Redesigned 11-inch and new 13-inch iPad Air
apple.com
apple.com
Our house is chocked full of Apple gear, but the idea of spending a cool $1000 on a neutered consumption device gets less appealing with each generation.
And I think this is the target demographic of the iPad - either creative types (eg. designers or musicians) or executives (eg. Consultants, PMs, etc) who are not code driven but still need a workbook style environment. From a security standpoint it is best for these users to be locked down (Least Privilege is a good security model to follow for non-technical users).
P.S. I do have my own ancient Macbook that I installed Ubuntu on for my own light hacking, but most of my personal tinkering dev is now on Cloud GPU instances so all I need is a dumb terminal for SSH.
Which of those things requires an expensive, top-of-the-line tablet?
A Windows workbook or a Chromebook sucks from a UX standpoint due to either performance issues or driver inoperatbility.
Pricing is comparable to a MS Surface or Chromebook Pro.
Subjective, but sure, valid. Both of those systems have more flexibility.
>Pricing is comparable to a MS Surface or Chromebook Pro.
Yes, and I wouldn't be buying one of those for light reading or taking notes in Notion, either.
I'm using it for work, so I am either getting it reimbursed or provided by my employer (in my case), or if I'm running a solo business/self employed (as plenty of creators are) you can get tax credits and a partial reimbursement as it's being used for work as well.
Like I mentioned before, the target demographic is Creators or Executives, but also (increasingly) schools.
> Both of those systems have more flexibility
Absolutely, but that flexibility is a security vector for most non-technical users.
There's a reason companies spend 7-8 figures on XDRs like CRWD/S1/Cortex, or are looking to Secure Browsers like Surf, Talon, or Arc.
And honestly, I can't think of alternatives other than maybe less powered iPad SKUs.
If you aren't technically minded, Least Privileged Access to your computing platform is for the best, because remediating security incidents is hard.
Consultancies (MBB) tend to cheap out and give Thinkbooks and Product teams tend to get a bottom spec MacBook at work.
As it stands today even first gen iPad Pro 11 is more than powerful enough given software limitations.
It's not for you and that's okay. They sell big boy computers and if you don't like any of them, there are plenty of others. For me, Good Notes and Procreate are killer apps that justify the device.
My current iPad is six or seven years old. If I spent $1500 this time around and it lasts me six years, that works out to something like $0.65 per day.
There’s a lot of issues with that, like it would be weird if you were doing something in Terminal in “Mac Mode” but then couldn’t go back to to the Terminal window once you take it off your docking station. But that seems pretty solvable.
The creator communities at ecstatic about this. The HN community seems to have difficult seeing uses outside their own niches.
There are tons of types of “Pros”. The entire event was art focused. It’s not a toy for the artistic crowd.
In my book that makes it a toy today too.
My Mom who's a teacher is still using a 2017 iPad Air as a daily driver for most usecases (eg. Google Classroom, Netflix, Textbooks).
Okay, Jan.
But when Apple support does end, it's game over. I picked up an iPad 2 (from 2011), it's perfectly capable hardware, although a bit slow, but it's only usable for browsing HN and viewing PDFs because one can't upgrade the goddam browser or install an alternative one. Updates ended in 2015, mostly.
I could upgrade a One Plus X released in 2015 to Android 7 (Lineage 14.1). An old version, but everything is perfectly usable. Browsers are at their latest versions. Before this, the phone was on stock Android 6, the latest Firefox ran on it. Still bad, because there's no security upgrade, but unofficial builds for the latest versions of Lineage exist on this phone (they will never be official because the goddam kernel can't be upgraded, and newer versions are necessary to support features mandatory for being official, including the way disk encryption is managed).
Anyway, phones and tablets are in a sad state overall. They become e-waste way too soon. Android and iOS both have horrible support time. Not more than a few years of updates (with FairPhone probably being the best here, but still a few years). And anything else is pretty much unusable, at least for phones. In comparison, PCs can be upgraded pretty much forever, at least on Linux. Phone constructors are doing this to themselves through lack of standardization and vendor lock in, but I guess they are happy enough with the situation.
How available are Lineage OSes to Android tablets from 2011?
That's a particularly good situation, I don't really know how was Android back then, but in any case Android still allowed installing alternative browsers, allowing devices to be useful long after updates stopped. Firefox was still installable on android 4.4 recently enough. So there's that.
But again, that's still just bad either way, I expect better from hardware. 4 years is awfully short and I don't quite care if Android was better or worse. Apple controls everything, how come it was only capable of 4 years of updates? It's unacceptable, and the usual two or three years of updates on stock Android too, of course.
You easily get 5-6 years of full OS updates, not just security patches, on all iOS/iPadOS devices.
You comment basically proves the point of this thread! Everyone lives in their own echo chamber.
I will not start arguing about NFTs, it is enough to say that the technology is useful in one place and not in another and help people to transact internationally.
But even in these niches there has been a gradual move away from the iPad to more powerful devices where it works out well enough. For instance music creation/management benefited a lot from the new macbooks, especially as they got more ports and top notch software support. Photography/cinematography as well.
Other pro tablets also gained more presence in these drawing/designing circles, the Surface Pro is one and Wacom even entered the market with its own dedicated standalone table, while non standalone peripheral also flourished.
All in all, Apple created a gap and pro users looked at more fitting devices when they didn't want to bend over backwards to use an iPad.
Honestly, Apple kind of dropped the "pro" crowd some time ago topping out with the trash can MacPro. That thing was such a joke. It took years for them to admit it, which they ultimately did, shockingly. After that, they then went full Apple again in the revised MacPro that still missed the mark of what people actually wanted. It wasn't until the Apple Silicon where Apple's vision could really shine with a near silent "pro" box sitting on a desk. The modern "creator" crowd doesn't have data rooms where big noisy boxes live, so they finally found their audience so their refusal to make a data center friendly box pays off for them. Finally.
Prosumers (where I equate "creators") cheered triumphantly /s
Regardless of our personal professional affinities the only reason iPadOS stays locked down is that it's simply more profitable to sell a customer two devices instead of just one. I would love to have an iPad Pro as my only home computer, but it's just not doable due to its OS limitations. The artistic angle is just Apple's way to make the platform believable.
Why would an artist care if I can also compile code on an iPad?
I can only assume that macOS must be offensive to some due to its "openness". The truth is that macOS allows me to be both an artist and a developer, and I don't have a single doubt that Apple could pull off an interface that allows a similar experience on iPadOS. It's just that doing so will lose them money.
For the brief stint I had the Vision Pro, I was so confused Apple made sharing it so hard(and it really isn’t shared - it’s just there for the free taste because it is timelimit locked). But after a little thought it clicked:
Apple only loves the idea of the VisionPro if it means you never share.
Apple has always been a walled garden, so when the iPhone imposed it nobody blinked(there are/were tradeoffs, ok). But ever since the iPod, Apple has been all about the personal device. No more multiuser anything:
- iPod - iWatch - iPhone - iPad
It becomes super obvious what the “i” really stands for when you realize it was for a single person.
and now spatial computing, this new era where actual business is supposed to happen
- VisionPro
Even though the “i” isn’t there, it really should be. The power of cohesion between these devices is one of wonder. But the cohesion could still exist with standards. What we have with Apple is bad for the customer and any innovation outside apples limited interests.
I wish Britain would have went for the head and after the innovation stifling instead of the stupid port forcing. Also an innovation stifler.
Not only do they want to sell you an iPad and a separate computer, but they would ideally like to sell your family multiple iPads, which is why you can't have more than one user account on an iPad (unless you have a business or educational account with Apple [1]).
[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
Imagine how much more they could be if the community of people who like to hack on open devices to create cool software for that community could do so.
What would Blender look like on a device like this?
How would the creator community feel if the hacker community was able to get side car sharing multiple screens so they could use 2 big ipad pros as screens on either side of their macbook pro and another ipad mini with an apple pencil as an input device?
Imagine a scenario where things like nextcloud had better system wide integration into the iOS and macOS ecosystem. I bet creative types would love the money they could save in cloud hosting from that.
The iPad audio scene is lukewarm, Procreate is generally considered exciting but I'd sum those as a fraction of a percent of the overall digital creator community. There's also a bit of lukewarm interest in iPads as on set (movie/photo) devices.
I would love to hear specifically who you're talking about and what they are staying.
Neutered because you can't side-load apps or use it as a dev machine? That's a pretty limited use-case overall.
I have an M1 iPad Pro and it's great for moderate photo editing (Photomator or Adobe) and basic "office" stuff.
Probably my next tech purchase will be a Raspberry Pi 5 and a Wacom Movink 13 or second gen. Wacom One 13 --- hopefully it will work as well as the rPi 4 and Wacom One (gen 1) did when I tested them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/16215v6/wacom_one_ge...
Apple seemingly was recognizing that their userbase wanted more a few years back, and it feels like they're disorganized in this regard still.
Apple has also become more conscious of keeping their older hardware in production for longer. Old Apple Watch SoCs become the new HomePod SoC and Apple TV SoC. If they have more of their stuff on the latest and greatest, all their production will have less time to amortise itself, and they would need to either have a greater peak of production output for each product or stockpile and delay releases which is not free when you have such valuable inventory.
[1]: https://andregarzia.com/2022/06/about-ipads-and-developers.h...
I probably wanna jump quickly between e.g editor / terminal / website and the whiteboard, and sharing the iPad monitor directly by joining the call seems to heavy.
I'll have to try it the way you describe sometime just to see how it works for me.
Yes, drawing on it in isolation is great, but it hasn't otherwise worked out like I hoped.
Do you mean via USB ? Because that works flawlessly for me, even with the older lightning-port iPad version. Over wifi is almost always laggy though.
That is such a tiny difference in size
I used to have an iPad Mini that I used for reading and light consumption (along with a MacBook). Over time, I went back to an e-ink device for reading, as it's much easier on my eyes (very noticeable after a day of staring at screens at the office). Now I have a Kindle and an iPad Pro.
My wife used to have a Mini as well, for the same reason. Now she either uses her MBA for consumption or a Kindle for reading.
Basically, we found the Mini's biggest strength (small size) was good for reading, but e-ink is better. And for movies/surfing/etc, we both prefer an 11 or 13" screen.
And with phones getting ever larger, the gap between iPhone Pro MegaXL+ and iPad mini isn't much.
The latter is looking more and more enticing.
There probably will be an update to the Mini later this year. Probably not a huge update if the rumors are correct.
The AVP is an expensive tech demo and the other two AI bubble stillbirths, but that was not what you were looking for.
And then think whether that different thing is technologically feasible and economical and what % of the population would also actually want it.
I was really hoping the iPad Mini will get a refresh... at least a bit of a CPU bump to prolong its longevitiy.
There's this whole circus with the Apple Pencil compatibility: one iPad works with the 1st generation Pencil, another supports the 2nd, a two others support the third, and i guess a new magic pencil pro? That's 4 pencils out in the wild.
The real kicker for me is how both devices are hamstrung more by their software than by any hardware limitations so, really, what can an iPad Pro can do off that the Air can't?
Apple’s product marketing isn't doing us any favors here. Their comparison table is laughable: https://www.apple.com/ipad/
There's a reason why I loved the simplicity of Steve Jobs' product quadrant when he came back to Apple. And a great part of it was the fact that each product addressed a specific category of user. Whereas the iPad lineup has created categories in search of a user.
https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-pro-11-m4...
I guess the big difference is the display. OLED for the iPad Pro (which they weirdly call "Ultra Retina XDR") whereas the new iPad Air and the old one have a similar "advanced LCD" display (which they weirdly call "Liquid Retina").
Otherwise, the M4/Pro also has a higher core count, more storage options (up to 2TB) and even more storage available via Thunderbolt (e.g. USB storage devices), so long as you don't mind wires or Thunderbolt/USB hubs.
Then there are some differences that are just pricing or upgrade cycle wedges, like the "pro" keyboard support (only on M4) and the new Apple Pencil "pro" (on M2/M4).
I think I'll personally stick with the iPad Air line, especially since I much prefer Touch ID to Face ID, and I just use a full-blown Apple Bluetooth keyboard anyway rather than the iPad-specific ones. I described my iPad "fancy typewriter" setup here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643678
Hard to say whether this particular iPad Air release will warrant an upgrade over my iPad Air 5th Gen, though. Doubt it. Identical dimensions, nearly identical core count, identical RAM, and I got the 256 GB option last time around, so it has plenty of storage.
We have several tablets at home, including a few iPads, never used.
Meanwhile, mine is basically a Plex machine.
Otherwise if getting out of the Apple ecosystem isn't an issue, going for a Samsung Chromebook or a Surface Pro also opens a lot more use cases, including "serious" work that you won't need to delay because you're not on a "real" computer.
I have a big beefy TrueNAS machine at home and run various Linux VMs for dev work, accessed via Tailscale; mosh-ing or ssh-ing in via Blink Shell is pretty much flawless. I can even institute my "Cmd = tmux prefix" trick that I do in iTerm (via mapping hex codes), so for me it's essentially the same dev workflow as my M1 MacBook Air, albeit with a worse keyboard and a smaller screen, but with the added benefit of LTE, which IMO is a fair trade off until we (Tim Apple, please) get LTE on the Mac lineup (not holding my breath).
The only thing I've been finding myself wanting is a larger screen and a better keyboard, and the 13-inch could potentially deliver both. It's a pretty appealing device.
That said, I of course wish that Apple would just let me treat it like a real computer and not have to connect to Linux VMs to get any work done, but hey, it's still a nice experience if it lines up with your workflow.
My experience with those left me firmly in the "I really would rather have Face ID than Touch ID on my future iPhones and iPads" camp.
A few months ago I replaced the 6th generation iPad due to a heavily degraded battery. The replacement is a 10th generation iPad. The Touch ID on it is a vast improvement over what I'd had on my previous iPad and previous iPhone.
For example it used to be that after washing my hands Touch ID would often have trouble. Apparently when I dry I don't always completely dry my fingertips.
That's not a problem with the new Touch ID. It even has no trouble if I run water over my fingers and then try to unlock the iPad without drying the fingertips at all.
Also, tangentially and not at all seriously: If you want to see messy, confusing product lines from Apple allow me to introduce you to a little thing called "Performa"
It's already on Performa level.
Similar things happen to iPhone (4 overlapping nearly identical models every year for a total of 7 currently being sold) and Macbooks (any number of models any given year, they are currently selling 5)
There was a model of Performa that sold for literally 2 weeks (the Performa 410). Apple sold the same series of computer under different names: The Performa 630, LC 630, and Quadra 630 are all the same machine.
I agree that Apple has a real naming problem (is this an X as in 'ex' or X as in '10'?) but I really don't find the iPad line up to be that confusing. There are 2 sizes of iPad Pro, 2 sizes of iPad Air, an iPad and an iPad mini.
The difference between many of them is about the same as between 635, 636, 637, and 638
And who exactly is iPad aimed at?
Or can you tell me without looking into specs what exactly is the difference between iPad Pro and iPad Air? Or even looking at the specs: https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/
Apart from the CPU bump they are so similar that you can't help but to think that they didn't include Thunderbolt in regular iPad just to have something to differentiate them.
Funnily enough, Air weighs more and is thicker than the Pro. A great sign of company completely losing all sight of their product lines.
You don't need 6 iPads. You need 3: iPad Mini, iPad Mid, iPad Max. Name them however you want to name them.
Put MacOS on iPad Pro, then it gets interesting. The most interesting thing my ipad pros do are look at security cameras or read ODB-II settings on my vehichle. Hell, they can't even maintain an SSH connection correctly. Rediculous.
I see Apple always show videos of people editing video on their iPad Pro. Who does that???
A 4 year old Chromebook is 3x as useful as a new iPad Pro.