\n Scott Stein\/CNET
\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nShould you wait? Maybe<\/h2>\n
Apple’s iPad lineup has been staggered lately: Base and Pro models arrive in the fall (sometimes) and the Air model comes in the spring (sometimes). Last spring’s iPad Air has slight improvements over this iPad, with an M1 chip, subtly better display and Pencil 2 support. But it doesn’t have this newly fixed front camera. The same thing happened last year when the entry-level iPad added Center Stage zoom while the iPad Air was left without it.<\/p>\n
The iPad Air costs $150 more and could be tempting. Apple keeps its upgrade increments just within reach, like sizes of popcorn at a movie theater. Suddenly, you’ll find yourself entering iPad Pro land, and a thousand dollar-plus package. Pull back and ask yourself: Will this model go on sale? Would you be happy with last year’s iPad instead? Would you rather see if something better for the Air comes next spring?<\/p>\n
The only thing that concerns me for future upgrades is that Apple’s leaning on its M1 chips as the cutoff for more advanced software features, although right now that mostly just means better external monitor support with Stage Manager, a feature that’s currently so buggy Apple’s delayed the release to later this year. I’d say you’re fine without the M1, especially since the A14 is more than good enough.<\/p>\n
Down the road, having an old Pencil and a sub-M1 chip could leave this iPad on the other side of the future. Then again, you’ll be saving money. Apple hasn’t made this iPad lineup easy this year. It feels like the iPad is a product still in transformation. Right now, its perfect form doesn’t exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wish life could be simple. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. When it comes to Apple’s iPad lineup, which used to have just one model called the “iPad” back in the day, picking which one to buy has become a strangely entangled process. Somewhere between every single model Apple offers is the perfect iPad, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":73723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3115],"tags":[3175,3229,3198,3177,3335,3167],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1800birks4u.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}