When it comes to tablets, Apple is still the company to beat. It has been heavily overtaken for phone sales by Android (though not necessarily by individual manufacturers) and it no longer has a monopoly of tablet sales, but the iPad remains the premium tablet experience.
So can the latest manifestation, revealed last week by Apple execs in Cupertino, keep the company ahead? Or is the iPad Air 2 guilty of the fault Apple's often accused of - that the next model is a gentle improvement on the last, and hardly worth the upgrade?
Tablets are different from phones which, because they mostly come with a two-year contract that subsidises the upfront price, have the aspiration to the next model built in. But most iPads are sold without contract. This means the price is important. Because the iPad has no subsidy, it seems like more of a big-ticket item than the iPhone, though it's actually cheaper. The iPad Air 2 prices start from £399, and £499 with cellular connectivity, while the cheapest iPhone 6 is £539.
The contract-free element also means there's no need to upgrade every time a new model comes out. An iPad can be for three or four years (not just for Christmas). Crucial, then, that the new machine has enough new to win you over.
The Good
- Thinner than ever
- Turbo powered processor
- Touch ID
The Bad
- Hardware mute button missing
- Not enough upgrades?
- Some will want new design
Review Index
Design
Well, the iPad Air 2 is the slimmest, lightest tablet Apple has made. At 6.1mm thick, the company says it's the world's slimmest, though don't expect that to be true for long. Despite this, it's solid and flex-free in the hand: it doesn't feel like it's going to break (or even bend).
And it feels just great in the hand - noticeably slimmer than last year's model, though you have to feel both of them together to notice the 30g shaved off the weight. How much slimmer than this it can go is anyone's guess, but for now this is a really effective size and shape.
The design, apart from the thinner back casing, is near-identical. Some will have been hoping that the connection between iPhone and iPad was complete with the addition of the curved-edges to the display on the iPhone 6. But the truth is there's no need here - those soft curves work best when you're holding the phone to your ear and you won't be doing that with an iPad. Or if you are, you're doing it wrong.
The Home button now comes with a telltale ring round it which reveals it has Touch ID. Apple's superbly executed fingerprint recognition is reliable and easy to use; some rivals make you swipe the sensor to activate it but here you just rest your digit in place. If you've had an iPhone 5s or 6 you may have caught yourself trying to unlock your iPad by touching the home button, only to realise the Touch ID tech wasn't there. Now it is.
The only other real design change this time around is the removal of the hardware switch on the right edge of the iPad, next to the volume control. This switch was configurable to work as a mute switch, similar to the one on the iPhone, or as a rotation lock. Since the arrival of Control Centre on iOS 7, the need for this switch was reduced, as either mute and rotation lock could be quickly accessed by swiping up on the screen.
Now, both are in Control Centre and the side switch is gone. It makes for a neater, smoother frame, but we miss it. Perhaps this grief will pass. Otherwise, things are much as they were last year, including the thin bezel on the long sides of the iPad. Most tablets go for big frames so you don't accidentally interfere with the touchscreen by resting your thumb on it.
Gold is a new colour on offer
Apple sorted this with a fiendishly clever technology called Thumb Rejection, introduced with the first iPad mini, which is software clever enough to know when to ignore a touch at the edge of the display.
Hardware
While the iPad looks largely unchanged on the outside, the processor inside has been radically upgraded. The A7 chip found in last year's tablets and iPhone 5s has been replaced by an optimised version of the A8 processor found in the iPhone 6. Here, it's called the A8X and is very fast.
Specs may be higher on rival phones or tablets but this processor not only makes the iPad Air 2 run smoothly and fast but also allows for much heavier demands to be made in due course as developers come up with apps to make the most of it.
There's no NFC chip in the iPad Air 2, as there is in the iPhone 6. This is deliberate because Apple Pay - the contactless payment system which has just gone live in the US and follows here in the future - is designed to work on the iPad Air 2 only with online payments. After all, do you really want to slog round the shops with your iPad as a virtual purse?
The Retina display on the iPad Air 2 has not been upgraded to what's now called Retina HD display on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Instead, it's been slimmed down to make the tablet thinner. Perhaps Apple should have called it Retina Size Zero.
The three elements that make the screen: the LCD, cover glass and touch layer have been fused together into one piece, thus removing air gaps and making it feel like your finger is actually making contact with the pixels beneath.
And the addition of an anti-reflective coating has reduced the glare on the screen. Hold the old and new iPads side by side and the difference is noticeable. It makes it easier to read in all lighting conditions but thankfully still leaves the screen looking glossy.
Anti glare coating is handy
It's worth mentioning the Apple sim. All cellular-capable iPads will have a sim card installed which is platform-agnostic. It can be switched from one network to another by software. This will be a big deal if you travel, offering you available local rates when you step off the plane.
As Apple says on its website, the sim offers "the flexibility to choose from a variety of short-term plans from select carriers in the US and UK right on your iPad… and when you travel, you may also be able to choose a data plan from a local carrier for the duration of your trip".
Camera
The newly glare-reduced 9.7-inch Retina display is perfect for viewing photos and, Apple says, shooting them, too. A flat, large slab of glass isn't as easy to hold as a dedicated compact, and a tablet can never match the ergonomics of a DSLR. Even so, this is a gadget you're likely to have with you a lot of the time, especially as the Air 2 is so light.
So no wonder Apple has upgraded the camera on the tablet. Apple's cameras have rarely boasted the highest-resolution sensors available, but they have nonetheless delivered exceptional results with the simplest, most accessible interface around. Here, the rear camera has a new sensor, with eight-megapixel resolution.
New features have been introduced, such as burst mode to go alongside panorama shots, HDR and a wide f/2.4 aperture. Video recording now has time-lapse video - though this will be available on all earlier iPads, too. Unique among iPads to this one is the introduction of slo-mo, something which has worked well on the iPhone 5s.
The front-facing camera is said to be better in lower light and certainly it's not bad for selfies. That's down to the improved sensor with larger pixels than before. Video calls look good.
Buttons have been moved around
This is a competent camera that comes up with great shots. There's no 4K video as some rivals offer and you are still using a tablet. But if you must, this takes better photos than most.
User experience and apps
The new iOS 8 works beautifully on the iPad where the extra real estate makes features sing. Of course, Mac and iPad are becoming more entwined, with AirDrop now working cross-platform so it's a breeze to transfer files between the two - no more emailing images from one to the other even when they're in the same room.
And the slick OS makes for a sublime user experience on the iPad, helped along by that processor's speedy performance.
Entertainment
And that A8X chip could transform gaming. The graphics capabilities are promised to be 2.5 times that of the iPad Air.
Expect lots of titles to go big on fast, incredibly detailed images with every leaf animated separately or each character possessing more moving material on its chest than Disney used to manage in a whole movie.
Verdict
The question with the iPad Air 2 is not 'Should you upgrade?' so much as 'Are you ready for your next tablet?'
If you are, this is - by a long chalk - the best one around, matching superb hardware with Apple's user interface, unbeaten in intuitive usability and the best range of apps.
Some will wish there was more of an increase in features and power. The truth is, last year's iPad Air was such a leap forward that the addition of the items it lacked (Touch ID, gold finish option) could have been enough. But it's so much better than that.
If you have the iPad Air, you'll still appreciate the slimmer profile and lighter weight, though it's Touch ID and the madly powerful processor which will appeal the most. If you have any other iPad, trading up is a no-brainer.
The cost is the same as last year but offers a lot more, especially if you plump for the higher-capacity models (64GB and 128GB), which have dropped in price markedly.