I seem to have grown a closeness with all gadgets Air. After recently buying a MacBook Air, I gifted myself an iPad Air for my birthday recently.
The iPad Air is a beautiful device and I picked the white bezel (my first white device) based on my usage: I read more, and the walls in my house are white. Jokes apart, reading with a white bezel, in spite of the black vertical strip outlining the screen (which bothers some people), is simply a much better experience than a black screen.
The white/silver looks gorgeous and blends well with my MacBook Air.
With its diamond-cut, silver chamfered edge, the white iPad glints under sunlight. This might gather some unwanted attention, which is something I like to avoid, but it also adds a taste of elegance to the device. Alongside the fact that the device is so light to hold, its new shaped back makes holding much easier than the older iPads (which was one reason I never bought an iPad before — its slim edge and fat centre made its thinness look gimmicky).
As far as hardware goes, I have absolutely no problem. The device is lovely, it has volume buttons instead of a rocker and, thankfully, silver buttons on the silver iPad Air rather than black, like on older models. I have no qualms with the lack of Touch ID (it never gained my interest anyway) and I am not a big fan of high pixel density screens (not that I do not like them, just that I have no complaints with low densities like the 1366×768 on my Windows laptop).
Perhaps this is also because my phone is the GALAXY Note 3, which comes with Samsung’s unrivalled SuperAMOLED screen which Apple has been trying to match. The iPad comes close, but nothing delivers blacks like Samsung’s famous screens. This is not a problem to me, however, because documents have white backgrounds and under the right circumstances (indoors, no backlights — the iPad Air has a mirror of a screen!) the blacks are more than good enough.
Perhaps Apple should just go back to Samsung for its screens. Mind you, the screen is far better than anybody would need it to be, even if that anybody works in the digital visual arts field.
In all honesty, I never thought I would play a single game on my iPad, but I ended up downloading four and they all look stunning on the 9.7″ screen. Coming from an excellent, albeit old, 7″ tablet I found the 9.7″ display a pleasure. It was also one of the reasons I steered clear of the iPad mini — I have a 7″ tablet and a 5.7″ phone, so the only device that made sense was a 9.7″ tablet.
Moving on to a few problems I found — the stereo speakers are loud and effective, especially when held vertically, but when held horizontally like it should be when, say, watching videos or playing games, the speaker blows sideways, away from your ear: a curious, almost questionable, design choice.
Most of my problems are with the software, however. I have stated on multiple occasions, even as a big Android supporter, that Apple’s tablet ecosystem is far superior to Android’s, which seems like a large phone. But iPad apps clearly utilise the large screen real-estate better and in a different layout that is often extremely effective and in all cases, well thought out.
iWork and iLife apps synchronise seamlessly between the Air and the… Air; and I only expect brilliant improvements once Handoff and the continuity concept arrive later this year with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.
But this is exactly where my problem begins: coming from Android (and maybe spoilt with its freedom!) it surprises me that the iPad cannot do something as simple as file transfers via Bluetooth or even carry a file manager, which means you feed files to apps or you do not carry those files at all. I picked the 32GB model and with my 5GB free data per month, I have no problems pulling from the cloud as the need arises, but there is no downloads area to retrieve those files either.
In short, the iPad is a remarkable device and the iPad Air, in particular, is simply a pleasure to carry around and use, so long as you are invested in Apple devices. Unlike Android which becomes what you want it to be, the iPad is restrictive, yet flexible where you really need it to be.
Some may say that is what counts, but having been used to Android, I found the inability to use my tablet as a file dump yard somewhat restrictive. But, on the plus side, it forced me to use my iPad for what it was: a tablet computer that enables you to get things done (not magically, you still need to put in effort) rather than a large storage device.
One thing I liked with older iPads was the evenly large bezel on all sides, and when I noticed it was shrunk on two sides like an Android tablet, I had almost bought the iPad 4 (or whatever Apple finally decided to call it). But, having used the iPad Air all these days, I can vouch for its uncannily smart thumb detection that lets you grip a part of the screen and yet correctly disregards the touches registered in that area.
I know not everyone will use their iPad Air to make photographs, but when it is all you have with you… I decided to make some sample photographs around my backyard just to see how the iPad Air does. It carries a 5MP camera which Apple kept from the older iPhone for some reason. Here are some samples, untouched:
Lastly, to check the latitude the photograph jpgs would allow, I made one with minor post processing (contrast, saturation and temperature only).
For those who are interested, I will probably also make a quick film with my iPad and update this article later.
I have few closing thoughts because this article does a pretty good job of summarising them. I held myself from rambling on, really, and had three things to touch: superior almuninim casing hardware and feels sturdy and looks great; the great processor and smooth OS supported by a large (exclusive) app selection; and, somewhat unfortunately, the manner in which the OS works as badly with other OSes as it does seamlessly within an Apple environment.
So far I have loved my iPad and have few complaints. I bought the leather case with the magnetic auto-lock feature along with my device, which, although supremely expensive, was the only one that truly blended with the Air as I saw it, mostly because of the striking attention to detail — the holes cut for speakers than alight exactly with the hardware, for instance.
It is steady enough for everyday use, although I would have liked to see the same inclination when put up as a stand but with the older four-fold design. The leather itself gets a nice, soft sheen over use, which is the sign of good leather, of course. I am occasionally tempted to remove my iPad Air form its case and use it straightaway, but given my history with spilling stuff and my infamous butter fingers, I would rather have it in a nice little case.
So long.
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