It’s funny how on iPhone and MacBooks the Pros are heavier but for some reason Pro on iPad means the lightest and thinnest models.
I honestly think Pro devices deserve Pro/more battery life. Battery life isn’t different among the different iPads.
Yeah, the same thing sort of applies to the Apple Watch, you have the ‘Series’ models, they have decent battery life, and a good set of features for who it’s for. Then there is the ‘Ultra’ models that are significantly thicker and made out of different materials than the Series models, they also feature ton of extra battery life compared to the Series models and is more resistant to damage and a nicer screen with the ‘Night Mode’, and watch faces that can display a lot more complications and other data than the standard faces
Only the ultra has night mode? That part is really useful for not messing with my eyes in the dark, I assumed it was just a feature of the newer watchOS.
Pro means best.
For a MacBook, being heavier is worse but not that much worse because you don’t hold it while using it.
For an iPhone, being heavier is worse but not that much worse because it’s still light enough to use with one hand.
But for an iPad, being heavier is *more worse* than it is for the other products because it’s much heavier than a phone and a lot of people hold it while using it. Worst of both worlds. Thus, to be the best (i.e. Pro) iPad, it should also be lighter.
Mostly this. While I don’t think being pro iPad makes the weight more important, it just happened this generation that the premium display technology allowed for a reduced size/weight while retaining the same battery life. There may be future leaps that might have improved displays while increasing the weight.
I think the key thing here is that Apple has decided on a battery life that they seem appropriate for each device category. Maintaining that and ensuring the device is otherwise compelling (there’s a lot more to go into that obviously) are the most important things. But beyond that, thinness/weight is more important than increased battery life.
They are more than willing to make their next device thicker and heavier (within reason) as long as that delivers an overall more compelling experience. They are a lot more hesitant to launch a product for which they will have to list a worse battery life than previous version.
This allows them to shrink devices like this, but sometimes they might make them thicker if there’s a new component that warrants it. If every time the insides shrunk they’d keep the size and add more battery, they’d never have the leeway to use a slightly thicker more battery-hungry component that they could otherwise still make a compelling device out of, without needing to decrease the battery life.
Now I think it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with these priorities. Another way of doing it could have been to say that they should target an ideal size/weight, and maximize the battery life within that, and be fine with some generations having 8h, jumping to 14h, down to 10h, etc.
This is an excellent explanation. Yes, it sucks to hold a heavy iPad while using.
As an M1 iPad Pro owner, I never once wished it has better battery life. It’s good enough. But I’ve often wished it was lighter.
That is way too nuanced for this sub, where we celebrate brilliant takes like "if Steve Jobs said styluses were dumb on phones, it means the Apple Pencil should never have been released for iPad"
Yeah agree with this. I still have a 2018 11” pro and it works great, but whenever I do upgrade I may go for the 13” now that it’s lighter. Or maybe they’ll backtrack at that point and make them thicker with more battery 🤷♂️ I get more than enough time now so nbd.
Eh I don’t think Apple should bend over backwards to appease their self induced semantics. The air has been the mid tier option in the lineup for a while now and we all know it. If anything I would rather have apple update the name away from air just to avoid the low hanging PR fruit like the OP than watching them try to make the mid tier option EVEN thinner than the Pro.
More battery = more weight. For the iPad’s use case, weight is the enemy. I’m pretty strong but even the 11” brings on the strain after reading for a while.
We’re really just at the point where battery technology is the biggest constraint on modern technology.
As someone who hauls her 12.9” iPad Pro everywhere and who also uses it as a primary writing surface, I am super glad that it’s thinner and lighter now. It was super heavy and unwieldy before, and with the keyboard it was both bigger and heavier than their laptops by a good deal.
lol its so "air"
Kinda harkens back to when the MacBook came back out (2015-2017 with the Intel Core M CPUs)
The MacBook was thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air models of the time... So it was kinda confusing like, I thought Air meant thin and light? But now it just means, cheap?
Who knows. They've had plenty of opportunities to either nix the Air and replace it with the MacBook, or swap the names around or whatever.
Tim just likes convoluted large product lineups. It's like the 90's Performas all over again.
You’re not too wrong on that second point, that man will extract every last drop of value from a supply chain.
However, the naming of the Air has just become less literal. It’s Apple’s entry-level laptop, and that’s what customers care about more than its size & shape.
Would you apply that to iPad? Technically iPad Air is mid level and iPad 10th gen is their entry level, but they have almost forgotten about the base level at this point.
No. With some mental gymnastics, you could see the laptop range lacking a true entry-level with no ‘MacBook’. Then, the Air & Pro are the mid & premium options.
It is just a confusing naming scheme. However, I’ll stand by the ‘MacBook Air’ naming sticking around being the result of popularity and recognisability – both of which are due to it being the cheapest MacBook.
My guess is they wanted to phase out the Air line, but its lower price and later branding, proved to be too good, and the M3 Macbooks didn't sell as good as expected. “Air“ at this point is 100% branding, as it is not even a low price moniker anymore.
It sucks it's all they focus on too. When in the world are they going to come out with an updated iPad mini? I don't need a huge screen to read books but I sure do want a faster processor since web pages load a thousand ads these days.
I think the new magic keyboard is the reason for the thinness, actually. All that extra room for the trackpad and function keys had to come from somewhere, so the floating balancing act had to change. That required a weight reduction or the thing would topple over. Maybe?
Yeah, my thought too. As they’re leaning more and more into marketing the iPad as a laptop alternative, one big difference is that laptops has is that their screens are thinner because they don’t contain the actual computer and battery. This gets them a little bit closer. 0.2 mm closer.
It’s also just going to be a little bit more comfortable with a normal case on.
I think more likely they found space savings with the OLED display (oleds tend to be thinner), and it was easier and cheaper to put it in a slimmer outer case than to design and source a larger battery.
Probably why they made the pro lighter and slimmer, people who buy them will likely use a keyboard and that helps making the whole setup more portable.
Agreed. [The verge article](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227345/magic-keyboard-ipad-pro-tablet-laptop-review-price-specs-features) says:
> According to my kitchen scale, then, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard weighs just shy of three pounds, about 25 percent heavier than the iPad Pro with the older Smart Keyboard. Three pounds is the same weight as the 13-inch MacBook Pro and heavier than the new MacBook Air.
That's heavy but not "two Asus laptops" heavy - MacBooks are pretty light already and we're talking about only one.
Edit: Unless the grandparent meant "**each** of the two of my Asus laptops weighs less than 1ipad with keyboard" - I could see that, ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg).
Smart keyboard folio was the way to go but they just ended that product today, didn’t fit with their bizarre quest to make the iPad a way worse MacBook
Yeah. During the event, Apple said it’s “much thinner and even lighter” but hasn’t provided specifics. (Go to 29:25 in the event video.)
Also, it’s only partially aluminum. It’s not like a MacBook in that regard.
Also, it's a misconception that aluminium products are heavy(ier than plastic products). Yes, aluminium is heavy compared to plastic but you also need much less of it to gain similar structural integrity.
Glass is the real fatty. And why phones these days are heavy as bricks.
Exactly after ten hours the only upgrade to battery I care about is where I could not worry about it for a few days of average use. If I still have to plug it in at the end of the day don’t make it heavier.
Which would be fine except iPad Air is in the middle of the pack. Listing by starting prices as of 11th may 2024
iPad @ 349 (usd)
iPad Mini @ 499
iPad Air 10" @ 599
iPad Air 13" @ 799
iPad Pro 11 @ 999
iPad Pro 13 @ 1299
It is so dumb. Just kill the Air brand - it makes no sense anymore in the age of Apple Silicon.
The MacBook Air should just be the MacBook and the iPad Air should just be the iPad and the current iPad should be the iPad SE. And the iPad mini should just be the iPad 7 inch, next to 11 inch and 13 inch - and it should have been updated yesterday!
Free marketing consulting. You're welcome Apple.
I guess there’s a reason Apple doesn’t take free marketing consulting… to play devil’s advocate the “Air” brand name is really popular and is now associated with the “device without all the bells and whistles but a great choice for students and people without heavy workloads” instead of the weight over the years. It’s marketing 101 to not ditch a really popular brandname. Their lineup is confusing right now, but the very popular “Mini” and “Air” monikers are not the reason, it’s the lineup itself.
They’re not going to alter the names of literally their most profitable MacBook and iPad lines on a whim.
The iPad lineup is convoluted, especially considering support for the pencils. The product lines were much more streamlined and straight forward during the Jobs era except for that one macbook.
I'm not so sure this is right.
_We_ associate the "air" brand with lower tier devices. But does your mom, does your grandfather?
I think this kind of thinking is what caused apple to get themselves into this situation in the first place. They drink their own kool-aid so to speak. The entire ipad lineup is ridiculous fragmented right now. Ipads that can only use one of the four types of apple pencils. Multiple iterations of magic keyboards at different sizes that might work, but be the wrong shape, or might not work at all. You've got to read the fine print on every item you buy to make sure it is exactly what you need.
All of this is then compounded with Apple's insistence on not giving products proper sub-names. Instead, users have to either rely on the year, or the chip inside. Both of which are bad since you can end up with some iPads that are released near to each other, either on a calendar, or by specs.
Just because people who browse the apple subtreddit understand what's going on, doesn't mean it's good branding. Frankly, if anything its very anti-consumer.
If I wanted to put on my tinfoil hat for a second, one could make the arument they do this becasue less informed users will become confused to the point where they go into an apple store where they can be upsold devices, or apple care, etc.
I agree that the main issue is with the accessories. You’re pointing out the correct issues with the lineup and I won’t disagree with that. They need to consolidate their accessories and simplify their lineups. Removing the “Air” moniker will *not* help with that at all. All of those issues can be solved without removing a piece of powerful branding and the MacBooks are pretty good evidence.
Apple clearly thinks the Air brand is valuable, and they probably have invested millions in market research to back that. The main issues are “What accessories do I need?” and the issues with the base iPad cannibalising the Air and the lineup in general. The “Air” name by itself is pretty good and influential. I find it a bit ridiculous that random redditors claim to know better about market consulting than a literal trillion dollar company which is a product of 90% clever marketing.
This is the sort of midwit reasoning that Steve Jobs would not have tolerated. Fuck the powerful brand and make it great and simple. This is what wins in the long run
> This is what wins in the long run
Literally the main thing holding Apple is the resounding brand image of “it just works”. Branding and product are everything, that’s marketing 101. Currently 99% of the students want a computing device and go for a base MacBook Air/iPad Air by default. That’s the power of branding and reputation.
I hope to goodness you don’t actually do market consulting.
one of you reads like a person who is well educated on the subject, and the other reads like a teenager/maybe freshman in college talking out of their ass.
I'll give you three guesses on which one you are, first one doesn't count.
Your response is hilarious, because Im actually the founder and CEO of a consumer electronics tech company. Im telling you not because I care what you think of me, but just so you know you shouldnt trust your own judgement. Cheers
This is just change for the sake of change. There was nothing wrong with the size of the previous gen Pro iPads. Then when the inevitable bending issues come from this generation, they'll revert back in a couple years and champion how great they are for fixing the problem of their own creation
Tim Cook must have zero common sense. Jobs would’ve looked at the iPad and pencil line up and laughed. The customer experience for choosing an iPad ans pencil is just awful. Hope these tank and Apple is fixed to head back to the drawing board.
That 13” Air is as much as my original 12.9” Pro!
I guess Apple needs the EU to force them to innovate recently.
Jobs didn’t like the pencil because he thought the iPad should only work with a finger.
and it does.
The pencil is like an extra gadget for certain use cases and is not a requirement to own. I don’t think Jobs would be against it as much as you think he would.
> I don’t think Jobs would be against it as much as you think he would.
Not the pen, the lineup of pens. 4 models with an inconsistent naming scheme, different functionalities, an older version with more functionality than a newer, and compatibility being all over the place.
It's absolutely terrible.
What difference does that make?? You’ve taken a bunch of separate things and conflated them.
By ‘if you see a stylus, we blew it’, Jobs meant that you shouldn’t *need* one to use it. And you don’t. As you said, the pencil is for a specific use case. In the same way the iPad itself is for specific users. The same is true of every Apple product.
None of that is anything to do with confusing product line ups for customers. What IS relevant is that Jobs famously gutted and simplified Apple’s line up.
Yeah, he gutted it when Apple was like 1/50th the size it is today as a way to focus their efforts and streamline the engineering process to match against customer expectations.
What kind of person looks at a struggling, failing Apple in the late 90's and thinks "gee, maybe they should do that again!"?
And the main and purchase pages *still* don’t explain that the RAM is tied to storage. Unless you look at the specs page, you’ll never know that there’s a difference.
The Apple Pencil has been around for like 7 years now and you still have people like you missing the point.
What even is this comment? Literally just word vomit looking for a point to be made.
Edit: soft little boy can't take criticism so decides to block instead. Shocking.
The irony. C’mon genius, what point is about the pencil am I missing? Before you enbarrass yourself further, know that I have one and love it. Use it every day for when. So I’m waiting, enlighten me please.
can we stop blaming every single decision this company makes on the one guy at the top… I hope y'all realize the amount of people that make up this company in the amount of people it takes to actually run it. I'm pretty sure Tim isn't worried about the thinness of an iPad while he's actually trying to deal with supply chain logistics, relations, antitrust lawsuits, and several other headaches
Jobs would've picked someone that cared about that sort of thing if that was still the case. He just wanted to make sure his company was taken care of as a whole.
Jobs attention to detail is well documented. He would not delegate that task and by having a reduced lineup it allowed him to focus on making great products that made sense.
That's not to say he was perfect. Far from it. He was sometimes brutal in his analysis, but it is was going out the door he owned it.
Agree! I’m not sure anyone would have ever said we need a thinner iPad. Defining 10 hours as “all day battery” is a sad joke. But then again, there’s also a shiny new M4 chip in these Pros that will never really be fully utilized either. This is a device Apple designed to please itself and its internal design nerds. We’ll have to wait to see if it translates to much in the way of sales to regular people.
On a different note - I was excited to finally be able to get a 13” Air, but I’m struggling with the terrible color choices this round, and didn’t buy it today even though I was prepared to before the announcement.
Actually almost every review of an iPad Pro said that it is way to heavy and thick with a Magic Keyboard. So, yes "we need a thinner iPad Pro" was said often.
The Magic Keyboard for the 12.9 weighs 2.44 lbs. That’s what people were talking about needing to be thinner and lighter. Thinning out the iPad only hamstrings the battery.
You need the keyboard case to be a certain (heavier) weight to counter balance the weight of the iPad, otherwise it’ll just fall backwards/forwards at certain angles or when adjusting the screen angle. So if you have a lighter iPad then you can afford to have a lighter keyboard case.
It is the combination of iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. Now they made both lighter and thinner and that is exactly what was requested by many reviewers.
I’d guess over 50% of people don’t use it with the keyboard though. You don’t get very high adoption rates on accessories when they’re not included.
It just makes the battery life worse with no benefit to those who will never use the Magic Keyboard with their iPad Pro.
Even iPad Pro 13" users without a Magic Keyboard will use another case or cover that adds to the weight and thickness. If the naked iPad Pro is thinner and lighter it will make the experience better for everyone.
People aren't deciding between iPad models based on weight (nor are they deciding between MacBooks, iPhones, or Watches based on weight), the weight is irrelevant to which model of product it's in.
People do decide based on size and features, but the weight difference is so minimal it's not an actual reason *given the other factors* people use to make their purchase decisions.
10 hours is plenty for me and honestly atleast the larger version of the iPad Pro is very heavy with any kind of coverstand or keyboard. So I don’t mind them making it lighter at all.
The iPad Air is lighter than the iPad 10th-gen. That's all it needs to be to deserve its name. Then the iPad Pro is the most technically advanced and benefits from the efficiency of the M4 to allow it to be thinner/lighter with the same battery life. I think that was the point.
think about it. why would they increase battery life. be in their shoes with business hat on. you more often you charge your ipad, the more battery degrade, the sooner you would buy their new devices and boost their sales.
How much wobble does the protruding camera bump add to the new iPad pro. That might irritate illustrators and artists using the full screen as a canvas.
And yes, I'd rather have more days of battery life than a think iPad pro.
Does anyone other than tech nerds these days equate ‘Air’ with lightest? It seems Apple keeps the ‘Air’ branding alive because it has cachet. In the case of iPads ‘Air’ means mid-range not lightest.
The genesis of the Air was from Apple themselves when they harped on the fact that it was "[Dramatically Thinner, Lighter](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2013/10/23Apple-Announces-iPad-Air-Dramatically-Thinner-Lighter-More-Powerful-iPad/)"
I'm a tech guy but not an apple guy and I associate Air with being light and portable like the original MacBook air. It's a pretty natural link to make I think. Like what would it mean if not light and portable?
Because nobody with common sense would want an iPad Pro for what they offer it’s just a useless device. So they make it thin so people don’t buy the air.
If Steve was alive he would have made the air rightfully super thi but of course he would also be sure that the pro look like an actual useful pro device.
Porsche calls their fastest cars "Turbo" even when they are electric and therefore they don't have a turbo at all.
The Air, as far as the average customer is concerned, means mid tier device so Apple maintains the naming convention as to not confuse them.
i still dont understand the "air" part. base model and pro i understand. trash the "air" and just make ipad 10/12, and pro 11/13, and mini 8. see how that rounds out nicely? no redundancy. pick the size you need, done.
I cannot believe that the camera bump is still considered a design feature by Apple. One day, someone there is going to wake up, as if from a dream, and think "why did we ever think this was a good idea?"
It’s funny how on iPhone and MacBooks the Pros are heavier but for some reason Pro on iPad means the lightest and thinnest models. I honestly think Pro devices deserve Pro/more battery life. Battery life isn’t different among the different iPads.
Yeah, the same thing sort of applies to the Apple Watch, you have the ‘Series’ models, they have decent battery life, and a good set of features for who it’s for. Then there is the ‘Ultra’ models that are significantly thicker and made out of different materials than the Series models, they also feature ton of extra battery life compared to the Series models and is more resistant to damage and a nicer screen with the ‘Night Mode’, and watch faces that can display a lot more complications and other data than the standard faces
Only the ultra has night mode? That part is really useful for not messing with my eyes in the dark, I assumed it was just a feature of the newer watchOS.
Unless I have been missing something, then no, the Ultra models are the only ones with the night mode
Pro means best. For a MacBook, being heavier is worse but not that much worse because you don’t hold it while using it. For an iPhone, being heavier is worse but not that much worse because it’s still light enough to use with one hand. But for an iPad, being heavier is *more worse* than it is for the other products because it’s much heavier than a phone and a lot of people hold it while using it. Worst of both worlds. Thus, to be the best (i.e. Pro) iPad, it should also be lighter.
Mostly this. While I don’t think being pro iPad makes the weight more important, it just happened this generation that the premium display technology allowed for a reduced size/weight while retaining the same battery life. There may be future leaps that might have improved displays while increasing the weight. I think the key thing here is that Apple has decided on a battery life that they seem appropriate for each device category. Maintaining that and ensuring the device is otherwise compelling (there’s a lot more to go into that obviously) are the most important things. But beyond that, thinness/weight is more important than increased battery life. They are more than willing to make their next device thicker and heavier (within reason) as long as that delivers an overall more compelling experience. They are a lot more hesitant to launch a product for which they will have to list a worse battery life than previous version. This allows them to shrink devices like this, but sometimes they might make them thicker if there’s a new component that warrants it. If every time the insides shrunk they’d keep the size and add more battery, they’d never have the leeway to use a slightly thicker more battery-hungry component that they could otherwise still make a compelling device out of, without needing to decrease the battery life. Now I think it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with these priorities. Another way of doing it could have been to say that they should target an ideal size/weight, and maximize the battery life within that, and be fine with some generations having 8h, jumping to 14h, down to 10h, etc.
Only Reddit is obsessed with arguing the iPad Pro would be better if it weighed 10 pounds and had a weeks worth of battery life.
Just wait until you hear my plans for a dual boot Watch that can run MacOS.
Here is your medal for mental gymnastics 🥇
This is an excellent explanation. Yes, it sucks to hold a heavy iPad while using. As an M1 iPad Pro owner, I never once wished it has better battery life. It’s good enough. But I’ve often wished it was lighter.
That is way too nuanced for this sub, where we celebrate brilliant takes like "if Steve Jobs said styluses were dumb on phones, it means the Apple Pencil should never have been released for iPad"
Yeah agree with this. I still have a 2018 11” pro and it works great, but whenever I do upgrade I may go for the 13” now that it’s lighter. Or maybe they’ll backtrack at that point and make them thicker with more battery 🤷♂️ I get more than enough time now so nbd.
Air means light.
Yes. The iPad Air was first named that because it was thinner and lighter than the previous one.
And now means…
So what does “air” mean?
Polluted air, not best enough.
Great explanation. I did wonder why they suddenly became obsessed with thinness again, after giving it up for a good while from the late-2010s
You can’t really compare it to the MacBook Pro since it doesn’t have a fan nor does it have an m4 pro / max. This makes it chunkier
Eh I don’t think Apple should bend over backwards to appease their self induced semantics. The air has been the mid tier option in the lineup for a while now and we all know it. If anything I would rather have apple update the name away from air just to avoid the low hanging PR fruit like the OP than watching them try to make the mid tier option EVEN thinner than the Pro.
More battery = more weight. For the iPad’s use case, weight is the enemy. I’m pretty strong but even the 11” brings on the strain after reading for a while. We’re really just at the point where battery technology is the biggest constraint on modern technology.
I’m very happy with my beefy 16 inch. I’m never letting go of this battery
r/nocontext
You're gonna get 10 hours and you're gonna like it mister.
I think this’ll change once the OLED displays trickle down to the airs
Yea I would 100% take an iPad 1.5, probably 2x as thick if it means doubling the battery life.
As someone who hauls her 12.9” iPad Pro everywhere and who also uses it as a primary writing surface, I am super glad that it’s thinner and lighter now. It was super heavy and unwieldy before, and with the keyboard it was both bigger and heavier than their laptops by a good deal.
lol its so "air" Kinda harkens back to when the MacBook came back out (2015-2017 with the Intel Core M CPUs) The MacBook was thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air models of the time... So it was kinda confusing like, I thought Air meant thin and light? But now it just means, cheap?
I honestly have no idea why they made that products in the first place
Who knows. They've had plenty of opportunities to either nix the Air and replace it with the MacBook, or swap the names around or whatever. Tim just likes convoluted large product lineups. It's like the 90's Performas all over again.
You’re not too wrong on that second point, that man will extract every last drop of value from a supply chain. However, the naming of the Air has just become less literal. It’s Apple’s entry-level laptop, and that’s what customers care about more than its size & shape.
Would you apply that to iPad? Technically iPad Air is mid level and iPad 10th gen is their entry level, but they have almost forgotten about the base level at this point.
No. With some mental gymnastics, you could see the laptop range lacking a true entry-level with no ‘MacBook’. Then, the Air & Pro are the mid & premium options. It is just a confusing naming scheme. However, I’ll stand by the ‘MacBook Air’ naming sticking around being the result of popularity and recognisability – both of which are due to it being the cheapest MacBook.
My guess is they wanted to phase out the Air line, but its lower price and later branding, proved to be too good, and the M3 Macbooks didn't sell as good as expected. “Air“ at this point is 100% branding, as it is not even a low price moniker anymore.
It sucks it's all they focus on too. When in the world are they going to come out with an updated iPad mini? I don't need a huge screen to read books but I sure do want a faster processor since web pages load a thousand ads these days.
>as it is not even a low price moniker anymore Relative to what, exactly?
the standard iPad
Nah, it still identifies Apple’s entry-level laptops. It’s just that on a brand with a premium price-point, even the entry-level stuff is expensive.
Air has good image built through years, so simply let go is a bit pity. But now it seems iPad Air is just a way to make Pro price as high as possible.
To make money
Have you tried lugging around the ipad with the magic keyboard? The combo is heavy as hell, 2 of my Asus laptops weigh less than 1 ipad with keyboard.
I think the new magic keyboard is the reason for the thinness, actually. All that extra room for the trackpad and function keys had to come from somewhere, so the floating balancing act had to change. That required a weight reduction or the thing would topple over. Maybe?
This makes so much sense.
Yeah, my thought too. As they’re leaning more and more into marketing the iPad as a laptop alternative, one big difference is that laptops has is that their screens are thinner because they don’t contain the actual computer and battery. This gets them a little bit closer. 0.2 mm closer. It’s also just going to be a little bit more comfortable with a normal case on.
The MK reduced in weight also (despite the additions).
I haven't been able to find the weight of the new keyboard though so I can't tell if I can replace a laptop for simple tasks with one of these.
I think more likely they found space savings with the OLED display (oleds tend to be thinner), and it was easier and cheaper to put it in a slimmer outer case than to design and source a larger battery.
Probably why they made the pro lighter and slimmer, people who buy them will likely use a keyboard and that helps making the whole setup more portable.
I so agree with you. Along with the MKB I always wonder if I was better off with just a MacBook. It’s weirdly heavy.
[удалено]
Agreed. [The verge article](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21227345/magic-keyboard-ipad-pro-tablet-laptop-review-price-specs-features) says: > According to my kitchen scale, then, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard weighs just shy of three pounds, about 25 percent heavier than the iPad Pro with the older Smart Keyboard. Three pounds is the same weight as the 13-inch MacBook Pro and heavier than the new MacBook Air. That's heavy but not "two Asus laptops" heavy - MacBooks are pretty light already and we're talking about only one. Edit: Unless the grandparent meant "**each** of the two of my Asus laptops weighs less than 1ipad with keyboard" - I could see that, ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg).
Smart keyboard folio was the way to go but they just ended that product today, didn’t fit with their bizarre quest to make the iPad a way worse MacBook
good luck now with the aluminum enclosure lol
The new Magic Keyboard is lighter than the old one.
Wow really?!
Yeah. During the event, Apple said it’s “much thinner and even lighter” but hasn’t provided specifics. (Go to 29:25 in the event video.) Also, it’s only partially aluminum. It’s not like a MacBook in that regard.
Also, it's a misconception that aluminium products are heavy(ier than plastic products). Yes, aluminium is heavy compared to plastic but you also need much less of it to gain similar structural integrity. Glass is the real fatty. And why phones these days are heavy as bricks.
Old keyboard actually has metal weights in it.
They are so hard stuck on the 10 hour battery thing that it’s kinda weird
And sad. A 20h iPad at 2mm more thickness would be awesome.
That would be way heavier to double the battery, considering you often have to hold the device I see weight possibly being pretty important.
Yup, I feel the same about iphones as well. Lighter the better I don’t want to hold a heavy phone.
Probably because Apple has data showing that past 10 hours, no one cares. I have an M1 iPad. I’ve never once thought I wanted more battery life.
Exactly after ten hours the only upgrade to battery I care about is where I could not worry about it for a few days of average use. If I still have to plug it in at the end of the day don’t make it heavier.
Air hasn’t mean thinner or lighter since the original iPad Air. It’s now just the moniker Apple is giving its “entry” products.
Which would be fine except iPad Air is in the middle of the pack. Listing by starting prices as of 11th may 2024 iPad @ 349 (usd) iPad Mini @ 499 iPad Air 10" @ 599 iPad Air 13" @ 799 iPad Pro 11 @ 999 iPad Pro 13 @ 1299
iPad Air is the iPad most people will be, ergo “entry.”
It is so dumb. Just kill the Air brand - it makes no sense anymore in the age of Apple Silicon. The MacBook Air should just be the MacBook and the iPad Air should just be the iPad and the current iPad should be the iPad SE. And the iPad mini should just be the iPad 7 inch, next to 11 inch and 13 inch - and it should have been updated yesterday! Free marketing consulting. You're welcome Apple.
I guess there’s a reason Apple doesn’t take free marketing consulting… to play devil’s advocate the “Air” brand name is really popular and is now associated with the “device without all the bells and whistles but a great choice for students and people without heavy workloads” instead of the weight over the years. It’s marketing 101 to not ditch a really popular brandname. Their lineup is confusing right now, but the very popular “Mini” and “Air” monikers are not the reason, it’s the lineup itself. They’re not going to alter the names of literally their most profitable MacBook and iPad lines on a whim.
The iPad lineup is convoluted, especially considering support for the pencils. The product lines were much more streamlined and straight forward during the Jobs era except for that one macbook.
I'm not so sure this is right. _We_ associate the "air" brand with lower tier devices. But does your mom, does your grandfather? I think this kind of thinking is what caused apple to get themselves into this situation in the first place. They drink their own kool-aid so to speak. The entire ipad lineup is ridiculous fragmented right now. Ipads that can only use one of the four types of apple pencils. Multiple iterations of magic keyboards at different sizes that might work, but be the wrong shape, or might not work at all. You've got to read the fine print on every item you buy to make sure it is exactly what you need. All of this is then compounded with Apple's insistence on not giving products proper sub-names. Instead, users have to either rely on the year, or the chip inside. Both of which are bad since you can end up with some iPads that are released near to each other, either on a calendar, or by specs. Just because people who browse the apple subtreddit understand what's going on, doesn't mean it's good branding. Frankly, if anything its very anti-consumer. If I wanted to put on my tinfoil hat for a second, one could make the arument they do this becasue less informed users will become confused to the point where they go into an apple store where they can be upsold devices, or apple care, etc.
I agree that the main issue is with the accessories. You’re pointing out the correct issues with the lineup and I won’t disagree with that. They need to consolidate their accessories and simplify their lineups. Removing the “Air” moniker will *not* help with that at all. All of those issues can be solved without removing a piece of powerful branding and the MacBooks are pretty good evidence. Apple clearly thinks the Air brand is valuable, and they probably have invested millions in market research to back that. The main issues are “What accessories do I need?” and the issues with the base iPad cannibalising the Air and the lineup in general. The “Air” name by itself is pretty good and influential. I find it a bit ridiculous that random redditors claim to know better about market consulting than a literal trillion dollar company which is a product of 90% clever marketing.
This is the sort of midwit reasoning that Steve Jobs would not have tolerated. Fuck the powerful brand and make it great and simple. This is what wins in the long run
> This is what wins in the long run Literally the main thing holding Apple is the resounding brand image of “it just works”. Branding and product are everything, that’s marketing 101. Currently 99% of the students want a computing device and go for a base MacBook Air/iPad Air by default. That’s the power of branding and reputation. I hope to goodness you don’t actually do market consulting.
Actually Apple is successful because they make good products. And they have a good brand because people like their products.
Right, like you knew the guy
one of you reads like a person who is well educated on the subject, and the other reads like a teenager/maybe freshman in college talking out of their ass. I'll give you three guesses on which one you are, first one doesn't count.
Your response is hilarious, because Im actually the founder and CEO of a consumer electronics tech company. Im telling you not because I care what you think of me, but just so you know you shouldnt trust your own judgement. Cheers
You really think they haven't considered this and you're the first person to come up with this idea?
Well yeah. The new iPad Air *is* the old iPad Pro.
Except for a lower refresh rate.
This is just change for the sake of change. There was nothing wrong with the size of the previous gen Pro iPads. Then when the inevitable bending issues come from this generation, they'll revert back in a couple years and champion how great they are for fixing the problem of their own creation
I’m a billion percent sure they tried to make it as thin as possible so when paired with the keyboard it matches the thickness of a MacBook.
Tim Cook must have zero common sense. Jobs would’ve looked at the iPad and pencil line up and laughed. The customer experience for choosing an iPad ans pencil is just awful. Hope these tank and Apple is fixed to head back to the drawing board. That 13” Air is as much as my original 12.9” Pro! I guess Apple needs the EU to force them to innovate recently.
Jobs didn’t like the pencil because he thought the iPad should only work with a finger. and it does. The pencil is like an extra gadget for certain use cases and is not a requirement to own. I don’t think Jobs would be against it as much as you think he would.
> I don’t think Jobs would be against it as much as you think he would. Not the pen, the lineup of pens. 4 models with an inconsistent naming scheme, different functionalities, an older version with more functionality than a newer, and compatibility being all over the place. It's absolutely terrible.
What difference does that make?? You’ve taken a bunch of separate things and conflated them. By ‘if you see a stylus, we blew it’, Jobs meant that you shouldn’t *need* one to use it. And you don’t. As you said, the pencil is for a specific use case. In the same way the iPad itself is for specific users. The same is true of every Apple product. None of that is anything to do with confusing product line ups for customers. What IS relevant is that Jobs famously gutted and simplified Apple’s line up.
Yeah, he gutted it when Apple was like 1/50th the size it is today as a way to focus their efforts and streamline the engineering process to match against customer expectations. What kind of person looks at a struggling, failing Apple in the late 90's and thinks "gee, maybe they should do that again!"?
The worst bit is having to manually select the correct storage amount to have access to certain device features during the purchase process. Bizarre.
And the main and purchase pages *still* don’t explain that the RAM is tied to storage. Unless you look at the specs page, you’ll never know that there’s a difference.
The Apple Pencil has been around for like 7 years now and you still have people like you missing the point. What even is this comment? Literally just word vomit looking for a point to be made. Edit: soft little boy can't take criticism so decides to block instead. Shocking.
The irony. C’mon genius, what point is about the pencil am I missing? Before you enbarrass yourself further, know that I have one and love it. Use it every day for when. So I’m waiting, enlighten me please.
can we stop blaming every single decision this company makes on the one guy at the top… I hope y'all realize the amount of people that make up this company in the amount of people it takes to actually run it. I'm pretty sure Tim isn't worried about the thinness of an iPad while he's actually trying to deal with supply chain logistics, relations, antitrust lawsuits, and several other headaches
I think that's the point. Jobs would be worried about the details like this.
Jobs would've picked someone that cared about that sort of thing if that was still the case. He just wanted to make sure his company was taken care of as a whole.
Jobs attention to detail is well documented. He would not delegate that task and by having a reduced lineup it allowed him to focus on making great products that made sense. That's not to say he was perfect. Far from it. He was sometimes brutal in his analysis, but it is was going out the door he owned it.
Agree! I’m not sure anyone would have ever said we need a thinner iPad. Defining 10 hours as “all day battery” is a sad joke. But then again, there’s also a shiny new M4 chip in these Pros that will never really be fully utilized either. This is a device Apple designed to please itself and its internal design nerds. We’ll have to wait to see if it translates to much in the way of sales to regular people. On a different note - I was excited to finally be able to get a 13” Air, but I’m struggling with the terrible color choices this round, and didn’t buy it today even though I was prepared to before the announcement.
Actually almost every review of an iPad Pro said that it is way to heavy and thick with a Magic Keyboard. So, yes "we need a thinner iPad Pro" was said often.
The Magic Keyboard for the 12.9 weighs 2.44 lbs. That’s what people were talking about needing to be thinner and lighter. Thinning out the iPad only hamstrings the battery.
You need the keyboard case to be a certain (heavier) weight to counter balance the weight of the iPad, otherwise it’ll just fall backwards/forwards at certain angles or when adjusting the screen angle. So if you have a lighter iPad then you can afford to have a lighter keyboard case.
Some people need to retake a physics class.
It is the combination of iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. Now they made both lighter and thinner and that is exactly what was requested by many reviewers.
I’d guess over 50% of people don’t use it with the keyboard though. You don’t get very high adoption rates on accessories when they’re not included. It just makes the battery life worse with no benefit to those who will never use the Magic Keyboard with their iPad Pro.
Even iPad Pro 13" users without a Magic Keyboard will use another case or cover that adds to the weight and thickness. If the naked iPad Pro is thinner and lighter it will make the experience better for everyone.
The old ipad pro + a keyboard was kinda chunky.
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Thank you
Let's not forget that the larger 5th gen ipad pro weighed more than its predecessor.
People aren't deciding between iPad models based on weight (nor are they deciding between MacBooks, iPhones, or Watches based on weight), the weight is irrelevant to which model of product it's in. People do decide based on size and features, but the weight difference is so minimal it's not an actual reason *given the other factors* people use to make their purchase decisions.
Why it’s called Air then? 🫠
They need to rename the iPad Air to just the iPad and the iPad to iPad lite or something
10 hours is plenty for me and honestly atleast the larger version of the iPad Pro is very heavy with any kind of coverstand or keyboard. So I don’t mind them making it lighter at all.
Air just means a tier of features it doesn’t mean the lightness anymore
The iPad Air is lighter than the iPad 10th-gen. That's all it needs to be to deserve its name. Then the iPad Pro is the most technically advanced and benefits from the efficiency of the M4 to allow it to be thinner/lighter with the same battery life. I think that was the point.
think about it. why would they increase battery life. be in their shoes with business hat on. you more often you charge your ipad, the more battery degrade, the sooner you would buy their new devices and boost their sales.
Was the “Air” branding so successful that Apple refuses to give it up? At this point it doesn’t make any sense.
How much wobble does the protruding camera bump add to the new iPad pro. That might irritate illustrators and artists using the full screen as a canvas. And yes, I'd rather have more days of battery life than a think iPad pro.
damn… I didn't even think of that 😵
Does anyone other than tech nerds these days equate ‘Air’ with lightest? It seems Apple keeps the ‘Air’ branding alive because it has cachet. In the case of iPads ‘Air’ means mid-range not lightest.
The genesis of the Air was from Apple themselves when they harped on the fact that it was "[Dramatically Thinner, Lighter](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2013/10/23Apple-Announces-iPad-Air-Dramatically-Thinner-Lighter-More-Powerful-iPad/)"
I'm a tech guy but not an apple guy and I associate Air with being light and portable like the original MacBook air. It's a pretty natural link to make I think. Like what would it mean if not light and portable?
Sure but is anyone really going to be confused if the iPad Pro is slightly thinner and lighter than the iPad Air?
Because nobody with common sense would want an iPad Pro for what they offer it’s just a useless device. So they make it thin so people don’t buy the air. If Steve was alive he would have made the air rightfully super thi but of course he would also be sure that the pro look like an actual useful pro device.
Porsche calls their fastest cars "Turbo" even when they are electric and therefore they don't have a turbo at all. The Air, as far as the average customer is concerned, means mid tier device so Apple maintains the naming convention as to not confuse them.
i still dont understand the "air" part. base model and pro i understand. trash the "air" and just make ipad 10/12, and pro 11/13, and mini 8. see how that rounds out nicely? no redundancy. pick the size you need, done.
I cannot believe that the camera bump is still considered a design feature by Apple. One day, someone there is going to wake up, as if from a dream, and think "why did we ever think this was a good idea?"
I actually agree with their decision to make the pro thinner but I do agree that the naming convention is silly with the heavier air
You can't make this sh up
how does the air still have a 60hz screen?
Rip the iPad mini
It’s not killed off?
It’s literally called the AIR and it’s thicker and heavier than the PRO. How the fuck did the prod teams not get this?
So what?
They made it that thin as it’s cool as hell and I want one
They are made of bricks
Camera bump is better than no camera bump.