I think its going to hurt the Mac Book Pro and Mac Book Air people much worse. They focus on Geek Bench scores more highly than iPad owners.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad Pro Apple has just introduced Bionic A14 in iPad Air
- Thread starter Jára Tyky
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think its going to hurt the Mac Book Pro and Mac Book Air people much worse. They focus on Geek Bench scores more highly than iPad owners.
Then don't. Who the hell forces you??
The only value for the Pro is if you want more than 256GB storage or a bigger screen. A part of me would really like an iPad but I still much prefer the UI of Mac OS to iOS.
If you want better cpu/gpu, promotion, lower latency on the pencil, better camera, brighter display for hdr content, 128base storage instead of 64, faceid instead of touchid, better mic go with the pro
So yes, i dont see the value of the air since The price was Increased by 100
If only there were a site with some kind of buying recommendation, that would let you know where in the life cycle products are, and whether you should buy now or wait for future upgraded products that offer higher performance and/or lower prices.
That'd be a damn useful site.
FWIW, I bought a 12.9 2020 iPad Pro on June 19, and couldn't be less concerned that Apple has released something new.
We all knew the A12z was a placeholder, and the 2020 iPad Pro was a weird release, not offering the 2019 A13, or waiting for the Fall '20 A14.
If you're surprised or upset to see an A14 iPad in the Fall of 2020, given that the A12 iPads were launched in 2018, I don't know what to say, other than you maybe didn't do your research.
If having the latest A-series chip variant was at ALL important to you, why on EARTH would you buy an A12 device in the summer of 2020?
I don’t know why a 2020 iPad Pro user would be frustrated though, are they only buying their iPad for a A series chip?
Overall the 2020 iPad Pro is still the most feature packed iPad, but it seems some individuals were buying them for the wrong reasons.
if the new Air had a 120hz screen, FaceID, Dual Camera, LiDAR, Quad speakers and 6GB RAM then I would understand the frustration, but frustration over a chip when everything else is a downgrade?🙈🤣 I don’t get it.
Yeah I’ve been mentioning this a lot on people’s comment on Twitter as well.
Even many TechTubers seems to forget that A(x/z) series chipsets are more powerful (not necessarily faster) than the newer non (x/z), not to mention the more RAM capacities.
Yes the new Air is cheaper and it’s very reasonable to pick it rather than the older, more expensive Pro models for most people.
But the thinner bezel, 120hz display, quad speakers, studio microphone, more GPU cores and RAMs is more important to me as a creator that use my iPad as my main productivity rig.
The pro motion display surely makes better experience when I’m drawing, the more GPU cores and RAMs surely helps when I‘m doing heavy video editing on LumaFusion.
And I already bought and enjoy it. So I don’t feel any remorse.
Now it was different story when my iPad 3 was REPLACED by iPad 4 in the same year back in 2012.
Or when the latest iMac Pro is beaten by the latest iMac 2020.
But this is not the case for current iPad Pro and Air 4.
A strange complaint, since you spent 300 euros extra on things that have nothing to do with the Pro per se (cellular connectivity and/or more storage).
You should wait to see how A14 benchmarks against A12Z. The non-Z/non-X variants are traditionally a bit less powerful than the X/Z variants.
Max Tech on YouTube assume that Apple mentioned the A14 CPU is 40% better and GPU is 30% better than the previous model, is based on the previous iPad Air 3’s A12 performance, not the A12X/Z on the iPad Pros.
If that’s the case, Max Tech did the math and came out with these graphics:
*Looks like on the CPU chart the A14 graphic is off, but the number should be correct.
If that’s the case, Max Tech did the math and came out with these graphics:
*Looks like on the CPU chart the A14 graphic is off, but the number should be correct.
Last edited:
if those charts prove accurate, then the OP’s only reason to feel p***d is that the chip number has a 12 in it, rather than a 14!! 😂😂
Ask yourself if you NEED a new one every year? The current iPad Pro will meet the needs of the vast majority of users for many years. Wanting the latest and greatest is different than needing the latest and greatest, but it's always a never ending chase because the latest and greatest is going to be old technology within a year.
Those charts are for multicore and GPU which completely neglects single-core performance, which is the largest factor in user experience.
I can understand why 2020 Pro owners are annoyed, I certainly wasn’t expecting the Air to get USB-C and pencil 2 and more colour choices than the Pro (previously the Rose Gold was only on the Pros, iPhones and a MacBook.) If you are outside of a returns period and want the Air, you’ll never recover more money than selling the Pro while it is still the latest model.
Agree about the incremental update though - even when the form factor was the same bar the 9.7” becoming the 10.5, the chip went forward a generation. If it hadn’t been for 6GB only coming with 1TB in the 2018, I doubt the 2020 would have sold well at all.
Agree about the incremental update though - even when the form factor was the same bar the 9.7” becoming the 10.5, the chip went forward a generation. If it hadn’t been for 6GB only coming with 1TB in the 2018, I doubt the 2020 would have sold well at all.
I just ordered another iPad Pro 11” since I did a comparison on features. The comparison is essentially 7nm process on the A12Z vs a 5nm process on the A14. While I believe that the A14 will be faster than the A12Z at core computing, I believe it will lag behind in the graphics department. The slightly larger size of the iPad Air gives more thermal overhead for the chip which will improve it’s sustained performance. I think the biggest points on the Pro vs the Air are graphics processing, 120hz variable refresh, higher nits on display, Face ID, maximum storage size, and RAM. I feel that the Air is priced higher than it needs to be because people are going to flock to the new A14 processor. It’s a good way for Apple to take advantage and make money.
I don't think it's so much the A14 as it is the newer design at $200 less. In general, I find non-techies are less inclined to upgrade if the new devices look almost exactly the same as their old one.
True. Also, most people buying the Pros are likely techie enough to know that Mini LED and 5G will start on the Pros in the next year or so, the usual cycle length and the chip they were getting. When it was the iPad 3 / 4, an update wasn’t expected for almost half a year and it was the iPad 3 or the 2. It was going to catch the casual user and the techies, as even the casual purchaser could see that the screen looked a lot nicer for not much of a difference in price compared to the very different models and price points we see today.
Anyone else have any thoughts on why Apple delayed this iPad Pro until October? Do you think they plan on launching it alongside the iPhone or the day they announce the iPhone or do you think it’s not ready? From what we saw in the Keynote, they were still in the Apple Lab so maybe the iPad Air itself isn’t ready for mass production?
At this point, October seems very optimistic for the iPad Pro. Experts are now saying early 2021.
iPad Air units have already been manufactured if they are launching in October.
How can the Air not be ready for mass production if it comes out next month? Mass production doesn't happen a week or two before launch, you know. If it's going to be on sale in 2-6 weeks, it must have entered production well before they revealed it 2 days ago.
As for a new Pro in October, why would they not have revealed it at Tuesday's event?
For all those that purchased a Pro before the Air announcement — you made a good call. I was holding out to see what they would showcase, but I’m not seeing the benefit — if anything, the extra $200 for the Pro makes the Pro look like a much better value.
Also, upgrading every year isn’t such a bad thing — it works out to a “rent” of less than $1 per day if you trade it in.
Also, upgrading every year isn’t such a bad thing — it works out to a “rent” of less than $1 per day if you trade it in.
Sorry, what I meant to say was iPad Air, not iPad Pro. I do wish it was released a bit sooner but I guess with Covid many things were delayed, hopefully it comes out in early October but I feel like it’ll come out the day they announce the iPhone 12 but nobody really knows anything until it comes out.
It's funny how people complain that apple did put a SOC that (despite what some people say here) will indeed feel faster than the A12 A12X and A12Z (which by they way all feel the same in daily use... since they have the same single core performance and are multicore enough to not show much difference in daily use other than in benchmarks and video editing and a few other niche things...) Now imagine if Apple had updated the pro with A14X now, after 6 months, with 40% more power not just in single core but also in multi core...and maybe more RAM too, for the same price you paid last month, how much more pissed would you feel? It's all a matter of timing. The pro is still overall better (maybe not $200 better now though), but the new pro will indeed justify its price difference.... At this point buying the current pro is not the best bet and those buying over the next few months will complain when the new pro arrives for instance in March... (makes me think about the 2080ti drama....)