Also new is the Touch ID home button, which appears to share a design similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The module itself is manufactured by NXP. Touch ID is a major addition to the iPad lineup as it enables Apple Pay purchases, though without an NFC chip, payments are limited to online payments.
Step 15 of the teardown shows it does have an NFC module. I'm guessing for use by small retailers for POS.
Engadget got a dig in for the iPad Air 2 getting only 11 hours 15 minutes battery in its video watching tests. Idiots.
If the iPad Air 2 was getting 5 or 6 hours I'd use that as a complaint about the thinness, but as the battery is well good enough and far exceeds Apple's claims I'd say the weight and thinness reduction were super decisions. I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to having a great device if the battery was good.
My only grips about this year's iPad lineup is I think ? needs to be more aggressive with price and killing old product. It should have been Touch ID across the board this year. I think they should have killed every iPad but the new ones, and started the iPad mini 3 at $299 and iPad Air 3 at $399. This is why they are losing market share in the tablet race, even with easily the best tablets. Not a race to the bottom, but a sensible trade-off in keeping a firm hold of the reigns in this tablet race. And then, Phil, we'd think the 16 to 64 to 128 up-sell scheme justifiable.
They are losing market share to $100 tablets... They're not losing the higher priced tablet market share. The whole tablet market is down BTW. Continuity will help tablets be more interesting than before. A few more killer apps would help more than lower price I think.
Besides, you can't make the silly thing much thinner with venturing into iPad "bend-gate" territory...
They could if they make it Titanium-Magnesium.... That would be a pretty cool material... But unlikely unless it is a limited edition. With denser batteries, which would come eventually, they could probably go to 3-4 mm with that kind of material and pretty sturdy too if reinforced properly. The tablet would then be around 150 grams!
Always like to see what's under the hood. It's sort of odd that the heft of our electronics come from the boring battery. Imagine a fuel cell the size and weight of a baby aspirin some day. The thing would weigh practically nothing and not feel very substantial.
I'm not really sure what the repairability score is about since no one is going to open up their iPad Air 2. I'm not against superfluous information but when they add a drumroll and pretend it's important.....
... I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to having a great device if the battery was good...
But Apple is trading here a possible 20% increase in usable time for a meager 7% reduction in weight.
I don't have a iPad Air and neither a iPad Air2 so I can't say if the reduction in weight is discernible.
The Nexus 9, which has a bigger battery and thicker case claims 9.5 hours of video playback. Engadget got over 11 with the Air 2 and people are still finding reasons to complain?
You ever read Engadget comments? It's an Apple-hating cesspool. They're just playing to their base. The slobbering trolls will latch on any "complaint", even if their favorite Android tablet gets 1/2 the battery life.
Oh, and Nilay from theVerge said the battery lasted the entire weekend, and still had 34% when he decided to charge is. Does anyone really have an issue with iPad battery life? I think it gets to a point where battery life is more than good enough. There isn't many situations where you need to go days without plugging in an iPad.
But Apple is trading here a possible 20% increase in usable time for a meager 7% reduction in weight.
I don't have a iPad Air and neither a iPad Air2 so I can't say if the reduction in weight is discernible.
After using an Air 1 I can tell you the thinness and weight reduction make a huge difference, this furthers that race. And doing that while maintaining 11 plus hours of battery life is fine by me. Getting the weight and thinness down makes it more magical and remarkable to hold, like a magic display panel or a virtual magazine. This is the future.
You ever read Engadget comments? It's an Apple-hating cesspool. They're just playing to their base. The slobbering trolls will latch on any "complaint", even if their favorite Android tablet gets 1/2 the battery life.
Oh, and Nilay from theVerge said the battery lasted the entire weekend, and still had 34% when he decided to charge is. Does anyone really have an issue with iPad battery life? I think it gets to a point where battery life is more than good enough. There isn't many situations where you need to go days without plugging in an iPad.
No it's just this predictable manufactured outrage. IFixit does a teardown and says the battery is smaller. So people freak out about battery life and claim Apple is trading better battery life for an obsession with thinness. In years prior I don't remember people complaining that 11 hours battery life was insufficient. Now this year it's a problem. Even though hardly anyone has had the tablet long enough to gauge what their battery life will be like. Plus the first Air had better battery life than any previous iPad so it's not just about thickness and battery size. Sodtare and chip design also play a role. That's why a super thin laptop like the MBA gets 10-12 hours battery life while my thick and clunky work PC gets 3.5 hours if I'm lucky.
After using an Air 1 I can tell you the thinness and weight reduction make a huge difference, this furthers that race. And doing that while maintaining 11 plus hours of battery life is fine by me. Getting the weight and thinness down makes it more magical and remarkable to hold, like a magic display panel or a virtual magazine. This is the future.
Agreed. When I first got my Air It felt so much lighter than my 3rd gen iPad. But now after having if for a year when I pick up someone's iPad mini it makes my Air feel heavy. Reviews say the Air 2 now feels as light as the mini. I use my iPad a lot for reading so this is great. My arms thank you Apple.
There's also an upgrade to 2GB of Ram according to ifixit! Finally that long awaited ram upgrade users and developers were waiting since 2012.
I think it's safe to say when the iPhone 6s gets its A9 processor it'll get 2 GB of RAM. My wish then for the 6s is ? work mainly on efficiency. If the 6s was no faster on benchmarks but got 25% more battery or something that would be great. And if it got 50% more battery? Now that would be huge deal!
I'd love to know who needs to use an iPad for more than 11 hours without a charge. Even if you're on a long plane ride are you really going to be using your iPad for 11 hours straight? I doubt it.
Exactly- and even if you're playing an intensive game at full brightness that kills it in 4-5 hours- all it takes it a $40 portable battery backup that can fully recharge your iPad twice if youre on a transatlantic.
Me? I'd rather carry my portable battery backup the .1% of the time I need it, rather than carry a thicker, heavier device with battery life I don't need 99.9% of the other time.
People are idiots. And that's why they're blogging instead of engineering.
Dual ambient light sensor? Hmm... I wonder what the second one is being used for... I doubt it's simply for back-up or to give more accurate readings! Maybe to detect directional proximity data of ambient light points to adjust screen brightness levels variably from side to side, faded according to each sensor, giving the screen yet another minor subtle tweaked improvement?
Agreed. When I first got my Air It felt so much lighter than my 3rd gen iPad. But now after having if for a year when I pick up someone's iPad mini it makes my Air feel heavy. Reviews say the Air 2 now feels as light as the mini. I use my iPad a lot for reading so this is great. My arms thank you Apple.
It may feel lighter, but it's largely an illusion. The Air weighs 1 pound, while the Air 2 weighs 0.96 pounds. I find it interesting that it's 18% thinner but it's nearly the same exact weight.
It may feel lighter, but it's largely an illusion. The Air weighs 1 pound, while the Air 2 weighs 0.96 pounds. I find it interesting that it's 18% thinner but it's nearly the same exact weight.
The Nexus 9, which has a bigger battery and thicker case claims 9.5 hours of video playback. Engadget got over 11 with the Air 2 and people are still finding reasons to complain?
You ever read Engadget comments? It's an Apple-hating cesspool. They're just playing to their base. The slobbering trolls will latch on any "complaint", even if their favorite Android tablet gets 1/2 the battery life.
Oh, and Nilay from theVerge said the battery lasted the entire weekend, and still had 34% when he decided to charge is. Does anyone really have an issue with iPad battery life? I think it gets to a point where battery life is more than good enough. There isn't many situations where you need to go days without plugging in an iPad.
Have you ever tried a one-way trip to Mars on one charge?
Didn't think so. Maybe you should. Then you'd find out the reality of battery life plus...one or two other things.
Apple must feel good knowing what to release next based off your reviews. They'll eventually come out with versions that are more hardware varying than just GBs of storage space. I personally am a "lighter is better" sider; my usage tends to be holding the device up in mechanically disadvantaged positions. It must have been a difficult decision in the battle of battery weight vs. capacity. Placement and overall weight distribution is centered well, but with the wi-fi on I can only hold the device in five different hand positions and type in two.
The "weekend warrior" version is practical too but they also have portable battery chargers that you can run off of.
As always with battery performance longevity, do you understand the differences in lithium technology and preventative maintenance best practices. Don't ever leave your device plugged in at 100% for very long. Keep around upper 70% and do cycle weekly. Power cycle your device daily.
It affects my daily usage. I watch wifi tv on my iPad while working on my mainframe. Then when I am done I take it into the family room to check email for my other business the rest of the night. Now it doesn't hold enough charge as my iPad 1 and ipad2. Major disappointment on battery life. I'd rather have it thicker.
Comments
Also new is the Touch ID home button, which appears to share a design similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The module itself is manufactured by NXP. Touch ID is a major addition to the iPad lineup as it enables Apple Pay purchases, though without an NFC chip, payments are limited to online payments.
Step 15 of the teardown shows it does have an NFC module. I'm guessing for use by small retailers for POS.
2GB.
So iPad fans were shouting 64-bit and iKnockoff fans were claiming it's useless with only 1GB of RAM.
Now iPad has both. Where do we go from here?
We buy?
Engadget got a dig in for the iPad Air 2 getting only 11 hours 15 minutes battery in its video watching tests. Idiots.
If the iPad Air 2 was getting 5 or 6 hours I'd use that as a complaint about the thinness, but as the battery is well good enough and far exceeds Apple's claims I'd say the weight and thinness reduction were super decisions. I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to having a great device if the battery was good.
My only grips about this year's iPad lineup is I think ? needs to be more aggressive with price and killing old product. It should have been Touch ID across the board this year. I think they should have killed every iPad but the new ones, and started the iPad mini 3 at $299 and iPad Air 3 at $399. This is why they are losing market share in the tablet race, even with easily the best tablets. Not a race to the bottom, but a sensible trade-off in keeping a firm hold of the reigns in this tablet race. And then, Phil, we'd think the 16 to 64 to 128 up-sell scheme justifiable.
They are losing market share to $100 tablets... They're not losing the higher priced tablet market share. The whole tablet market is down BTW. Continuity will help tablets be more interesting than before. A few more killer apps would help more than lower price I think.
Besides, you can't make the silly thing much thinner with venturing into iPad "bend-gate" territory...
They could if they make it Titanium-Magnesium.... That would be a pretty cool material... But unlikely unless it is a limited edition. With denser batteries, which would come eventually, they could probably go to 3-4 mm with that kind of material and pretty sturdy too if reinforced properly. The tablet would then be around 150 grams!
Always like to see what's under the hood. It's sort of odd that the heft of our electronics come from the boring battery. Imagine a fuel cell the size and weight of a baby aspirin some day. The thing would weigh practically nothing and not feel very substantial.
I'm not really sure what the repairability score is about since no one is going to open up their iPad Air 2. I'm not against superfluous information but when they add a drumroll and pretend it's important.....
... I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to having a great device if the battery was good...
But Apple is trading here a possible 20% increase in usable time for a meager 7% reduction in weight.
I don't have a iPad Air and neither a iPad Air2 so I can't say if the reduction in weight is discernible.
The Nexus 9, which has a bigger battery and thicker case claims 9.5 hours of video playback. Engadget got over 11 with the Air 2 and people are still finding reasons to complain?
You ever read Engadget comments? It's an Apple-hating cesspool. They're just playing to their base. The slobbering trolls will latch on any "complaint", even if their favorite Android tablet gets 1/2 the battery life.
Oh, and Nilay from theVerge said the battery lasted the entire weekend, and still had 34% when he decided to charge is. Does anyone really have an issue with iPad battery life? I think it gets to a point where battery life is more than good enough. There isn't many situations where you need to go days without plugging in an iPad.
After using an Air 1 I can tell you the thinness and weight reduction make a huge difference, this furthers that race. And doing that while maintaining 11 plus hours of battery life is fine by me. Getting the weight and thinness down makes it more magical and remarkable to hold, like a magic display panel or a virtual magazine. This is the future.
Agreed. When I first got my Air It felt so much lighter than my 3rd gen iPad. But now after having if for a year when I pick up someone's iPad mini it makes my Air feel heavy. Reviews say the Air 2 now feels as light as the mini. I use my iPad a lot for reading so this is great. My arms thank you Apple.
There's also an upgrade to 2GB of Ram according to ifixit! Finally that long awaited ram upgrade users and developers were waiting since 2012.
I think it's safe to say when the iPhone 6s gets its A9 processor it'll get 2 GB of RAM. My wish then for the 6s is ? work mainly on efficiency. If the 6s was no faster on benchmarks but got 25% more battery or something that would be great. And if it got 50% more battery? Now that would be huge deal!
I'd love to know who needs to use an iPad for more than 11 hours without a charge. Even if you're on a long plane ride are you really going to be using your iPad for 11 hours straight? I doubt it.
Exactly- and even if you're playing an intensive game at full brightness that kills it in 4-5 hours- all it takes it a $40 portable battery backup that can fully recharge your iPad twice if youre on a transatlantic.
Me? I'd rather carry my portable battery backup the .1% of the time I need it, rather than carry a thicker, heavier device with battery life I don't need 99.9% of the other time.
People are idiots. And that's why they're blogging instead of engineering.
Agreed. When I first got my Air It felt so much lighter than my 3rd gen iPad. But now after having if for a year when I pick up someone's iPad mini it makes my Air feel heavy. Reviews say the Air 2 now feels as light as the mini. I use my iPad a lot for reading so this is great. My arms thank you Apple.
It may feel lighter, but it's largely an illusion. The Air weighs 1 pound, while the Air 2 weighs 0.96 pounds. I find it interesting that it's 18% thinner but it's nearly the same exact weight.
It may feel lighter, but it's largely an illusion. The Air weighs 1 pound, while the Air 2 weighs 0.96 pounds. I find it interesting that it's 18% thinner but it's nearly the same exact weight.
Its that air gap in the screen, bro.
So does that make the Mini "lighter than Air?"
Have you ever tried a one-way trip to Mars on one charge?
Didn't think so. Maybe you should. Then you'd find out the reality of battery life plus...one or two other things.
The "weekend warrior" version is practical too but they also have portable battery chargers that you can run off of.
As always with battery performance longevity, do you understand the differences in lithium technology and preventative maintenance best practices. Don't ever leave your device plugged in at 100% for very long. Keep around upper 70% and do cycle weekly. Power cycle your device daily.