will lead to a higher price point.
I use tons of storage on my phone. Not much on my iPad. Pretty much just downloading TV shows before a flight, but 128 GB gives you plenty of hours of that.
I'd hazard a guess that people use significantly less storage on iPads than their phones. Phones get filled with photos and videos, whereas people use iPads primarily to browse social media and stream videos.
With first party native apps it's not great for writing, editing pdfs, nor drawing. I mean the notes app doesn't even have simple things like letting you zoom in. You'd think a common use case would be to use it as a drawing tablet for your computer? Maybe not a common use case but I think something a lot of people would end up using a few times a year (countless times I'd love to have a whiteboard on a zoom call but setting that up is annoying)
There's great third party apps to do this but I think it just shows that either Apple is disconnected or just trying to get money from developers.
It's also not great as a computer. I mean in another thread I've mentioned my laptop (macbook air) is a glorified ssh machine and frankly, an iPad should the perfect device for that because its size. But it seems they don't want me to use it like a computer and idk why iOS locks down third party terminals so much.
It also sucks as a second monitor (why is everything monitor related so bad with Apple?). Keeps disconnecting, I need to restart Bluetooth/airdrop constantly to detect it, and the angle it sits at when sitting on my desk... really?
I really want to know what you guys use it for because mine just really feels like expensive ewaste.
e2
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.
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.
Also. I inherited an older, full size iPad that I plan to leave on my piano for sheet music.
For browsing the web, yeah I think my comment reflects that experience. But I won't go to places like HN because typing is just a shitshow on iOS. Don't get me started on swipe... and how is it 2026 and there isn't a universal gesture for back?
Idk, anyone with a remarkable browse the web? How is it? I'd get one in a heartbeat but that price is outrageous
But the reading pdfs part is important -- and really hard to beat for me, the iOS drag/scroll/pinch/zoom UX perceived responsiveness is still unmatched IMO. It would take some real creativity beyond liquid glass to enshittify this aspect out.
I lean towards the iPad's success mostly being brand name and advertising because I've never experienced the "just works". I understand that from the non techie people, but not when talking to nerds
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.
Not knowing how to use a regular computer creates a barrier to entry for programming and other computing industries that didn’t exist before.
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.
If they need a mid-tier brand between entry-level and Pro, just call it Plus. The iPad Plus would make a lot more sense.
Your car can't compete in races, but it doesn't affect you because you're probably not interested in racing. You're more interested in comfort and price.
Driving a manual isn’t a required life experience by any means. But the overwhelming majority of people who know how to drive manual appreciate the knowledge and experience. (And it’s not necessarily more expensive, if anything Apple products are typically more expensive)
They should do the same for iPhone.
If you just browse the web and stuff like that you might just get a regular iPad.
Yes https://www.apple.com/v/ipad-air/af/images/overview/closer-l... from https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/
https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-air-11-m4...
The quick summary:
- iPad Air has 2 stereo speakers, rather than 4 speakers as Pro models
- Touch ID in top button rather than FaceID as Pro models
- iPad Air is slightly heavier (???) than either Pro model
- screen of iPad Air is a bit less bright
- no nano-texture display option on iPad Air
- no true Thunderbolt connectivity through USB-C port on iPad Air
- all devices can use same Apple Pencil Pro...
- ... but the iPad Air takes a special Magic Keyboard (supposedly due to form factor)
- camera array is slightly different on iPad Air (no ProRes video)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/02/apples-next-launch-star...
What am I missing?
It’s just a nicer device for a bit more money ($349 to $599). Not everyone wants to jump all the way to $999 for the Pro.
Still waiting.
* 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.
Though, I personally don’t need all the horsepower and would get lower-end iPads in that size if they existed and were cheaper.
TIL American English treats “value” in the financial sense as a countable noun
But, they are excellent for media consumption, particularly reading and marking up PDFs. I am able to focus while reading in a way I cannot on a computer. Procreate is amazing (drawing brushes with a pressure sensitive pen and layer/mask support all in one). Great for playing Civ on a flight. And it does all those things in a comfortable form factor while being fundamentally a pleasant device to use.
All that considered, the iPad Air is not that expensive, and it will probably last you a decade before it needs replacing.
That’ll be what I finally get when I replace my current old-ass pro. Never needed the power, just wanted the size.
Windows XP had this feature. Chromebooks have this feature. It's inexcusable that such an expensive gadget can only have one user.
For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
Kinda ironic for a company when it was Jobs who said"If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"...
I have an ageing iPad, but the crap software really makes me reconsider ever wanting to spend so much money for a shiny toy.
TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.
Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.
My macOS muscle memory works most of the time, but there are also quite some details which are slightly different or missing. If they would allow a macOS “mode” on iPad I would choose it over a MacBook instantly for work.
I'm willing to bet it's as simple as that no Apple SWEs or anyone who has to edit video or sound uses an ipad for work. As soon as Apple forced some to use one, they'd fix all of the UI problems that make them a nightmare.
If you need internet connectivity on the road regardless if Wi-Fi is available, only the iPad has that option.
Yes, you can use a Mac laptop with your phone acting as a hotspot but unless you have unlimited data, that gets expensive real fast.
Now that Apple makes their own cellular modems, it should be feasible to add them to MacBooks in the near future.
This clearly isn’t the case—the iPad Pro got the M4 processor in May 2024; the Mac didn’t get the M4 until October. So for a few months, Apple’s most powerful chip was only available for the iPad Pro.
And while the M5 MacBook Pro and the M5 iPad Pro were announced together in October 2025, none of the other Mac models have been updated to the M5.
It’s possible more M5 Macs will be announced this week; we’ll see.
I don’t think it matters to Apple whether you spend $1,000+ for an iPad or for a MacBook.
Today, we just have on each and have to run around the house whenever we want it.
Make is useful and buyers will come. The never had issues selling multiple macs frankly.
I'm still of the opinion that there's a market, albeit a small one, for a "consumer" MDM product for use cases like this, better parental controls, etc. but almost all are for business and come with some kind of minimum device purchase like 30+ devices.
When my children were younger I used configurator to adopt, and configure, their ipod touch devices. It was a bit of a pain but not too bad.
Anyone can do this - configurator is free and runs on any old macbook ...
I worked a university lab and had an account on the lab server. I could walk up to any computer in the lab and login and get the exact same desktop experience with all my files and settings. The computing power was all on the local machine, but it basically mounted my user folder from the server.
That was the only time I worked anywhere with that setup on Macs, but it worked so well. Though it was admittedly not your standard office environment — there were frequent compelling reasons for me to be using different machines in different parts of the lab, and not a lot of compelling reasons for me to use that account from a computer on a remote network.
What problems do you see with multiple users on macOS? I don't use it intensively, but I've never noticed issues.
Here's an early one I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJKRgs2IUg4&t=7s ("18 years ago")
We switch in apps (ie in netflix). This whole "one person one device" just makes the iPad a shallow consumption device and keeps the laptops for work (and also often for streaming because of this. Btw they are all 2nd hand business laptops running Linux; for the Kids Gnome is very iPad/ChromeOS like and familiar).
It would be so much more useful a device, and maybe we'd even then start buying more, if we could just switch user profiles.
Oh, because it's just a consumption device when we "needed" another one, we got a Xiaomi. Who cares about al the niceties of the iPad anyway when all it does is show video.
1. Turn on Steam Deck
2. Open Steam on your phone
3. Scan QR code
4. Choose whether or not to stay signed in on the Steam Deck
I'm sure the security angle would be something a lot of people would bring up, but if iPad had this feature, they could make great use of Apple's Data Protection Classes[1] to ensure that all per-user data is encrypted when that specific user is not logged in and actively using the device.
1. https://support.apple.com/guide/security/data-protection-cla...
That said, having worked on account/identity systems at another FAANG, I think that the commenters saying that Apple is holding this back purely to sell more iPads are underestimating the complexity of this feature.
This is not a feature that you just bolt on to the top. It will require a significant ground up rewrite of iOS' fundamentals if you want to support account switching without a full shut down of the device (and even with that, there are complications with shared storage).
There are likely tons of singletons across the iOS codebase for the "current account", and switching between users will easily lead to bugs where the new account shares/accesses state from the previous account.....and these "violations" are much harder to detect via static analysis than you might naively imagine.
UPDATE: I wasn't aware that Apple already supported a bunch of this via MDM. My only point was that if they didn't already build this into the foundational layer of the OS, then this is a very difficult feature to add later. If they already have this, then I don't have any defense left for them.
Shared iPad overview
Shared iPad allows more than one user to sign in to an iPad. The iPad needs to be supervised before Shared iPad can be used. Shared iPad can be used not only in education but also in business. Multiple users can use the iPad, and the user experiences can be personal even though the devices are shared.
Shared iPad requires a device management service and Managed Apple Accounts that an organization issues and owns. Users with a Managed Apple Account can then sign in to an organization-owned Shared iPad. Devices need to have at least 32 GB of storage and be supervised. The following devices support Shared iPad:
You just have to turn it on with a MDM profile. It's just consumers they don't let use it.
It may be a fine media consumption device (browsing, reading, watching); it's a bit heavy but has a large battery.
I don't see any other serious applications for a home user, such that would play the iPad-specific strengths.
For example, it's hard to manage app store purchased Apps if it's easy to switch users in iPad. It's hard to manage iCloud sync when switching, it's also related with privacy.
It would solve the age verification challenge by tying a device to a person. Since they can, I think they might.
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.
It kinda sits in the middle of usefulness of a phone and laptop for me. Larger screen than phone yes, but can't run any of the applications I need from a laptop. If it had MacOS, I'd be much more inclined to buy it.
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?
I fear at some point we’re going to lose macOS.
The true embodiment of paternalism, it protects you from all the scam in the world, except the noble ones who are willing to pay the 30% share.
It's 30% until they approve you.
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.
I've run nixdarwin + aerospace now for a while on the older macos version and it's insanely how the customized workflow can improve productivity.
Recently I started experimenting with nixos/asahi and it's waaaaay more better than even what I had on macos.
Apple made a non-technological and purely artificial and somewhat capricious decision to not sell a product that was worthy of the Apple brand.
They continue down this road because next quarter is more important than next year, and sycophants continue to buy unusable products just to show off the Apple logo to people who don't view it as a Veblen good.
Apple could choose to sell to everyone, but instead sell to a minority. This is a choice. During recessions, it is not a good choice, and we have been in an almost persistent global recession since 2008.
As long as Apple can claim they have a $1T market cap, nobody wants to hear that the emperor is buck naked.
If this ever died I'd likely replace it with an Air - the Pro is overkill for what's basically a consumption device.
Performance wise, even older ipads were well beyond what I need so if you can handle lower refresh rate for sure a better deal.
I also suppose parts can be easily replaced without also replacing everything including the motherboard should something stop working?
Sarcasm, obviously, but until they do these things, their environment selling point is just irritating and scandalous and they should just focus on the other selling points.
I hope the budget MacBook appears this week nonetheless.
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.
iPad + Korg microKEY-37 + KORG Gadget 3 + all a bunch of KORG apps
No subscriptions. Keyboard is wireless but no noticeable latency. In my workflow I pretty much never need more keys but if I do I just use a MIDI adapter and plug a larger keyboard.
KORG apps go on 50% sale several times every year.
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.
And while VSTs don’t run, the AUv3s on the App Store tend to be much cheaper.
If for nothing else, I think it’s an excellent replacement for a guitar effects processor like Helix. Plus everything is backed up / restorable and you don’t have to suffer with a knob-based interface
yup, that kills it for me
Heavier than the Pro, 60Hz, but more Ram in the M4 Air than the M4 Pro? It makes no sense. Who is this for?
Some places even do a bundle "discount".
I could buy the "companion device" niche for a while until iPad OS 26 came along, which took away most of the "touch first" multi tasking and replaced it with a model that heavily favors mouse and keyboard use. I actually use my iPad less now since the update, because I still primarily used it as a tablet, I don't even own the magic keyboard/trackpad for it.
Now it's essentially a gimped macbook, and it's not really clear on where it fits in their product lineup. Is it supposed to be a laptop replacement? A companion device? An art tool? An expensive e-reader? No one, not even Apple, knows.
So yeah, they either need to come up with a clear vision for what it's supposed to be, or finally just let it be a 2-in-1 macbook with apple pencil support.
I wish they could repurpose macOS to touch screens... Oh well.
-some people use it docked
-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that
Really? I genuinely know no one that uses Stage Manager.
1. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
I am desperately clinging on to these because they still use TouchID. Words cannot describe how much I hate FaceID as a person with poor vision. When I'm forced to use it on my iPhone (which is all the time), I have to move it away from my face or I get the "Try again". Super-annoying.
But it gets worse: after a certain number of unsuccessful tries, you're forced to use your passcode anyway and FaceID has false negatives ALL THE TIME.
It's even worse on n iPad form factor where the iPad often isn't facing you directly. It might be attached to a keyboard, on a stand, on your lap or on your chest (when lying down). Many of these angles just don't naturally work with FaceID.
If only Apple would give me a FaceID OPTION on an iPhone.
I haven't bought a keyboard or anything. If I wanted a device to work on in any way, I'd still use a Macbook Air. But I do love my iPad Air.
But I'm curious, why does FaceID work less well if the user has poor vision?
Granted I’m switching to it from an iPhone 17 pro max but still the thing goes from 100% to 80% overnight without being used and a 40 minute Zwift ride routinely drains 15-20%. Makes me much more reluctant to buy another as it has to be tethered to a charger.
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.)
My wife is still using an older gen 11" iPad Pro and her keyboard folio stopped working (they fall apart after a few years ), so I took a gamble and ordered one. It arrived in the original, sealed packaging. As far as I can tell, it had never been opened, and it is perfect condition and works great. My wife is very happy. I bought a second one for when this one falls apart.
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Smart-Keyboard-11-inch-iPad-Pro...
I’ve recently started experiencing a new-to-me glitch where the Safari unibar just drops the input. Apparently, it’s been a thing that’s been around for several years though. How is it a thing to drop inputs in your browser and it’s not fixed at least 9 years later?
On a related note; that’s what always concerns me the most about things like AI and robotics, the frontier is constantly pushed, in spite of the rather major, fundamental flaws and glitches … as people are pushing AI and robotics into taking over everything.
What happens when the glitch is in the do not start Ai robot nuclear war routine?
Until iPad OS actually becomes capable for complex work and multitasking, I can’t see what the benefit of strapping such a powerful chip to an iPad is.
In a head-to-head comparison with real desktops like macOS or Windows, iPadOS can be generously described as a no-show.
Works in a pinch but Apple is not going to compete with themselves on this front, they're expecting you to buy a macbook for serious work and an iPad for work in a pinch.
Buy M-based iPad, nice monitor, keyboard and mouse. Connect mouse and keyboard to monitor via USB. Then iPad via USB-C/Thunderbolt to monitor. Everything "just works" and you can handle surprisingly high amount of work this way
Very vague specs.
Can iPad Air USB-C deliver 4k 120hz or how much bandwidth that USB-C got?
I used to code HTML/CSS that way back in... 2011?
If you are on an iPad from 5 or so years ago there, or happy with your device, sure - there is no reason to upgrade. But the very same reason that you do not have to upgrade is that Apple put a fairly powerful chip in your device a while ago that is still holding today.
It should be a common sense that these devices are for first time buyers or for users of very old devices that finally end up upgrading, and why would those people not be treated with a fairly recent internals?
Still, I don't use it much. Mostly I'm not a tablet person, but also, the UX is just so bad. It's total abandonware and it shows. The keyboard often covers more than half the screen. The side drawer on maps will cover the "you are here pin" that's in the middle of the screen. And so on. They just don't even try.
I am crossing my fingers that that Apple's rumored Home Hub will change this.
Just have the coffee table iPad be a display for your own iPad. You could even have a virtual iPad on your mac that you show on the coffee one if you don't have your own.
MacOS has 'high-performance' screen sharing using hardware encoder/decoder now. Windows has had this for years and it's so fast it's like actually using the remote computer. It's not like old-school VNC, the only real functional drawback is that you can't leave wifi range.
If a company is hostile against its users, then walk away and don't look back.
The bigger limitation is that most apps don't tie into the profile well yet, but it has not also been around long in a just a niche product as well.
Would I buy each of my 3 kids an iPad every 2-3 years[1] if they had this capability? Hell fuck no. I'd let them use my iPad, which I myself don't even use that much.
But as soon as my kids started texting weird shit to business contacts, or accidentally declining meeting invites because they were playing ROBLOX and the notification was annoying — there was no choice. They'd already experienced the iPad, and I'm too busy to do the super-dad job of weaning them off screens in favor of paper books. Plus, iPads are actually really cool for kids, in a lot of ways.
But the lack of multi-user on iPad is unforgivable user-betrayal. It feels a lot like the gas station charging $25 for a 2L bottle of water right after the earthquake.
Might not be illegal, but... fuck you. The iPad is a great product but it leaves me with a burning napalm hatred for Apple in my heart, just the same as when I try to cancel a US newspaper subscription. Fuck you.
[1]: because, while admirably durable, kids do just wear them out and break them
If I’m researching something and I need to read any significant amount of text I’m going to grab my iPad and find a comfortable spot instead of sitting at my desk. Even though I have 2 big monitors.
I also have a Magic Keyboard that I can simply pop on if I need to write any significant amount, like this, and pop it off again for pure consumption.
It’s an amazing device for watching video (the tandem OLED looks incredible) and I often use the pencil to sketch out ideas.
It's also quite heavy and bulky, so often times I would have to choose between carrying it or my Macbook Pro. And over time, I realized the MBP still was irreplaceable. I switched back to my MBP and physical books after lying to myself reading book on an iPad Pro was somehow better for nearly 3 years. Sold it off at a loss, but feels better without the useless paper weight in my bag.
There's nothing Apple can tell me to make me buy another iPad ever in my lifetime...unless it runs OS X (non-crippled).
Apple have built much of the software infrastructure to support multiple users on iPadOS, the feature exists for education market customers etc:
> https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
I also suspect someone at Apple has run the numbers on device sales and has decided the status quo where an iPad is a 1:1 device and makes more money for the company is preferable.
I was pretty surprised when the AppleTV of all things got multiple-user account login support before the iPad did!
What?
Sometimes the culture shock from Android is just too much. You expect things to be there that simply are not.
It was actually better at youtube by being more efficient, I could watch videos for a full day before needing to charge.
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
Temporary downtime? Maybe.
Being stuck on v17 is a feature for the older A-series chipset.
In contrast, none of the various Android devices he collected over the years turned on. One came close, then errored out right after booting.
Could also be due to incompatible radios. 2G GSM isn’t available everywhere anymore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out), nor is 3G (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#Phase-out).
Sorry for your loss.
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.
For the amount charged they should be usable for 15-20 years. Enschittification is very much an apple thing. Cue outraged apple cult memebers.
So should I buy a second pair of work-out earphones or a new tablet? A new tablet would give me back access to app store and many apps, which are no longer compatible with this old slab, but at least Amazon Prime Video and most importantly, VLC still works.
Even at 9 years old, I don't see myself upgrading in the foreseeable future.
TL;DR sometimes it's not Apple, it's the app devs that deprecate them.
Or, to use an app on the comfy smaller pocketable hypothetical iPhone and to see on the paired iPad when wanting the luxury of a larger display
I think your comment is incorrect. some companies / shareholders push for planned obsolescence, but I can't accuse Apple of that.
I bought the 1st Gen iPad for my daughter while I was in the States for work (2010). Not a phone, big enough, and can be Internet-connected with a SIM. Lots of Games, and later my feeling of having bought something amazing was that my daughter learnt to speak brilliant English with Peppa Pig, way before her formal school started.
Palo Alto Stanford Shopping (USA) › FedEx to a Relative in Maine (USA) traveling to Manipur (India) › he trimmed a local SIM to fit the Nano-SIM tray › Happy Daughter on her 2nd Birthday.
My dad was at Stanford in 84, when the original Mac was announced. We were a Mac family from even before I was born. I watched Steve Jobs give the Macworld keynotes back before everyday people knew who he was.
When I was in college, I actually bought a TabletPC. I still identified as a Mac user - I even tried making it into a Hackintosh - but being able to draw and use gestures was interesting enough that I tolerated Windows on that device.
The day the iPad was released, my parents impulse-bought one. They were heading on an overseas trip that week and thought it would be a fun gadget to bring along.
They had me set it up for them, and I did exactly that. I didn't tinker with it, play around on it, pretend it was mine for an evening… It's the first time I remember a gadget not feeling like a new toy, even though I had spent my formative years dreaming about how cool a Mac you could draw on would be. It was just an object, and I had no interest in it beyond being a helpful family member.
Making "just a big phone" when their phone platform has always been so locked down has done the iPad concept a major disservice.
Haven't tried 26 yet, maybe it will be better
Later I plan to use it as a lighting control panel but other than that the use cases are limited.
Foldable device prototypes were publicly demonstrated in 2013. It took five years for the technologies required to enable foldable devices to become mature enough to ship bad products. It took another five years for them to mature enough to meet Apple's scale and quality requirements.
This isn't a "moonshot" (which take decades to build), but hardware innovations like this regularly take a decade to properly productize.
Which seems pretty standard Apple. Let others do something, see how it plays out then launch their version of it.
Then it was so good that I used it to travel and to watch videos in bed in place of my computer. If I need to work I’ll take my laptop though.
IMO if you don’t use your laptop to work it doesn’t make sense to use a laptop instead of an iPad.
Whenever I need to get anything done on iPadOS, I feel like I'm wearing boxing gloves.
The device's speed is limited by fiddly animations and DUPLO-sized siloed applications.
Its multitasking power is capped in software.
I only recently bought an iPad for the first time this year after realizing this was feasible. I’ve always preferred digital music workflows, but hated dealing with a laptop and DAW. iOS supports AUv3 plugins and cross app audio, so it’s pretty much a full DAW experience (I use loopy pro). The form factor forces AUv3 devs to design smarter interfaces.
Plus, I dislike using the iPad for literally anything else, so I’m less likely to get distracted :)
Can you expand on this, as im having a hard time comprehending. At the least, a laptop is a tablet with a built in stand :). How is a laptop hard to deal with?
It just ultimately makes it a nicer device to use.
I've yet to figure anything you can do with these but watch videos and play some games; I always end up grabbing the laptop.
So even if they break even, which I highly doubt, they would rather use it in a kids tablet than let the competition use it to power a flagship phone.
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.
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.
I sometimes wish it were an industry norm for devs (a group of which I am a member) to be required to use a $300 Walmart special laptop for a week every two months.
Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.
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.
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.
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.
And then visual artists are often using Procreate, and those files can get heavy as well.
Plus, it’s nice to carry my iPad around with me in a sling and work in a cafe whenever I feel like it. I wouldn’t want to do that with my 16” MBP.
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.
Or did you mean the other way around? It would be great to have the iPhone mirroring feature on iPads.
This is about software
I see where you are going but they are older laptops bought for cheap. But they do an incredible amount of work. And can be (and are) more easily shared because of the different accounts. I.e., my work laptop is upstairs, I use the laptop my daughter usually grabs and log in to find all my stuff (inc password manager).
I think I'd use our iPad more if it had profiles. And my laptop less. For my partner we're consider an iPad over a laptop atm. And then again it would be nice if the kids could also use it. But as-is it would be a single person device.
And yes, it's existed for years now. That ordinary consumers can't have it is a business choice, not a technical limitation.
https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager-m/sha...
There are other potential issues as well not listed on that page. Apple could address all of these though if they really wanted to roll the feature out broadly.
Right. Which, by my calculations, means it costs half as much as an MBA plus an iPad and their nice keyboard case.
Don't know how much either the iPad or the nice keyboard case cost by themselves, but probably more than 0. So even skipping the nice keyboard case and buying just a naked iPad in addition to the MBA still makes Apple more money.
Why would they forgo this if they're indeed the mustache-twirling capitalists like everyone says?
Well maybe that kind of company would've been aggressive about always being competitive, yeah? Instead of whatever Tim Cook is doing...
I don't want to have to do a bunch of sysadmin just so my wife and I can both see our own YouTube subscriptions on an iPad. Again, you could do this with zero fuss in 5 minutes on Windows XP.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/intune-service/enro...
Keep in mind that before the whole memory price hike crisis they were already charging ~3x what the competition charged for ssd/ram upgrades
If you are using an external keyboard and a mouse with it - you will get the same touch UI, yes.
This is true. To see the ones that are available, hold down the command ⌘ key to get a scrollable list of all of the shortcuts for the app you’re currently using, and use Fn-m or globe key-m to see a list of the system shortcuts.
The line they’ll probably never cross is that the Mac can run software in a (mostly) non sandboxed mode, with unrestricted background processes, which means it’ll always be the platform of choice for developers. Those extra restrictions on the iPad makes them more free to push it/experiment with it in the direction they wish (for better or worse, as we’ve seen with all the wonky windowing implementations, although the current one is mostly fine)
I love my iPad for drawing/photography, reading comics, and its extreme portability; I love my MacBook as a developer and as my main productivity machine.
Apple has been very clear what the iPad is "supposed" to be. It is a touch screen computer. Between its form factor, touch first OS, built in camera, and possible cellular capabilities it can do a lot that a Mac can't do. Something as simple as walking around with it and handing it to someone like a clipboard opens up a million uses in the field that would be much more awkward with a traditional laptop. Artists drawing directly on the surface, musicians playing with touch controls, etc. all take advantage of how the iPad works.
If you insist on using programs and workflows designed for laptop computers the iPad will never make sense to you. I use AUM, Drambo, and a variety of other soft synths and effects on my iPad in conjunction with my analog synths. It's a very different experience than a regular computer.
I don't pay extra for have less options than on PC hardware, my desktop and laptops can be upgraded at will and without gunpoint prices (forgetting about the whole AI stuff that affects everyone anyway), thus all my use of Apple hardware is project specific and taken from the company's hardware pool.
If you need anything other than a base configuration that’s not true anymore because apple makes stupid money on their $200 upgrades of 8 gb of ram but if you are a low grade consumer who doesn’t need anything other than the base configuration you would be hard pressed to convince me that the base models of their products are worse value than their non apple equivalents
It is only well established on the minds of those earning US salaries, or living in countries of similar economies, G8 style.
Couldn't connect to wifi except through a password-less hotspot. Then I couldnt get online because nothing with SSL was working.
I didnt have a pen drive so I had to FTP off another machine, via my phone hotspot. We got there though!
How that additional time is actually spent is a whole separate story, but that's entirely tangential to assessing the impact of battery life improving.
Yes, but if it's your goal to have fewer cars, then you'd make an effort not to need to use it at the same time. If that's not what you're trying to do, fine. My wife and I share a car. It's slightly inconvenient sometimes, but really not bad at all. For our particular life anyway.
So here we're talking about iPads. Some families need multiple devices for various reasons. Some don't except for the fact that iPads don't support accounts. No one's saying you would have to use them. But you're not allowed to.
I held off a while on giving my youngest child his own iPad because he and his brother were playing nicely together on one more often than not. It turned iPad time into social play-together time.
How many TVs do you have in your living area?
If it’s not a regression in the newer models, my top 3 guesses would be:
1) Is it a cellular model? Those have phone-like battery life (non-cellular should have iPod-like battery life, I used to develop for these things and seeing a bunch of “good” Android tablets next to iPads and how huge the idle battery life difference was contributed to my going all-in on Apple, every model I’ve personally seen that’s non-cellular has weeks of useful battery life when idle)
2) Some accessory somehow forcing it to wake periodically? I have AirPods and an Apple Watch, and those don’t do it to mine, but maybe if they were malfunctioning or something, or maybe some other device is doing it.
3) Faulty hardware
[edit] fwiw I do have find-my enabled on everything, never noticed a hit from that.
As a consumer, I don't care whose fault it is that profiles are useless.
There are some apps that get this right. Infuse recently added support for this.
(In my experience, most non-Apple apps just seem to ignore user profiles on the Apple TV, and either behave as single-user apps, or have their own totally unrelated user profiles.)
2018 was iOS 12 which was a very good year for iOS optimization, things have been downhill since then.
I have 4 GB which is typical for these, and admittedly low by modern standards. The 1 TB model had 6 GB but was $1750.
And why exactly is that different from having the cellular connection on iPad? You can have the exact same data plan on your phone that you use as hotspot.
At one stage I even had a third AppleTV, that was hooked permanently to a VPN exiting in a foreign country, so I could get TV content and applications restricted to another region I watch a lot of content in. It was so nice to just pick up a remote and instantly have the foreign appleTV experience, rather than juggle VPN apps and foreign Apple Store accounts on the same device.
I solved this by just pirating everything and putting it in Jellyfin with Infuse on my AppleTV. Managing profiles and parental controls (and god forbid you also want actual curation) is just totally broken if you pay money for the content, but if you pirate it, it works. Go figure. Dropped from like seven or eight streaming services at peak to I think two. It’s not worth it for the savings, though that’s a nice bonus (it all ends up in hard drives or electricity anyway, though) but it’s the only way to get sane UX. Friggin’ irritating.
It's a bit similar to them not supporting Apple TV's "Continue Watching" feature as they don't want to hand over all their watch data to Apple.
In any case, once you have a good setup the pirating UX is very hard to beat (I'm looking forward to the day that Jellyfin on tvOS has feature parity with Plex, not a big fan of Infuse personally. That's the issue to follow for that: https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/1294).
The UI is slightly janky out of the box but if you customize it it’s not bad. Key to note is that you probably want to use the “library” menu item for almost everything and drill down from there (that way you can filter by e.g. genre, or order by release date, or whatever, right up front) or else just go over to the entry for the server itself, which gets you a list of top-level items like you see in the Jellyfin web ui.
If you have much stuff at all you need to just ignore top level entries like “movies” or “tv” because (as far as I can tell) they’re just giant alphabetical lists of everything, which borders on useless. I think you can make them not show up at all. You just need search, “library”, and an entry for any server(s) you have to browse them “raw”.
This is a bizarre way of saying “if they ship it and it has reliability problems, they know they’re skating on thin ice”.
Apple’s brand has taken a beating (I’m as aghast with the latest macOS as the next nerd), but people love that when Apple ships a product, it generally works and the hardware doesn’t break.
Butterfly keyboards are a terrible stain on the hardware team’s reputation. “Scared” is the wrong word for how these things work.
It's expensive (though largely comparable to business machines) so people dunk on it being low value for money,
People dunk on them for not taking risks, but when there's a reliability problem that would be sort-of acceptable for another product it becomes international news.
When they do take "risks" (like USB-C only) people dunk on them for taking away choice.
Now, I'll be the first to admit, I'm one of the people dunking on them a lot, I was not a fan of the headphone jack removal, butterfly keyboards, discoverability of 3D touch, change of UI paradigm away from Skeumorphism etc;etc;etc -- but I feel like a lot of the other manufacturers seem to get a comparative free pass, which feels unfair.
I was already on my thirties when I got my first car.
Remember, we're comparing to iPads. Apple intentionally hobbles them to induce demand for multiple iPads. This isn't a question of being allowed to own multiple iPads/cars. It's a question of being artificially prevented from owning a single one.
The point isn't that you have to commit to being a single-car household for life. It's that at some points in time, you can be.
Well that's interesting having seen so many of your posts on this site, hullo quasi-neighbour! (I'm originally from Tripura!)
But the leaks I've seen of the size, makes me less excited about it. The phone when folded looks a bit wider and squatter than my Pro Max. And when open, it's smaller than my 11" iPad.
I see the promise of this concept with the tri-fold phones, where when expanded is closer in size to an 11" tablet.
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.
Submitting apps to the app store requires using the latest version of Xcode (with a ~half year lag after a new one comes out), so it's now impossible to submit an update to the app store that supports iOS <15.
On Android it’s less of an issue because the SDK ships separately from the system, but there are often still substantial behavioral differences between system versions under the same SDK that can be a real pain in the rear, especially when it comes to permissions-related issues. This why it’s common for Android apps to have odd bugs or behave strangely on ancient versions of Android — while it’s easy for the dev to produce a build technically runs on a wide range of versions, properly testing against all those permutations of versions and manufacturer skins is practically speaking impossible unless you’re a sizable company that keeps a lab full of devices with CI rigged up to test against them all.
and the end user can blame Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, etc for not delivering the best experience for their customers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not that they likely will, as Apple owns the framing.
Turns out people like them. Not so much the HN crowd, but c’est la vie.
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/researc...
You don't think an M4 chip, amazing, screen, form factor, quality - all for children to watch YouTube videos with is absurd? TSMC all busy making 3nm chips to be used for watching CoComelon. An amazingly powerful, affordable device that is totally locked out of being used for general purpose computing. That doesn't irritate you?
I'm with you on this one. Hopefully, Tim Cook's successor will take a different approach.
iPad works for lots of people, but the things that iPad is best for don't really need a powerful CPU.
There are few "Pro" apps that you can run to prove it's possible to run them (except for plugins, OS-level helper apps, extra hardware, background processing that doesn't randomly die, scripting more fine-grained than shortcuts, competent file browser, etc.) but you can max out the CPU for a few minutes and go back to a macbook for real work.
It seems you're way overestimating how logical people's choices are.
The names are different now, but they were always metonymic.
And of course, those of us in the Motorola/Apple ecosystem didn't have the same problems. :)
And people here don't want to hear this but the closed nature of the App Store is why audio is so strong on both ios and iPadOS. There are far more music apps for those OSes than Android. In addition to that, many VSTs made for DAWS are available on iPads as AUV at much lower prices than Mac or Windows. The lack of piracy, narrow build targets, and predictably great audio implementation makes it both easier to build and more profitable than other platforms.
On iOS the basic system was flawless and there is no variance as every single iPad is the same and there's a finite amount of devices devs need to test on.
iPad music apps are typically priced far lower than the equivalent PC apps, and there's a thriving community of iOS-only development as well.
For me it's the sweet spot between hardware (which is expensive and annoying to cable up) and PC VSTs (I associate my laptop with work). The fact the iPad can also be used for videos/books/drawing/note taking is just a bonus.
And the music you write is infinitely better than the music you don't. Anything that inspires gets extra points for that alone. :)
The alternative would be they would have to answer on their phone (assuming they have an iPhone, which may not always be the case), then use handoff to get it on the Mac.
I actually don't know if Windows or ChromeOS support this either but this is certainly something Linux can with LUKS et. al.
Still a problem for me, and has been for years, but I may be holding it wrong. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255929514?sortBy=rank
The solution posted in the discussion is not really secure.
Honestly that good enough for home use.
I've also got an iphone 15 pro that has started on on the enschittification update path. Pauses after presses, many more typos and it's just not slick and nice like when it was new.
But sure, in my experience, apple zelaots just won't believe it happens even while observing it.
A dual boot iPad would be killer. I would go out and by the maxed out M5 if it was possible. MacOS for workdays, and iPadOS for everything else. That or just finish the last mile of iPadOS (Add terminal access, long running processes, lower level file system access, actual developer tooling.)
I think all the push notification, cloud syncing, and everything else in the background are what kill it now.
As someone who very occasionally used my iPad, I think this may be the root cause of why I gave up on it and no longer own one. I didn’t use it a lot, so the battery was always dead when I went to pick it up. This wasn’t a problem with the first gen.
I’ve accepted that I need to charge my phone daily. I will not charge something like an iPad or laptop daily. If I’m not using it on battery for 8+ hours per day, there should be no reason it can’t hold a charge. There should be a proper sleep mode, instead of just turning off the display like on a phone. I always find it awkward and frustrating when an iPad is getting a bunch of notifications, waking up the screen, every few minutes while no one is even near it and those notifications are also going to the person’s phone.
I feel the same way about the Apple Pencil. I would have used it more if they used Wacom-style tech that didn’t require the stylus be charged. Then it could simply be picked up and used… like a pencil. I don’t know what the Apple Pencil’s excuse is for not being able to hold a charge.
Clearly yes. Those things keep selling.
If Apple hadn't continually upgraded the processing power then none of those programs would work. It's up to Apple to make compelling hardware. Better hardware allows more advanced programs. iPads are amazing.
A quick Google search says that 50% of households had more than one TV in 1980.
I now live in a household of four, and these TV stats are blowing my mind.
Edit: Looks like there is some research to suggest that Number of TVs > Number of People in Household. 2.93 TVs to 2.54 people. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-tv-sets-2-93-than-people...
While we are at, the EU should also force Apple to make macOS 26 run on an old Mac LCII from 1992
But yes. My view on the issue is: companies need to support their products with software for a predefined time and after that they should be forec to open source everything needed so people can keep the thing running themselves.
[0] https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules...
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+Air+5th+Generation+Battery...
(Having said that, I'm not ruling out replacing it, but I don't think I'll be inclined to do that until they stop updating its version of iPadOS.)
A lot of people do in fact, play more than a couple forever titles.
I know multiple weebs that want more powerful ipads to play mobage.
Just Gaming in general made something like $200 BILLION in revenue in 2025. Movies made ... $33B globally.
And of that $200B, mobile games were over half.
If the average HN'er would just think of the money they spend on their hobbies (or don't it usually doesn't end well =P) and now apply that to mobile games. They're a hobby or a way to relax for millions and millions of people.
They pay for the "predatory IAPs" because they consider the $10 spent a good investment on the fun they're having in the game they play.
There's a specific group of people who just have the mindset of "never pay real money for anything in a game" - I'm one of them. But even I have to admit that I'm in the minority.
But I'd argue that the demographics for "people that read gaming news websites" and "people that play and pay for lucrative mobile games" hardly overlap.
And even on an iPad you can put a video running in the corner while you browse HN or Lobste.rs.
This is a very naive take - the iPad and iPhone are both multibillion gaming devices, and to dismiss it is short-sighted.
I'd even claim (but can't look up statistics due to a restrictive company network) that singular mobile games like Honor of Kings generate more revenue than 95% of Steam games. Yet a lot of people that style themselves gamers (like myself) never even heard of it.
Exactly. Mobile gaming is a far bigger and more profitable market than console.
Nonsens. The iPad is basically a 11 to 13 (Pro) monitor+computer with an amazing touch screen. Adding the official keyboard folio, or any bluetooth keyboard/mourse is trivial, and it makes for an excellent on-the-go machine. Not different to the 12-inch MacBook (circa 2015) and the older fan favorite 12-inch PowerBook G4 (circa 2003), and I know several devs who swore by them. Linus used and loved one of the latter (with PPC Linux on in his case).
The only issue is the lack of OS level support for some stuff, not the form factor.
Admins, devs working mostly on the Cloud, photographers, and writers already use it for "getting work done", I've seen execs too.
https://www.sotsu.com/products/flipaction-elite-16?variant=4...
Just let me use my own keyboard/mouse when I want to use it like a computer. Better ergonomics too as the iPad would be at a good height.
Isn't that already possible if you plugin a keyboard/mouse via a USB-C dongle/hub?
If I could plug my iPad into that cable to use it as a Mac I would do that all the time and buy a more powerful iPad. It would be an iPad for idle browsing and a Mac for the times I need a real computer.
I don't like Stage Manager at all in undocked mode, though. I wish it would just turn on when the iPad was docked, and turn off otherwise.
At that point, an actual laptop is simpler.
It's easy to forget that many laptops are used 99% plugged to a hub and an external monitor. I have a keyboard and mouse I like a lot, and having a tablet floating on an arm next to my other screen instead of half open clam with a useless keyboard pointing at me is incredibly freeing.
Even on the go, bringing a bluetooth (trackpoint II）keyboard is just better overall IMHO. It's up to people's taste, but tablet form factors are not some unsolved mistery. Commercial success would of course be another discussion.
Until then, I would agree that the old 12" MacBook still has a big leg up over an iPad + keyboard due to its clamshell form factor. It's so much less fussy for any use case where a keyboard matters.
Not even sure what you mean. Get a keyboard stand or a regular stand + keyboard. Never "falls over" for me.
Do you try to balance it on its side or something?
Sure, it's easier to use a tablet while standing, but that's what I use my phone for, and it's always with me in my pocket. If I'm going to carry a 13" tablet around it might as well be a laptop which is thinner and lighter than a tablet + keyboard case.
Then there is always something annoying that I can't do on an iPad so I have to grab a real computer to do it.
I tried using iPads many times over the years but ended up selling them because a laptop + smartphone does everything I need better.
In my opinion all of that works better on a laptop. I don't use any streaming services so that functionality is not important for me, but I do recognize that may be important for some.
For me carrying a tablet + laptop while traveling would just be wasted space when I can and prefer to do everything on the laptop anyways.
Besides, you can’t get a MacBook with cellular and you can’t download movies to use offline with most streaming services on a Mac since most of them don’t have Mac apps.
We travel a lot. Even I take my laptop + iPad + external USB powered/USB video display that works with one USB cable. Most of the time I just use my external display. But I can use my iPad as a third display.
I really use my personal laptop for nothing. I left it at home while we are spending a month and a half in another country. When I get off work, I don’t think about using my computer for anything - I don’t do side projects and haven’t for 30 years.
it definitely looks cool (i could see the design having been inspired by the OG Mac and 20th Anniversary Mac) but works best on a stable surface; plus if you want to use it purely as a tablet, you're left with a big clunky keyboard case to deal with.
the idea of a laptop/tablet combo is cool but i haven't seen the concept executed very successfully from either starting point.
They’re pretty aware they’d be cannibalizing their lower-end laptop lineup.
The metaphor of cars vs trucks was used. For heavy duty work, trucks (Macs) will always be around. For everyone else, a car (iPad) will do just fine.
When the iPad nano was released they killed off the best selling iPad, the mini. Their statement on this was that they want to be the one to cannibalize their own products. If they don’t do it someone else will. Look at the iPhone, it made the iPod obsolete. Had they missed the boat on smartphones like Microsoft, they’d be screwed, as the iPod was half the business. Instead, they make way more on iPhones than they ever did on iPods. iPhone replaced the iPod sales and then some.
Did you mean the iPod? :)
I know plenty of people who in fact have moved to an iPad as a primary computing device, including for work/business. Including a handful of engineering leaders using remote-code solutions.
I’m not sure if it’s still the case, as they trimmed down the iPad Pro quite a bit, but I don’t think the iPad is that much of a boon for travel. For the size and weight, it seems moot. I’d rather have the keyboard and trackpad of a proper MacBook, full macOS, and a system that won’t fall apart. The last time I took an iPad on a plane, the person in front of me reclined, hit the iPad, and it flew off the magnetic keyboard and I had to fish around for it on the floor. Thankfully it didn’t break.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227741/apple-ipad-pro-m...
Because portability isn’t just about weight?
There are plenty of situations where a tablet for many will be more usable than a laptop. Cramped spaces, on a plane, laying back on a couch, standing, quick pull-outs in public, or maybe when they want something that feels more personal rather than “I’m working now.” That last one is a big one. A LOT of IT people I know have moved to tablets for their personal machines because they want to be as far away as possible from anything their brain can connect to work.
Given OP specifically said “for emergencies” and “good enough,” that suggests to me they are looking for flexibility, not maximum capability, largely an area in which the modern tablet for a not insignificant number of people, excels.
> And iOS is always going to be more difficult to do real work on vs MacOS.
If your workflow depends on native macOS software, then sure, maybe. But for people whose work is browser based, cloud based, or remote (SSH, RDP, SaaS tools), iOS is perfectly viable. I know people running entire businesses from iPads and its not just viable, they prefer it, they don't even own computing devices outside of iOS/Android.
Personally, I don’t use an iPad for work, but realistically, I could. SSH exists, and most of what I use lives in a browser anyway.
Portable Monitor, InnoView 15.8... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095GG31KX?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shar...
Metal Tablet Stand, a Portable... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4KH2GH3?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shar...
I have an iPad Air 3rd gen and my wife has a 13 inch iPad Air that she uses exclusively
* I have 2 Sotsu Elites for my travel setup.
And you can’t download movies from streaming services on a laptop and I have unlimited cellular data on our laptops for $25 a month. When I say we travel a lot - I mean we were on a plane going somewhere over a dozen times last year and this year we are spending a month and half doing the digital nomad thing in another country right now and we will be doing one way trips across 4 cities for two months this summer.
And you don’t need a keyboard or mouse for Zoom.