Apple Unveils Its 7th-Gen iPad With a 10.2-Inch Display (arstechnica.com) 34
In addition to launching new iPhones today, Apple unexpectedly announced a new 7th-generation iPad, featuring a larger display and support for Apple's forthcoming iPadOS update. Ars Technica reports: This new model comes with a 10.2-inch 2160x1620 "Retina" display, up from the older model's 9.7-inch panel, and an A10 Fusion chip. The latter is the same chip used for the existing 6th-gen iPad, and that chip was first introduced with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus -- so don't expect a significant performance upgrade. Still, it should provide enough power for the entertainment, Web browsing, and casual work needs this iPad is primarily aimed at. The design is otherwise very similar to before -- thicker bezels, home button, roughly one-pound weight, and all -- and Apple still claims the tablet will get up to 10 hours of battery life. The device still comes with either 32GB or 128GB of storage.
Naturally, the new iPad will come with Apple's forthcoming iPadOS update, which will give the device a more robust multitasking system. It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD cards, too, and it'll work with Apple's Smart Keyboard attachment and the first-gen model of the Apple Pencil stylus. Apple did not switch to a USB-C port here as it's done with its higher-end iPad Pros, though that's not surprising with a cheaper tablet like this. The device will retain the $329 starting price of the previous 9.7-inch iPad and will begin shipping on September 30, with pre-orders available on Tuesday. Education customers will be able to get it at a slight discount of $299.
Naturally, the new iPad will come with Apple's forthcoming iPadOS update, which will give the device a more robust multitasking system. It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD cards, too, and it'll work with Apple's Smart Keyboard attachment and the first-gen model of the Apple Pencil stylus. Apple did not switch to a USB-C port here as it's done with its higher-end iPad Pros, though that's not surprising with a cheaper tablet like this. The device will retain the $329 starting price of the previous 9.7-inch iPad and will begin shipping on September 30, with pre-orders available on Tuesday. Education customers will be able to get it at a slight discount of $299.
Let's see those complaints about Lightning... (Score:1)
Coming to your screen in 3.... 2....
Re: Let's see those complaints about Lightning... (Score:2)
Flimsy?
I have had 3 - first was an original from 2020. I have a 4th gen. I gave a 5th gen to my mother.
All are in great shape. Just the original is stuck at iOS 5, I think. It hasnâ(TM)t been used in s year.
"It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD" (Score:1)
"It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD cards" - no it won't.
There wouldn't be much point in spending extra on the 128G model if SD cards were allowed. And my thumb drives have a USB port.
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Who cares about apps? If I've got 128GB in apps, I'll get a more expensive device.
But you can easily fill 128GB with movies and MP3s. Would love to get a device with an SD card for data that I could update as needed. Would be nice to take a bunch of movies and my entire music collection on a cheap device when I go travelling.
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Who even has 32GB of apps? It's the data that is where it counts and being able to slap in a 128,200,256,400,512GB microSD card to boost that data storage is highly useful.
My phone has 16GB of internal storage, but I am big on spoken word audio. It also has a 128GB micoSD with a substantial number of audio books on. If that ever gets not to be enough I can simply upgrade to more storage cheaply. In Apple land it is a whole new device...
Re: "It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and (Score:1)
Being able to swap in from a wallet of SD cards is the killer app. You can maintain whole libraries of movies and shows and not have to use the 'cloud' for any of it.
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The problem is ipados, each app is in its own walled garden the only way to share files is to copy them. So your external drive has a movie on it the movieplayer app can't play it from the hard drive it must be copied to the movie player apps space which is limited to the free internal space on the ipad. only the file manager app can see a file both on the internal and external storage.
Least ways thats how apple have been doing it so far, maybe they may let an app have storage on the external drive, eve
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And it's also a crap system. You can't even install proper Android on it. It's cheap because it's subsidized with ads, you want to get rid of the ads, pay ~30% more to remove them and you're still locked into the Amazon ecosystem. Chrome, no, we have our own build, anything on the Google App store, no, you can hack it in but then we'll just remotely block it.
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"It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD cards" - no it won't.
There wouldn't be much point in spending extra on the 128G model if SD cards were allowed. And my thumb drives have a USB port.
IpadOS WILL be able to connect to USB storage devices. Yes, it requires an adapter; but the OS (finally!) supports USB Storage Class devices.
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How are they even just coming out with this feature? Android tablets have had this feature forever. Same with the mouse support. Many of the iPads are up in the same price bracket as a Surface, and that tablet can pretty much connect to any device in the world. I'll admit, I don't use the feature of connecting to USB drives that much on my Android Tablet, but It's not like it's a difficult feature to implement. This is all artificially limiting the device because they think their users are too dumb to ha
Re: "It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and (Score:1)
The On The Go (OTG) standard for connecting USB storage to Android phones and tablets is generations old.
Now it's new and revolutionary, of course, because Apple is finally implementing it.
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You've been able to buy USB and SD card adapters for iPhone and iPad for a while now. SanDisk has had one with the MFi certification for at least 4 or 5 years.
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SD cards and USB drives have been 'allowed' on iOS for several years now. It's just an external data source and shows up just like Dropbox, OneDrive and every other cloud file storage platform on the planet.
No, you won't store apps on it, why would you want to? Your internal SSD is a multitude times faster, more reliable and by default encrypted. Even on Android, encrypted SD is a crapshoot and Android apps on your SD is the worst experience given its generally connected over a slow bus. Everybody simply us
Very unfortunate placement if speakers, again (Score:3)
So this model, just like all of the previous non-pro iPads doesn't support stereo sound in landscape mode. If you wanna stream any videos, you will be enjoying all sound coming from one side of the screen. Pass.
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I got a Samsung Tab A, and the 2018 version has 4 speakers, 2 on each side in landscape mode. It support Dolby Atmos. I'm not going to oversell it, it won't sound better than a proper sound setup with full size speakers, but it has set a new standard for the minimum I would expect from a 10 inch tablet and other similar sized devices. The 2019 version looks to have a similar sound setup from what I can tell. It sounds better than many laptops I've seen. The speaker placement is probably a big part of this.
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But it does support the Pencil.
Why would you need an iPad Pro fro 3x the money?
Is it storage? Coz we all know you would keep your PRO media on a networked drive, because that data would overwhelm the tablet. Is it the processor? Coz really there isn't that much difference.
They are downplaying the similarities between the $385 iPad and the $1000 iPad Pro.
Poor mans iPad pro.
-T-
Newton sized (Score:1)
Has the Android competition given up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also the iPad Pro variants seem to have interesting competition from Surface, but not at all from Android.
Re: Has the Android competition given up? (Score:2, Flamebait)
You're absolutely right. A month won't pass without Amazon, Samsung, or Lenovo announcing another toilet spec Android tablet. It used to be that Apple hardware used to be the most expensive, but these days a basic entry level iPad has MSRP just above 300, and sale prices regularly dip down to 250. At these prices iPads beat the competition spec-by-spec in all specs.
Only the Samsung Tab S series deliver very good Android tablet hardware, but it's a complete lunacy to set entry price for Tab S6 at 650. That's
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I'm very happy with my Samsung Tab A 10 inch. Decent enough specs and cheaper than any similar sized iPad. Plus you aren't limited by the restrictions of iOS. You can run emulators which really opens up the availability of games. Get a BlueTooth gamepad and it's almost better than having a switch.
I agree that once you get into the more expensive stuff that tablets aren't worth it. I would just buy a Surface if I wanted a really expensive tablet, as I wouldn't want to be held back by the operating system, wh
Re: Has the Android competition given up? (Score:1)
My wife raves about the large OLED display in her Galaxy Tab S. It was expensive. But there isn't any other tablet with it's display.
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That's the one thing I feel is missing from my Samsung Tab A. I have OLED on my phone, and I could never go back. It wasn't worth the price difference for me on the tablet. I'm not upgrading my TV until I can get OLED. I don't even care if it's 4K. The pure blacks of an OLED are just amazing.
The iPad has support for iPadOS ! (Score:2)
Re: The iPad has support for iPadOS ! (Score:2)
A brand new iPad indeed. Who would have thought.
Call me when it has USB-C. (Score:2)
At this point, I'm not going to buy any more Apple products that don't have USB-C. The writing has been on the wall for Lightning ever since the iPad Pro switched. Any Lightning-equipped iPad or iPhone you buy today has a high probability of being the last product in that family with Lightning. That's bad for anyone who buys the product, for three reasons:
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