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iPad Air

C

Crazymoogle

Member
Nemic77 said:
Would you say an iPad is worth getting for sketching/design related work? I've tried some iPads at stores which had Paper App installed and found some of the touch stroke interesting.

Was just wondering if anyone who works in design or related areas finds the iPad handy in their day to day routine.
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Some people like it, but capacitive screens can't use a traditional stylus (well, they can, but the tip must be fairly thick; pencil points don't work). So to me it is a fun little finger painting tool but I would far rather have a device using a traditional stylus.
 
S

solarus

Member
Nemic77 said:
Would you say an iPad is worth getting for sketching/design related work? I've tried some iPads at stores which had Paper App installed and found some of the touch stroke interesting.

Was just wondering if anyone who works in design or related areas finds the iPad handy in their day to day routine.
Click to expand...
If you want to draw, etc than the ipad is not cut out for it tbh, you want a tablet with a real stylus and pressure sensitivity, I'm hoping that the inevitable ipad pro will have these features.
 
N

Nemic77

Member
Crazymoogle said:
Some people like it, but capacitive screens can't use a traditional stylus (well, they can, but the tip must be fairly thick; pencil points don't work). So to me it is a fun little finger painting tool but I would far rather have a device using a traditional stylus.
Click to expand...

solarus said:
If you want to draw, etc than the ipad is not cut out for it tbh, you want a tablet with a real stylus and pressure sensitivity, I'm hoping that the inevitable ipad pro will have these features.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.

I was mostly looking for that feature as a quick sketch option, an alternative to pen and paper, nothing serious... Nothing that would substitute my graphic tablet.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
LCfiner said:
they’re pretty different experiences, imo. the Macbook is a traditional computer with mousing pointer, hardware keyboard, etc. The iPad is more book-like or magazine-like and it feels different to use with your fingers. It’s also easier to hold and carry around and share with other people, but with (often discussed) limitations compared to the Mac.

I will say the new Macbooks Airs with 9-12 hour battery life take away one of the ipad’s greatest strengths. when the Air only got 5 to 7 hours, the iPad’s battery life was a bigger differentiator.
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You definitely still need a 'proper' computer for some tasks, but the iPad has allowed me to do most of my portable tasks like email, web browsing etc. this allowed me to switch back to a desktop PC which doubles up for gaming too
 
F

flashburn2012

Member
Any idea how often promo codes come around for Marvel Unlimited access? I want to buy an Air to replace my iPad2, and thought it'd be cool to read comics on.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Nemic77 said:
Thanks for the info.

I was mostly looking for that feature as a quick sketch option, an alternative to pen and paper, nothing serious... Nothing that would substitute my graphic tablet.
Click to expand...

Apps like Paper are great in terms of offering cool brushes; you can finger paint some pretty interesting stuff. But the only stylus pens you can buy for capacitive screens are basically about as blunt as a thick, rounded piece of chalk (so roughly no better than a finger). You can sketch out things, but nothing thin and I'd argue any sort of handwriting is not going to happen in an intelligible form.

Also, older devices would lag with lots of fast movement - you'd see what you draw sort of come in a second behind - but that may have been solved with new processors. Not sure.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
flashburn2012 said:
Any idea how often promo codes come around for Marvel Unlimited access? I want to buy an Air to replace my iPad2, and thought it'd be cool to read comics on.
Click to expand...

Can't answer the marvel bit but tablets are amazing for comics. I read manga all the time on mine and Comixology is basically the Coca-Cola of american comics apps.
 
R

Revengeance

Member
mrklaw said:
You definitely still need a 'proper' computer for some tasks, but the iPad has allowed me to do most of my portable tasks like email, web browsing etc. this allowed me to switch back to a desktop PC which doubles up for gaming too
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have a really nice gaming desktop. If I get an iPad, it'll probably replace my macbook. Guess I'm ok with that. Gonna check out the retina mini before I go buying anything.
 
F

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
Revengeance said:
Anybody here own both a MacBook Air and iPad? Checked out the iPad Air at the Apple store and fell in love. Having trouble justifying the purchase to myself, despite how sexy it is. The MacBook seems to fulfill the same purpose.
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I have an Air (that I use at work and at home), an iPad and a gaming desktop with Windows and they all fill different purposes. Nothing beats the iPad for media consumption but then it falls back on your personal usage of the Air and if you consume a lot of digital media. If I only used the Air at home maybe I'd feel differently about having both devices, but as it stands I can't for the life of me go back to reading digital manga/comics/books on a computer. Even longer articles. I also love it for watching TV series since most of them don't require a bigger screen for a good experience.
 
K

kaskade

Member
I held one of these today and it feels amazing. That seems to be the perfect weight, makes it so much more comfortable to hold the bigger screen.
 
F

flashburn2012

Member
Crazymoogle said:
Can't answer the marvel bit but tablets are amazing for comics. I read manga all the time on mine and Comixology is basically the Coca-Cola of american comics apps.
Click to expand...

That's cool, I'll have to try out the Comixology app, but I'm not super into the idea of buying single issues, as I'm just a casual reader. I like the idea of randomly jumping around different comics, with the possibility of reading entire arcs.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
flashburn2012 said:
That's cool, I'll have to try out the Comixology app, but I'm not super into the idea of buying single issues, as I'm just a casual reader. I like the idea of randomly jumping around different comics, with the possibility of reading entire arcs.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Ah, not paying piecemeal, gotcha.
 
E

EnVy_CaLiBeR

Member
Revengeance said:
Anybody here own both a MacBook Air and iPad? Checked out the iPad Air at the Apple store and fell in love. Having trouble justifying the purchase to myself, despite how sexy it is. The MacBook seems to fulfill the same purpose.
Click to expand...

I owned an iPad 2 (gave it to my Mom) and I have a Macbook. One thing I instantly missed about my iPad was the fact that it worked as my computer when I wasn't near my actual computer. If I wasn't typing up a paper or working with Adobe Suite, I rarely used my laptop because the iPad was more than efficient for everything else. My mom says the same thing. Ever since I gave her my iPad, she rarely ever opens her laptop.

The Macbook or any laptop in general can obviously do anything the iPad can do and more but the iPad can do just about any basic task (surfing the web, watching videos, email, etc) as good as laptop can do it on top of being far more portable. The iPad is without a doubt a luxury but it's one that I've grown to appreciate which is why I cant wait to get my hands back on one (got the notification today that it has shipped!).
 
1

123rl

Member
Battery life is in Beast mode on the iPad Air. I'm currently on 12 hours and 5 standby and I have 9% left. This includes a lot of gaming and Netflix too
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
kaskade said:
I held one of these today and it feels amazing. That seems to be the perfect weight, makes it so much more comfortable to hold the bigger screen.
Click to expand...

I've started going nude with my air. With my iPad 3 I always just folded my Smart Cover behind, but left it attached. But the air feels so good on its own, I'm pulling the cover off and using it naked.
 
T

TheDrowningMan

Member
mrklaw said:
I've started going nude with my air. With my iPad 3 I always just folded my Smart Cover behind, but left it attached. But the air feels so good on its own, I'm pulling the cover off and using it naked.
Click to expand...

Yeah, doing the same, which I also did with my mini. The cover is on whenever it's not in use / I want to use it as a stand, but when I'm holding it, it's to one side. As for a chunkier case, even the Smart Case, I cannot imagine ever wanting to use the device while it's in it.
 
D

Diablohead

Member
123rl said:
Battery life is in Beast mode on the iPad Air. I'm currently on 12 hours and 5 standby and I have 9% left. This includes a lot of gaming and Netflix too
Click to expand...

Auto brightness or do you set it to something? my iPad 3 can get rather good video time and I usually keep brightness around 30-40% indoors, 0% on the slider when watching video before sleeping.
 
R

Red

Member
Max bid on my iPad 3 at this point has been $360... as soon as the Air released prices on used iPads dropped about $100. Was hoping it would hold its value a little more. Might have to skip the upgrade this round. Reading this thread though, man, the envy.
 
E

Espresso

Banned
iPad 3's now two generations behind the current model. $360's not bad. eBay/PayPal fees are what will kill your return.

If a friend of yours is military, AAFES is selling Airs for $399 (16GB).
 
dream

dream

Member
TheDrowningMan said:
Yeah, doing the same, which I also did with my mini. The cover is on whenever it's not in use / I want to use it as a stand, but when I'm holding it, it's to one side. As for a chunkier case, even the Smart Case, I cannot imagine ever wanting to use the device while it's in it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I picked up a Smart Case with my Air and the whole package felt almost as heavy as The New iPad. I ended up returning it and grabbing a Smart Cover instead.
 
C

chickdigger802

Banned
problem with not having anything on the back could lead to scruffiness.

Best to go halfway. get a smart cover and some kind of screenprotector thing for the back. I tend to like the carbonfiber/fauxleather ones.
 
1

123rl

Member
Diablohead said:
Auto brightness or do you set it to something? my iPad 3 can get rather good video time and I usually keep brightness around 30-40% indoors, 0% on the slider when watching video before sleeping.
Click to expand...

It's on auto brightness. I used it mainly at night with the lights on so the backlight was probably on 40-75%. Wifi was on the whole time and I even did about 45 minutes of streaming music via Bluetooth in that time.

A part of me wishes the iPad Air was a bit thicker to accommodate an even bigger battery. An iPad 4-sized battery would give something like 16-20 hours usage and a week of standby time. It's amazing though that the iPad Air has such an incredible battery time yet is so slim and light. I can't wait to see this kind of improvement in the iPhone
 
V

Vyer

Member
123rl said:
It's on auto brightness. I used it mainly at night with the lights on so the backlight was probably on 40-75%. Wifi was on the whole time and I even did about 45 minutes of streaming music via Bluetooth in that time.

A part of me wishes the iPad Air was a bit thicker to accommodate an even bigger battery. An iPad 4-sized battery would give something like 16-20 hours usage and a week of standby time. It's amazing though that the iPad Air has such an incredible battery time yet is so slim and light. I can't wait to see this kind of improvement in the iPhone
Click to expand...

Did you do a lot of web browsing? And what games are you playing? Not seeing that kind of battery myself.
 
Ð

ЯAW

Banned
I'm trying to download my free Pages but for some reason the machine tells me I can only download it via Wi-Fi connection. Why is this? Why can't I download it via 3/4G?
 
NYR

NYR

Member
ЯAW;89373238 said:
I'm trying to download my free Pages but for some reason the machine tells me I can only download it via Wi-Fi connection. Why is this? Why can't I download it via 3/4G?
Click to expand...

Too big of a file. 3G/4G has a 100 MB download limit/max in the app store.
 
S

Sean

Banned
ЯAW;89373397 said:
Well, thats a silly restriction :/
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Yep it's pretty lame. But it's actually way more generous than it used to be, I think it was restricted to just 20mb before.
 
Ð

ЯAW

Banned
Sean said:
Yep it's pretty lame. But it's actually way more generous than it used to be, I think it was restricted to just 20mb before.
Click to expand...

Might be. This is probably first time I try to download something while on the road. At home or at work, I usually use Wi-Fi, so this is my first time noticing any kind of restrictions. I wonder what's the point of this kind of limit. Maybe it's targeted at US/Canadian markets where the data caps seems to be norm instead of exception.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Previous cap was 50. 20 before that. And it's basically to appease providers who are afraid you'll burn all their data bandwidth for nothing.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Crazymoogle said:
Previous cap was 50. 20 before that. And it's basically to appease providers who are afraid you'll burn all their data bandwidth for nothing.
Click to expand...
And unless data caps vanish (which will take a few more jumps in mobile internet first I suspect) you'd kind of want a warning at a minimum anyway. Who'd want to accidentally download a game whose very size destroys your bandwidth limit, just because you wanted it waiting for you at home?
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I wish it could detect a metered wifi connection - eg when I occasionally use my phone to make a wifi hotspot. But it doesn't, so it'll happily wifi sync with my mac and download hundreds of megs of podcasts
 
G

GreatMightySymp

Member
Played a bit with mine last night, battery life is great so far.

Noticed an issue with the smart case where the left ends of the cover don't fall flush with the case, but it's probably just the leather needing to form itself to the iPad or something.

I miss the four-fold cover, I can't wrap it up into a single fold while using it like I did with my "phat" iPad.
 
D

Deadstar

Member
For anyone who wants to get their ipad air running in beast mode, let the battery drain all the way then recharge it (to where it turns off automatically). I think someone here recommended doing this. I did this last night and it hasn't dropped from 100% in standby where before it was dropping slowly. I even did some browsing and it hasn't dropped from 100. Battery life seems much improved so far. Will have to see how it goes. I've got the brightness set to about 50%.
 
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