The first iPad was advertised as magical and revolutionary,
Apple's most advanced technology at an unbelievable price. It lifted the tablet
from a decade of obscurity and made it not only a household name, but a
household product. The iPad 2, however, proffered that technology alone was not
enough. It was thinner, lighter, and faster, but also more confident. It
defined post-PC even as it made the computer itself far more personal. The iPad
3 was new and "resolutionary", but at the expense of thinness and
lightness. The iPad 4, twice as fast. Both brought specs to what Apple had
previously framed an experience fight, and the latter was overshadowed almost
entirely by the fresher, smaller iPad mini. When it came to the full-sized
iPad, it seemed Apple had hit a wall.
Enter the iPad Air. Where the limitations of 2012 dictated
Apple had to choose between Retina and lightness, the advances of 2013 mean
that Apple - that we - can now have both. But is it just more specs, or is it
once again getting technology out of our way? Is it simply thinner, lighter,
and faster, or has Apple recaptured the delight and the magic? Is it merely a
step forward, or is the iPad Air truly another leap?
iPad Air packaging remains largely unchanged from previous
years. The cardboard box contains the small Apple pamphlet, the USB to
Lightning cable for charging and connecting to a Mac or Windows PC, and the USB
power adapter for connecting to an outlet.
There's only one notable difference between this box and
that of previous generations - it says iPad Air right on the side.
The physical transformation from iPad to iPad Air is the
single most important update to Apple's full-sized tablet this year, and
alongside the iPad 2 redesign, one of the most important updates in the brief
history of the device. Or rather, the benefits accrued from the transformation
are. With the iPad Air, Apple finally brings Apple's their new tablet design
language, begun with the 4-inch iPod touch and 7.9-inch iPad mini in 2012, to the
9.7-inch form factor. What took so much longer, and what makes it so much more
impressive, is what Apple has managed to cram into this new 9.4 inches (240 mm)
x 6.6 inches (169.5 mm) x 0.29 inch (7.5 mm), 1 pound (469 g) glass and aluminium
chassis.
Along with the iPad mini-style design also comes the iPad
mini-style bezels. Narrower on the sides, it means the screen now fills more of
the surface than ever, creating a more immersive experience that ever.
Software, first introduced with the iPad mini last year, rejects unintentional
touches around the edges, and rejects them well enough I've yet to have a
misfire. Metal buttons replace the old plastic ones, including the discreet
volume up and down buttons. They feel great. And the new colors look great as
well. Previously, the original iPad came in only black and aluminum. The iPads
2 through 4 gave you your choice of white or black faceplates, but consistent
aluminum backs. Now, the faceplates remain white or black, but the backs match
the silver and space gray finishes of the 2013 iPod touch and iPhone.
Back to the transformation. Almost an inch narrower than the
original iPad, almost half as thin, and lighter by a third, the difference is
striking. When Apple first introduced the iPhone 5 the running joke was
that it felt so thin, so light, it couldn't be real. It had to be a toy or
blank or a dummy. The iPod touch 5 and iPad mini stretched that joke about as
far is it felt it could go. But the iPad Air stretches it again, and beyond
credulity. Yes, a pound is still a pound, but for something with a screen this
vast, when you hold it in your hands, the weight per square inch once again
makes you doubt your senses. When you pick it up for the first time, it makes
you damn near doubt reality.
Absent a Retina display, and anything approaching the same
processing power and radio technology, the original now feels like a tank -
something better suited as a bludgeon for home defense than a tool for home
computing. By contrast, the iPad Air really does feel... like air. There is
still heft to it, still weight, but nowhere nearly what you'd expect.
It's when you see the design generations, from the
squared-off original iPad, to highly tapered iPad 2, through the
ever-so-slightly thicker and heavier iPad 3 and iPad 4, that you really
appreciate how far Apple's 9.7-inch tablet has come in only 3 and a half years.
More to the point, how far the iPad Air has really pushed it.
And here's where we come to the benefits. The narrowness
makes the iPad Air an absolute joy to hold, and especially to thumb-type with.
It's still not an iPad mini, it still can't fit in a back pocket or the palm of
most hands, but what the iPhone is to one-handed ease of use, the iPad Air is
now to two. More importantly, it makes the iPad Air something that can be held
while standing, sitting, or lying down for far longer than any full-size iPad
before it. That translates into an easier time holding it while looking at
recipes in the kitchen, while reading comics on the sofa, while watching movies
or TV shows in bad.
When the iPad was introduced, Apple showed it on laps or on
tables, because after a few minutes of use, that's inevitably where its weight
forced it to go. The relative lightness of the iPad Air extends the time it can
be held in the hands considerably, which makes a full sized tablet more usable,
for more people, in more situations. That's the huge win here.
There is one big advantage to having speakers on either side
of the Lightning connector - you no longer have to worry about how you hold the
iPad Air in landscape mode. With the previous generation full-sized iPad,
holding it with the speaker side down meant your hand had a high likelihood of
covering it, effectively killing the sound. Now, even if and when you cover one
speaker, the other still comes through loud and clear.
Speaking of loud and clear, the iPad Air also doubles up on
microphones. That allows iOS to pick the best mic possible for FaceTime, Siri,
and other use-cases, and employ the other one for noise cancellation. The
result is better audio capture in a wider variety of situations. Now all we
need is some of that hot, iPhone-style, beam-forming action.
The iPad Air shares Apple's new, unified mobile chipset platform
- the Apple A7. Previously,
full-sized iPads required a special variant of Apple's in-house chipsets in
order to push around their massive 2048x1536 Retina displays. The A5X quad-core
GPU on the iPad 3 was barely up to the task and Apple replaced it 6 months
later with an Apple A6X,
based on their first custom-CPU, the Swift. The monstrously powerful Apple A7
needs no puny X. It needs only its next-generation custom-CPU, the Cyclone,
clocked ever-so-slightly faster, and a PowerFX Series 6 "Rogue" GPU -
likely the G6430. It's 64-bit. It supports OpenGL ES 3.0. It includes an Apple M7motion coprocessor. In
Apple-parlance, it's a screamer.
source: http://www.imore.com/ipad-air-review
by Rene Ritchie
http://www.buyetail.com
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