Apple's 2018 iPad includes 2GB of RAM, 2.2 GHz A10 processor; performance similar to iPhon...

AppleInsider

A rundown of the specifications for Apple's new "budget" iPad indicates that its performance is roughly comparable to the iPhone 7 line, which uses the same A10 processor -- and that it has just 2 gigabytes of RAM, limiting its multitasking versus the iPad Pro.

The tablet can handle iOS 11's Split Screen mode, and Slide Over while keeping the original app in view, but trying to combine the two modes results in the Split Screen windows being dimmed, iMore's Serenity Caldwell noted. The 10.5- and 12.9-inch iPad Pros are able to run three apps simultaneously, thanks to having double the RAM.

The amount of memory was discovered through Geekbench Geekbench 4 benchmarks run in the process of testing. In terms of overall performance, the 2018 iPad managed a 3,254 single-core score, actually slightly below the iPhone 7. It reached 5,857 in multi-core however, making it faster than the iPhone 7 Plus -- even though that device has 3 gigabytes of RAM.

In most respects the new iPad is identical to its predecessor, with a 9.7-inch, 2048-by-1536-pixel LCD display, an 8-megapixel, f/2.4 rear camera, and a 1.2-megapixel FaceTime HD camera. Unlike Pro models, there is no rear flash, though there is "Retina Flash" -- temporary brightening of the screen -- when shooting from the front.

The new iPad also lacks True Tone ambient color temperature matching, and ProMotion, Apple's term for the iPad Pro's 120-hertz refresh rate. Storage options are limited to 32 or 128 gigabytes, versus the 64-, 256-, and 512-gigabyte options for Pros.

Apple launched its latest tablet at an education-themed event in Chicago. It's already on sale with orders arriving as soon as April 2, starting at $329 for the public and $299 for schools.

supadav03

Honestly, the most exciting thing about this new iPad, is that that it drives the price down on the 5th gen. I’ve seen 5th gen iPads for as low as $230 brand new online already. At that price, no excuse to buy any other tablet besides an iPad. Might upgrade all my kids Airs because after trade-in/sale, is likely only pay a $150 for an amazing tablet that can survivor future updates for some time.

indiekiduk

Buy quick before they are hard to find like the 2015 MBPs with keyboards and ports.

maciekskontakt

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

Mike Wuerthele

maciekskontakt said:

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

The Apple pencil is grossly different than the rubber-tipped styli on Amazon.

Soli

maciekskontakt said:

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

Not the same technology! And, they announced a $49 stylus that works with the iPad digitizer yesterday, if you want something less expensive but also want something better than dumb, capacitance tool.

jcs2305

maciekskontakt said:

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

You obviously have never used the Apple pencil if you are comparing to $10.00 Amazon stuff. Why bother with a comment on something that you never used?  Also what maintenance ? Plugging it on to the bottom of the ipad for 15 secs gives you 30 mins of use? It also comes with an adapter so that you are able to charge it with a regular lightning cable. I plug mine into an Apple brand lightning cable with the ipad charger and it's charged fully in about 20 mins.  Your maintenance comment makes me believe that you didn't know either of the things I just wrote.. 

What is the obsession with price in so many comments here.. Take that cheap a** way of thinking and go buy products that fit your budget. It is your free choice to do so. I am not a rich man, but I find ways to afford the products I want. I also still save for the future, pay my bills and go out and enjoy myself.

fallenjt

maciekskontakt said:

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

$10 pen is piece of junk. Why skim on important thing? The Pencil is pressure sensitive of which it mimics the feel of the real pencil with no latency. the worst case, get Logitech Crayon, not $10 Chinese junks on Amazon.

tht

maciekskontakt said:

It also supports that overpriced rechargible pen from Apple. However you can buy non-rechargible pens on Amazon for $10 that work with any iPad or even iPhone with any application. i use one with iPad mini. Why would I spend $99 on something that needs maintenance and is no better than basic stuff

As in virtually all things, you pay more to get more.

The cheaper capacitive point styli is the equivalent of your finger, but at a sharper point so that you can see what you are drawing, writing better. If that is all that you need, that’s great for you. Arguably, that’s all most K-12 students and most people need. If I was getting a bunch of styli for iPads for a school program, I’d just get dumb styli too if it was primarily for note taking.

For the higher cost, and possibly higher inconvenience, of the Apple Pencil, you get features such as better palm rejection, pressure sensitivity and tilt angle. The Logitech Crayon has all the same features as the Apple Pencil except for pressure sensitivity. People value such features to pay more for them. For digital art programs, they definitely should be getting styli with these features.

I do wonder sometime if Apple or some company could have capacitive sensing layer that could tell the difference between a finger and a magnet, small magnets. If they can, dumb styli, with a bit of design, can maybe have palm rejection, pressure sensitivity and tilt sensitivity too.

mcdave

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

tht

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

After a peak of something like 65 million iPads per year, it looks like Apple’s iPad sales have stabilized to about 45 to 50 million per year. That’s pretty good!

If you are thinking that tablets should outsell, say, PCs, with more than about 350 million sales per year, then yeah, tablet vendors have a long long way to go, but it isn’t being held back by SoC performance. It’s content availability, software/apps, and display size. It’s also a bit of a zero sum game with PCs. Say, tablets would have to replace say 50% of the laptops in the market and the PC market goes to something like 250 million per year and tablets are at say 300 million per year.

At a minimum, tablets would need to have display sizes on order 12 to 14 inches. Office automation software or most PC type work really need to have displays of about that size or bigger. Office automation software and all its features have to be available in the tablet versions, instead of being defeatured like many are today. And, the operating system still needs a lot of work to offer the same features as the PC equivalents, including a lot work on styli integration and software keyboard improvements. And content that is advantageous for tablets have to be continually be made more and more available like textbooks, multitouch apps, etc. And Apple has to be freer with its App Store restrictions too.

Apple is basically there with A10 SoC performance. They just need steady performance increases per year.

foggyhill

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

You did notice that It's 1/3 the price of the current high end phone, that there is no current device sold by Apple with this CPU that's cheaper.

Most people don't even max out their current Ipad's power; putting an A11 in there won't sell one Ipad more and probably take A11 from use in phones too.

Not a good idea.

Many people are using an Ipad 2, compared to that, this thing is a rocket ship.

rogifan_new

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

I’m sure Apple’s margins wouldn’t support that.

canukstorm

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

Something to look forward to with respect to the 2019 iPad.  Given the iPad Pros are rumored to get a redesign this year, don't be surprised if next year's iPad will get the 10.5" screen and an A11 SoC.

spheric

tht said:

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

After a peak of something like 65 million iPads per year, it looks like Apple’s iPad sales have stabilized to about 45 to 50 million per year. That’s pretty good!

If you are thinking that tablets should outsell, say, PCs, with more than about 350 million sales per year, then yeah, tablet vendors have a long long way to go, but it isn’t being held back by SoC performance. It’s content availability, software/apps, and display size. It’s also a bit of a zero sum game with PCs. Say, tablets would have to replace say 50% of the laptops in the market and the PC market goes to something like 250 million per year and tablets are at say 300 million per year.  

Except that worldwide PC sales were at 260 million last year and falling, while worldwide tablet sales were at 175 million and rising in 2016. 

tht

spheric said:

tht said:

mcdave said:

This is a huge mistake. The genuine tablet market is having trouble getting off the ground and Apple’s biggest-selling computer is using its 2016 processors.  iPads should lead Apple’s charge not tail behind a phone!  This should be an A11 with the 2018 iPad Pro on A12X.
This category is failing and Apple needs every advantage, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

After a peak of something like 65 million iPads per year, it looks like Apple’s iPad sales have stabilized to about 45 to 50 million per year. That’s pretty good!

If you are thinking that tablets should outsell, say, PCs, with more than about 350 million sales per year, then yeah, tablet vendors have a long long way to go, but it isn’t being held back by SoC performance. It’s content availability, software/apps, and display size. It’s also a bit of a zero sum game with PCs. Say, tablets would have to replace say 50% of the laptops in the market and the PC market goes to something like 250 million per year and tablets are at say 300 million per year.  

Except that worldwide PC sales were at 260 million last year and falling, while worldwide tablet sales were at 175 million and rising in 2016. 

Wow, right you are. I didn’t think the fall off was going that fast, nor the number of Android tablets that high. Hmm, lots of Android tablets replacing PCs as video players and web browsing? Ie, people used laptop as a video player, web browser, and are now buying a tablet for that purpose? Too much USA focus in tablet and PC sales in the media skewing my impressions?

spheric

I think there’s a lot of junker tablets given out for free with a subscription to whatever, relegated to some tech drawer or sold for simple kids’ entertainment for long drives or so. 

But the numbers are pretty amazing, aren’t they — given that the product category basically didn’t even exist eight years ago...

tht

spheric said:

I think there’s a lot of junker tablets given out for free with a subscription to whatever, relegated to some tech drawer or sold for simple kids’ entertainment for long drives or so. 

But the numbers are pretty amazing, aren’t they — given that the product category basically didn’t even exist eight years ago...

The coincident fall of PC sales and rise of tablet sales is coincidence? It would imply consumer sales of PCs have dropped a lot, or has dropped a lot in East Asia. The western media has largely attributed the fall of PC sales, and I presume high price tier tablet sales, to large phones, but it can’t be coincidence to see tablets rise and PC sales fall. There has to be some lost PC sales due to people being fine with a tablet and eschewing a cheap laptop.

If the content availability and tablet unique apps (books, writing, video player), yeah, I can see these trends continuing. Most people would be fine with junker tablets if all they are doing is web browsing and watching video. Kind of obvious why Apple has a $330 tablet if they are seeing all these cheap tablets out there. Offering a great option for these existing tablet customers for just a little more.

1983

I think 299 Dollars for everybody rather than just students, would of been the sweet spot. Only 30 Dollars less, but psychologically seems much cheaper. And likely sell in larger numbers as a result. Especially with that measly 32GB on the base version.