The Apple Thread

[Dcubed]

Wow! I cant believe that they've dumped the iPad 3 in just 7 months! And that gen 3/4 hardware is really sticking around!

 

So now devs have 4 processors to design for (not counting the slight variations between models), 3 different RAM sizes, 4 different resolutions and 3 different aspect ratios!

 

Holy Fragmented Ecosystem Batman!

[Rowan]

It's quite laughable the amount of people sticking their iPad 3rd gen on eBay tonight.

[Nintendohnut]

Wow! I cant believe that they've dumped the iPad 3 in just 7 months! And that gen 3/4 hardware is really sticking around!

 

So now devs have 4 processors to design for (not counting the slight variations between models), 3 different RAM sizes, 4 different resolutions and 3 different aspect ratios!

 

Holy Fragmented Ecosystem Batman!

 

In a way....but remember that the resolution for the iPad mini is the same as the resolution for the iPad 2, so in reality nothing has changed. All the apps designed for iPad 2 will work perfectly on the mini. And RAM shouldn't affect things too much - the RAM is primarily to keep other apps running in the background etc, so the varied RAM won't completely fuck over developers, thankfully.

 

Also, Apple include a tool in their iOS dev kits that allow developers to very simply change aspect ratios between their devices. You'll probably have noticed how quickly apps have been adapted for the iPhone 5 - in actual fact the dev kit makes it incredibly simple to change an app's aspect ratio.

 

But yes, I agree abou the processors. I'm really not sure why they went for an A6X chip. What was wrong with the A6? Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

I think developing for all of these variations in design must be easier than it first appears. Because you're right, from the outside it looks really difficult.

[Ashley]

The iPad Mini 2 is blatantly going to have 'retina' [Team America scene vomiting] display.

 

Anyway I own an iPad 3 and to be honest I'm not fussed. I only got it because I plan on doing some iBooks work. It has its practical aspects but I'm not fussed. In fact I'm quite often heard saying I hate it. The only slight annoyance is the fact its now cheaper, but c'est la tech.

[Aneres11]

Think it's really disappointing that the Mini doesn't have retina. But that'll come next time - way to go Apple.

 

That was kind of the make or break for me, whether it had retina or not. But as it doesn't, I'm not sure it's worth it for the price.

[Ashley]

Dear Apple:

 

 

Ironically that phrase makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

 

Aaaaaaanyway.

[Mr-Paul]

Dear Apple:

 

 

Ironically that phrase makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

 

Aaaaaaanyway.

 

But retina is sooo fetch :p

[Captain Falcon]

The iPad Mini 2 is blatantly going to have 'retina' [Team America scene vomiting] display.

 

Anyway I own an iPad 3 and to be honest I'm not fussed. I only got it because I plan on doing some iBooks work. It has its practical aspects but I'm not fussed. In fact I'm quite often heard saying I hate it. The only slight annoyance is the fact its now cheaper, but c'est la tech.

 

I won't lie, the whole "Retina" thing has bugged me since day one as it was an erroneous claim from the off and the pixel density was quickly surpassed. But that's the power of marketing for you.

 

It will be interesting to see what Google announce on the 29th.

 

I'm not really an Apple fan, but, I have always admired their decision to release a product and have it as the lead model in their range for a full 12 months before moving on to the next - especially conerning the iPhone since it means you never have to be more than one generation behind

 

So in some ways, I can see this as quite the kick in the teeth for 3rd Gen owners but on the other hand, the improvements seem somewhat negligible - the the extra CPU grunt is nice but is anything even pushing the current version right now that it's so important? I have no idea, so I'm not being rhetorical, it's a genuine question. But if not, then those owners who likely wouldn't have "upgraded" next March anyway aren't really affected and they can wait for the 5th Gen to come, whenever it may be, with a more substantial upgrade. If you are the type who changes every year then you must have money to burn and this becomes less of an issue in that regard too as no doubt they'll have already placed their pre-order.

[ipaul]

The iPad mini looks nice and all but really Apple, £270 to compete with devices all around the £200 mark? Seems a bit....well it's pretty much exactly what Apple do. I had guessed about £250, which I think might have been a much better price point despite only being £20 cheaper. I think a lot of people might look at £270 and equate that to 'basically £300'.

 

Moving on, surprised to see them refresh the big iPad again but it doesn't seem much different....a bit faster, was there anything else? I wouldn't be too pissed off if I had bought a 3rd gen.

 

Generally speaking I was more intrigued by the macs. The new iMac looks amazing, can't believe they get them that thin. Also as for something I might actually buy: they refreshed the Mac minis! Hurrah! Might see if I can put some money towards one for christmas..

[Daft]

[Cube]

It's $329 in the US, £269 in the UK. It's basically £70 more than a Nexus 7 - make of that what you will!

 

32GB Nexus 7 (Out soon): £199

32GB iPad Mini (Out soon): £349

[Nintendohnut]

To be fair that price isn't confirmed for the Nexus 7 yet, but if that is the case it's a big selling point for the Nexus. We'll have to wait and see I suppose! When's their event? Friday, right? Could be a huge week for both companies.

[heroicjanitor]

 

40% cheaper.

[Ashley]

To be fair that price isn't confirmed for the Nexus 7 yet, but if that is the case it's a big selling point for the Nexus. We'll have to wait and see I suppose! When's their event? Friday, right? Could be a huge week for both companies.

 

It's on Monday

[bob]

Surely the only people that would be angry about them releasing a newer iPad are the sort of people who need the latest product no matter what - and we shouldn't care about them anyway because they're not real people.

 

In other Apple news (for me) my girlfriend just got given a sceond hand iPad 1 from her parents to help with her work. It looks pretty snazzy, but i was surprised at how slow it is! She was trying to download a photo off her facebook page, but the ipad was taking too long to load it and kept crashing, so in the end it was quicker for me to download it on my phone and email it to her...

 

Also, i am continuously confused about where everything is. I realise it will take me a while to adjust to a new OS, but i maintain that nothing in iOS is where you think it would be, unless you already know it's there.

[Charlie]

Th people who have been shafted are those who bought a 3rd gen iPad. Only released 6 months ago, yet that has been discontinued, while the iPad 2 lives on. If you'd bought a new iPad recently thinking it'd be at least six months til the new flagship model came out, you'd be pretty pissed off.

 

I'd absolutely love an iPad mini. But not at that price. I really don't understand how they can charge such a premium for extra storage. I bought a 32GB MicroSD card this afternoon for £20. It's crazy.

 

To be honest, people are only annoyed at Apple because their product lifecycles tend to be around 1 year. Samsung, Nokia, HTC etc all have much shorter lifecyles for products and release updated versions all the time.

 

New technology is always going to be around the corner.

 

In other Apple news (for me) my girlfriend just got given a sceond hand iPad 1 from her parents to help with her work. It looks pretty snazzy, but i was surprised at how slow it is! She was trying to download a photo off her facebook page, but the ipad was taking too long to load it and kept crashing, so in the end it was quicker for me to download it on my phone and email it to her...

 

Also, i am continuously confused about where everything is. I realise it will take me a while to adjust to a new OS, but i maintain that nothing in iOS is where you think it would be, unless you already know it's there.

 

My iPad 1 is pretty slow these days too.

 

I think iOS is incredibly simple to use... Do you have any examples of things you can't find?

[Cube]

To be honest, people are only annoyed at Apple because their product lifecycles tend to be around 1 year. Samsung, Nokia, HTC etc all have much shorter lifecyles for products and release updated versions all the time.

 

I think the difference is the variation in the products - with Android they're all different models, but the iPhone is just one product line. The perception of new phones is different about it: a new Android phone is a new phone, a new iPhone is a replacement for the old one.

 

It's odd, but that's just how they're viewed.

 

Also, i am continuously confused about where everything is. I realise it will take me a while to adjust to a new OS, but i maintain that nothing in iOS is where you think it would be, unless you already know it's there.

 

My boss asks me about stuff he can't find all the time. The last one he asked about is how he can download a pdf for viewing. I replied "don't you just click on it and download it, then just open it?". Apparently not.

[Charlie]

My boss asks me about stuff he can't find all the time. The last one he asked about is how he can download a pdf for viewing. I replied "don't you just click on it and download it, then just open it?". Apparently not.

 

Where was he downloading it from? An email that is all you do...

 

A website I'm pretty sure that's all you do too unless the website has linked to it in a strange way.

[Cube]

My boss seemed confused about it (where does it save to? How do you open it?), and when I googled it the suggestions seemed to say that you need to download a "Downloader" app.

[bob]

Well my main concerns stem from the fact that i'm used to Android.

 

Whenever i'm looking for a menu (to change settings; bring up suggestions etc) my instinct is to go to the menu button on android. Obviously iOS doesn't have this button, which is fine, but every app has their 'menu' button in a different place.

 

Secondly, the 'back' button. Sometimes i've clicked on the wrong thing, or just want to go back to the previous page/app screen, and in order to do so, you have to find the 'back' button, which is usually in the top left, but sometimes in the bottom left etc.

 

Again, it's just because i'm used to Android, but i do think that the menu button in particular is a good idea. Each app can put whatever menu items they want in it, but you always know how to access it whatever screen you're on.

 

 

I realise that the iPad 1 is almost 2 years old now, but we wiped it clean when we got it and it's still quite slow....does it not work very well with iOS 5.1? Maybe we should have stuck with 3.1.

[Nintendohnut]

My boss seemed confused about it (where does it save to? How do you open it?), and when I googled it the suggestions seemed to say that you need to download a "Downloader" app.

 

If he just taps a PDF in Safari or Mail it will open the PDF in a new tab. If you want to save it to your device, iBooks would let you save it. It's free, and when you have it a 'Add to iBooks' button will appear in the top-right of the screen when you open the PDF. You can also save it to Dropbox etc. But yeah, just to read it you should be able to tap it and open it up. You definitely don't need a downloader app!

 

@bob the iPad is two and a half years old, so it's processor struggles a little with 5.1. It's a bit shit really, but there's not much that can be done sadly! However, what might help is closing the apps completely when you're not using them - it might POSSIBLY have been crashing because the RAM was full of things, so double tapping the home button and closing all the apps might help with that problem. Apart from that I'm not sure what you can do...maybe try the Facebook app and see if that runs any better?

[bob]

Ah i didn't know you could do that with apps! I will try it. We tried the Facebook app, and the website in both Safari and Chrome, and all three had problems loading albums. Assumed it was our internet connection, but then my phone loaded them fine.....it was odd, but i'm sure it was a one-off event.

 

Still, not bad for a free gift! We're looking into getting her a case/cover for it. Seems to me to be a hell of a lot cheaper if you buy a generic 10 inch tablet case than an iPad one, so we'll probably go for one of those.

[Charlie]

@bob

 

Definitely get a generic one, the official Apple one probably won't even fit the first iPad anymore!

 

Have you tried a fresh install of the OS to start it from scratch? Get rid of all the crap. Mine works fine for Spotify/Facebook/Internet/movies. Can be a bit slow occasionally switching between but not too bad on the whole.

[bob]

Well we were looking at iPad 1 cases, but they were roughly twice the price of the same style 'generic' case.

 

We installed 5.1 when we got it, and wiped the data off it, is that the same as a fresh install? I'm not sure how to do it otherwise. Anyway i don't think my girlfriend will let me fiddle around with the OS now, as she's started working with it anyway.

 

I've never really understood why technology gets slower as it gets older. Is it a percieved slowness because we are used to faster devices? Or is it because they are running more RAM hungry newer programs?

 

Surely from a technological point of view, if you wipe a device (laptop/tablet/phone) completely, it should work at the same speed as when you bought it, no?

[Charlie]

Surely from a technological point of view, if you wipe a device (laptop/tablet/phone) completely, it should work at the same speed as when you bought it, no?

 

Yep, but when the iPad came out it was running iOS 3 and it worked really well there. However with the newer software and apps they are more power hungry.