Initial thoughts on iPad Air 4

All the fours - iPad mini 4 and iPad Air 4

After some thoughts, I’ve upgraded my iPad. The main motivations were that I don’t really want to take my MacBook 14” out on the road if I don’t need to, plus the fact that the iPad mini is now obsolete in operating system terms. That said, I bought the mini when it was released in 2015, so it’s done seven years which is a lifetime in technology terms. It’s only really been the last 12 months when it’s started to feel slow.

It took a while to decide what model to replace it with. I know I wanted a cellular capable iPad (the last two iPads I have owned have had that functionality and it’s been really useful). The big decision was screen size. My first iPad was the original with the 10” screen, but my second and third units had the iPad mini form factor. I’d used the iPad minis regularly travelling on the train to London with work when I was at Unilever. It was really portable and useful. However, my close vision has deteriorated slightly (always short-sighted, I needed to switch to varifocals for reading reasons), so I decided that it would be better to go back to the larger form factor. I knew I didn’t want the 12” screen size on the iPad Pro; I still wanted portability and I always have the MacBook as an option.

I knew I wanted more than 64Gb of storage; one of my use scenarios is reading RPG books that I have on PDF, and that usually ends up taking several gigabytes of storage. It had become tight on the iPad mini 4 as the apps I had installed also ate a lot of space. I figured 128Gb or 256Gb was the right kind of storage. I’d used laptops with that happily. When I was using Chromebooks, I tended to stick an SD card in that added 128Gb to store this kind of thing. As external storage wasn’t an option with the iPad, it meant the initial purchase had to be right.

I wanted a bit more power than the base iPad model, so that left me with the Pro or Air. That led me down a rabbit-hole of whether I wanted to get onboard the M-series processor train. iPadOS already is getting features that don’t work on the iPhone processor based lower end models. In the end, I decided that the price jump to the M-series wasn’t worth it for the power difference I could get with the upgrade. I ended up looking at the iPad Air 4 and the iPad Pro (2020). These had A14 and A12Z processors respectively. I was looking on the Apple refurbished store (which gives you fully warranted devices but in a white box - they feel as well presented as a new device). In the end, I came to the conclusion that I’d go with the iPad Air and the A14. Looking on Geekbench, this was about a 25x processing speed jump compared to the A8 on my iPad mini; the M-series iPad Air 5 would be nearer 32x faster, but I figured that this would be more than enough for the next five years. I picked the 256Gb option for storage.

I picked up an Apple Pencil 2 (via Amazon as £15 less than Apple) and then started looking at keyboard cases. I’ve used a keyboard with the iPad from the original model in 2010, as it adds a lot of flexibility. I settled on the Logitech Combo Touch. This has a trackpad, backlighting and space to place the Apple Pencil to charge. I’ve used Logitech keyboards extensively and they’re usually quality with a good typing experience. I did consider the Magic Keyboard (lovely but £300), and the Folio Keyboard (£200) from Apple, but the Logitech was significantly cheaper (£150 RRP but £110 at Amazon) so that was me decided.

I’ve been saving to do the replacement over the last year, so placed the orders.

DPD are running a day behind around Leeds, so I spent a day or so looking at a keyboard case waiting for the iPad to fill it. Once it arrived, the fun started in a good way.

My old iPad had a notification in system settings that my new device was coming. I gave me instructions and all I had to do was to bring the two close together and scan what was on the screen on the iPad mini with the iPad Air. It then pulled across all my data and apps via iCloud. The experience was seamless.

The new machine feels buttery-smooth and the gradual convergence between iPadOS and macOS means that there isn’t a huge difference in experience so far. I could imagine a scenario where a keyboard and touchpad equipped iPad Air or Pro replaced a laptop for general use. The touchpad is a game changer. iPadOS is built for it; if you come from a laptop you’ll find it very natural to use. It’s quick - loading into World of Tanks Blitz onto a map takes less than five seconds whereas it could take thirty seconds on a bad day once you got out of the queue with the 2015 machine. It has desktop class apps (Affinity Suite, decent versions of Microsoft Office) which are no longer screen-size increased phone apps. I can use this as a portable work device as well; no more struggling with a phone keyboard if I get contacted when away.

The keyboard case detaches magnetically so it’s really easy to just switch to a tablet view. The screen is bright and clear, and reading full size RPG books is easy.

That said, the MacBook has a lot more power and can do more complicated things. There’s definitely a use-case for that. I’d only consider playing RPGs on a VTT as a player with the iPad. Although I may experiment to see how Role works. It also won’t replace my reMarkable day to day. The experience of writing on glass isn’t as pleasant and the shear level of focus the rM gives me mean I’m happy with that experience.

This is a world from the iPad experience that I first had in 2010. Apple’s tablet has grown up and become something much more than a big screen iPhone. The interactions with keyboards and trackpads add another layer of experience and iPadOS is much closer to macOS now. The user experience upgrading is graceful and frustration free and quick. I’m impressed.

10th December 2022