Apple Special Event. October 16, 2014

Fallen god said:
Storage pricing for it is a huge turn off, not only is it limited to 32GB it cost £80 more. My Nexus 5 was £40 more for the 32GB option which makes no sense, I think someone needs a foot up their arse.
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Yeah, I know what you mean.

However, a 64GB USB OTG drive can be had for less than £30, so I could get a 32GB Nexus 9 (32GB rather than 16GB to allow for big games) + 64GB of media storage for ~£429, so £50 less than the 64GB iPad Air 2.

Anyway, I'll let John Lewis make the decision for me tonight.
 
Vandal said:
All the people having the digs about those people who wanted 2GB of RAM in there really make me laugh. The Air was poor from a usability perspective (especially if you've used iPads before) due to it's lack of RAM. The Air 2 is transformed by the 2GB - Safari is tons better and flipping between apps now actually works properly without the constant delays to move things out of RAM and to reload.
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I was laughing how they haven't piped up too but if you own an iPad Air and have been completely happy then it seems odd when people are complaining about it being such a big issue. Especially if you aren't a heavy safari user.

Did you really get delays launching apps! We moved to an iPad Air from an iPad 1st Gen so you can understand why I'd be blown away to hear anyone whine about performance. :P
 
trentlad said:
I was laughing how they haven't piped up too but if you own an iPad Air and have been completely happy then it seems odd when people are complaining about it being such a big issue. Especially if you aren't a heavy safari user.

Did you really get delays launching apps! We moved to an iPad Air from an iPad 1st Gen so you can understand why I'd be blown away to hear anyone whine about performance. :P
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Don't get me wrong, the iPad Air is still a great bit of kit; Fantastic form factor, good processor, great screen etc.
It just annoyed me that all this goodness was held back by one factor - lack of RAM.
The iPad 1st gen also had the problem (I've owned all but 4th gen) so it doesn't overly surprise me that you didn't notice too much difference in that respect.

The main issue for me was the infuriating tab refreshes in Safari, coupled with any form of multi app use. I literally had no idea whether I was going to lose what was in one tab (or app) or not when moving between just 2 or 3.

I got rid of the Air and moved to a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, which has 3gb of RAM and the difference was night and day. Multi app use is fantastic on it. It's actually a great machine but sadly it is not as good as the iPad in other areas so it will be will be sold now I have my mitts on the Air 2.

Typing this on the Air 2 makes me appreciate the 'solid' feel of the unit also...
To me the Air 2 is what the Air should have been.
 
Received my Air 2 today.
After,what, 5 iterations? This is what the iPad should be like.

Folks, can I ask what are the best apps for viewing videos/clips etc?
 
Vandal said:
I got rid of the Air and moved to a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014... It's actually a great machine but sadly it is not as good as the iPad
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That's interesting, I was in much debate between those very two and chose the Air instead. My biggest issue was how the Note 10.1 specs were TRIPLE that of the iPad Air (even though the Air benchmarked way higher) yet it was still reported as laggy?!?!!!!


Since you've experienced both first hand, what was it about the iPad that felt so different to the Note 10.1? Just content choice?
 
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Got my Air 2 this morning. Restored from icloud fine. Syncing photos and videos from itunes took ages though. Each photo took about 3-5 seconds. On my old ipad 2 it would transfer several photos a second. This is over USB too.
 
trentlad said:
That's interesting, I was in much debate between those very two and chose the Air instead. My biggest issue was how the Note 10.1 specs were TRIPLE that of the iPad Air (even though the Air benchmarked way higher) yet it was still reported as laggy?!?!!!!

Since you've experienced both first hand, what was it about the iPad that felt so different to the Note 10.1? Just content choice?
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I bought the Note thinking I would use the s pen loads but in reality I don't use it that often. It works amazingly well though when you do use it.

I really liked Android and the Samsung split screen functionality is really useful (hopefully Apple come up with something similar soon). The screen is great and multi tasking, due to the huge amount of ram, works well.

My biggest issue was the browser. Whilst rock solid it simly isn't as fast as Safari. Pages lag. Amusingly the worst culprit was Androidcentral which has a floaty advert thing. The iPad handles it ok but the Note just struggled badly.

Other deciding factors are the weight (it's pretty heavy) and the battery life, which is nowhere near as good as any iPad I've used.

I would consider a Samsung tablet again though for the splitscreen functions and I'm hoping Lollipop implements it natively, as I think Touchwiz (Samsung flavour Android) is what makes the lag in certain areas.

Other minor points are that some of the s pen functionality isn't very polished. There is what could be some amazingly functional stuff in ther like the sticky notes but they just aren't useful in their implementation.
 
No-One said:
Got my Air 2 this morning. Restored from icloud fine. Syncing photos and videos from itunes took ages though. Each photo took about 3-5 seconds. On my old ipad 2 it would transfer several photos a second. This is over USB too.
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Interesting you say that. I thought the transfer process over usb was slow and don't remember it being that slow with older iPads.

Everything else on it is like greased lightning though :p
 
Thanks for that Vandal. It's like Fallen God has said; Android devs have put so much concentration into feature development and so much less into the user experience.

Every issue I read about or even experience boils right down to that very statement.
 
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FOUR FINGER SWIPE LEFT & RIGHT!!!

Just discovered that and wow what a simple yet brilliant feature. Saves double tapping the home button, looking through the alphabetically ordered apps and selecting. It even feels instant in comparison.
 
trentlad said:
FOUR FINGER SWIPE LEFT & RIGHT!!!

Just discovered that and wow what a simple yet brilliant feature. Saves double tapping the home button, looking through the alphabetically ordered apps and selecting. It even feels instant in comparison.
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Need to keep up ;). Not sure if you've noticed but there is also 4 finger swipe up from the homescreen to get too the multi tasking screen and also pinch in with 4 fingers to go back to the home screen.

In terms of experience Android Lollipop is wow, from a pure design/UX I think its the best thing I've used, it still needs a bit of polish and all the stock apps updating but if third parties start making really nice material design apps Android will be looking **** hot in a year or so.
 
Popped to my local Apple Store primarily to take a look at the 5k iMac. Certainly not worth selling a normal 27" iMac for (I won't be!) however it is a stunning display, basically an rMBP display but four times larger.

Performance appeared to be absolutely fine (no different to a standard iMac) and like the rMBP, you can either use the doubled 2560x1440 resolution, or you can choose scaled resolutions for more real estate. All these looked fine to my eye.

Worth remembering that you'll usually be sitting further away than a notebook, yet in the Apple Store you'll actually be standing closer to the iMac than the notebooks. Therefore it is worth taking a step back (I did, and didn't really notice much of a difference at that point, but that's not helped by my bad eyes).
 
Is everyone on here just going for the air 2 smart case or does anyone have any other (and cheaper) recommendations? Mine is naked at the moment
 
Omar said:
Anyway, I'll let John Lewis make the decision for me tonight.
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Just a quick follow-up, I got a replacement (in black as they were out of stock on the gold) from JL, but unfortunately it too had a dead pixel, so I think that's enough chances for Apple this time around so I returned it for a full refund.

It's either really poor quality control or Apple think most people will either not notice or just accept a less than perfect screen. I don't think I should have to when I'm spending close to £500.
 
is there any disadvantage to the 128GB version of the Air 2
also any disadvantage to having the Cellular version?

128GB and Cellular is prob a bit excessive but I plan to keep this for many years, so if I'm spending almost 500 then the extra to get the extra storage/connectivity isn't that big a deal
 
No-One said:
Is everyone on here just going for the air 2 smart case or does anyone have any other (and cheaper) recommendations? Mine is naked at the moment
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I've got the smart case for the Air 2 and it's great. Also had it for the first Air. The one in the Air 2 appears to be the same design (3 section) but is much more solid. I find the Air 2 seems to stand up much better where the smart case for the first one was quite heavily criticised and I found that it was very easy to knock over.

There are cheaper alternatives but I like the smart case.
 
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