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All iPads So why is the Air 10.9” instead of 11”?

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bniu

macrumors 65816
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Mar 21, 2010
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So, I’m wondering as to what anyone thinks as to why the iPad Air is 10.9” instead of 11” when it occupies the same footprint as the 11” Pro?

Wouldn’t it be easier for Apple to keep using 11” displays, especially since the 11” display also has the same horizontal pixels as the 10.5” iPad Pro/Air (1668 wide). It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to have to support another resolution of 2360x1640 when 2388x1688 was already available and on the same width as 2224x1668?
 
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On other thread, many assumed purely for product positioning purpose.
To make the Air less premium then the Pro. No hardware consideration involved.

Manufactures often do this nowadays.
Apple do this before on the iPhone XR (although it was using LCD panel instead of OLED)
Samsung make their newly released Galaxy S20 FE front camera with annoying silver outer ring to differentiate it from the regular more premium S20 with more seamless front camera black ring.
 
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Since nobody knows we can only speculate. I guess the Ait display was a bit cheaper overall.
 
marketing. Apple wanted two different price points so they artificially created unnecessary price differentiators to make one product look like two.

What’s sad is it probably costs Apple MORE money to remove specs and maintain a 2nd line of the same product than to simply keep the entire 11” line standard.
 
snipr125 said:
Apple purposely shaved off 0.1" off the screen size on the Air 4, to make the Ipad Pro 11 look superior and to not cannibilise its sales. Like you said it would have been easier to just use the same 11" panel.
Click to expand...

I don’t buy that explanation because the 11” Pro doesn’t really look any more premium. Most people won’t even notice the slight difference in bezel thickness unless they are studying the devices side by side. Why would this be the factor that prevents cannibalization of the Pro? Who’s going to be like, “I don’t mind less RAM, lower refresh rate, and fewer speakers, but nearly imperceptibly larger bezels ruins the Air for me!”?

In all likelihood, they needed a little more space for the TouchID and wanted the bezels to be uniform around the device, so they became slightly thicker on all sides.
 
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Probably Manufacturing Yield ... for some UN-known reason, it appears the extra size has reduced Yield, which translates into added cost for the ones that Pass whatever Tests they use.

The ones that don't Pass the test are ALSO included in the cost equation.
 
The LCD panels are different on the Air and Pro, right? Worse viewing angles and light bleed on the Air.
 
snipr125 said:
Apple purposely shaved off 0.1" off the screen size on the Air 4, to make the Ipad Pro 11 look superior and to not cannibilise its sales. Like you said it would have been easier to just use the same 11" panel.
Click to expand...
I don’t disagree with the reasoning, but if they used the 11” panel from the Pro that would have meant the Air gets ProMotion which seems to be one of the key up-sell differences between the models. At least until Mini LED comes to the Pro they need some differences if they aren’t to collapse 11” Pro sales.
 
It does genuinely seem apple did it just to make it look less premium than the pro which is pretty lame if true. People says its imperceptible. I disagree. It looks like an iPad 2 with the bezel all the way round. That 0.1 actually makes a difference.
 
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So to clarify, what can’t the new air achieve that the pro can? I.e. are there any software restrictions on the air?
 
Janeilfen said:
So to clarify, what can’t the new air achieve that the pro can? I.e. are there any software restrictions on the air?
Click to expand...
Nothing. One could even argue that there havent been any software restrictions on ANY iPad from the last 5 years. There isnt a single thing I can do on my Pro11 (2020) that I can't do on my Pro9.7 (2015). I like Pro11 better but an iPad is an iPad is an iPad. As much as people nitpick and gloat over benchmarks, the iPad as a platform has been pretty stagnant and ignored for years.
 
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Seanm87 said:
It does genuinely seem apple did it just to make it look less premium than the pro which is pretty lame if true. People says its imperceptible. I disagree. It looks like an iPad 2 with the bezel all the way round. That 0.1 actually makes a difference.
Click to expand...
It's not even like it's 0.1" all the way around, it's 0.1" from the entire surface area of the display! Has anyone actually measured just the bezel thickness? It's probably only a matter of millimeters. I think you're exaggerating a little.
 
joeblow7777 said:
I don’t buy that explanation because the 11” Pro doesn’t really look any more premium. Most people won’t even notice the slight difference in bezel thickness unless they are studying the devices side by side. Why would this be the factor that prevents cannibalization of the Pro? Who’s going to be like, “I don’t mind less RAM, lower refresh rate, and fewer speakers, but nearly imperceptibly larger bezels ruins the Air for me!”?

In all likelihood, they needed a little more space for the TouchID and wanted the bezels to be uniform around the device, so they became slightly thicker on all sides.
Click to expand...

I’d go for the Air 4 if I’m in the market to buy an iPad now for lower pricing and newer SoC.
But I’m one of those guy who realized the slightly larger bezel and thicker body even from watching the online Air 4 event. And I think that is looking less cool than my iPad Pro 2020.
You and more people might be right (about the hardware design necessity on this matter) and unaffected by this aesthetic visual (if they do this purely for that), but I’m sure there’s more like me too.

Seeing the example like I mentioned on my previous post above, I’m sure Apple and Samsung already survey about this psychological product perception. Because I’m seeing this trend on their product line up.
 
macdogpro said:
I’d go for the Air 4 if I’m in the market to buy an iPad now for lower pricing and newer SoC.
But I’m one of those guy who realized the slightly larger bezel and thicker body even from watching the online Air 4 event. And I think that is looking less cool than my iPad Pro 2020.
You and more people might be right (about the hardware design necessity on this matter) and unaffected by this aesthetic visual (if they do this purely for that), but I’m sure there’s more like me too.

Seeing the example like I mentioned on my previous post above, I’m sure Apple and Samsung already survey about this psychological product perception. Because I’m seeing this trend on their product line up.
Click to expand...
For sure. I don't doubt that there are people who will pick up on even minor aesthetic differences, but I think that they're far from the majority of consumers. I sure that for the most consumers you could hand them an Air 4, say it's a Pro, and they wouldn't know the difference.
 
joeblow7777 said:
It's not even like it's 0.1" all the way around, it's 0.1" from the entire surface area of the display! Has anyone actually measured just the bezel thickness? It's probably only a matter of millimeters. I think you're exaggerating a little.
Click to expand...

I don’t get what you mean but yes I was definitely exaggerating. I’m sure for most people its fine. Just not for me.
 
Seanm87 said:
I don’t get what you mean but yes I was definitely exaggerating. I’m sure for most people its fine. Just not for me.
Click to expand...
I just meant that it’s not like the bezel is actually 0.1 inch thicker. The entire surface area of the display is 0.1 inch less. That means that the bezel thickness on any side is only actually millimeters more at most.
 
We'll probably never know the answer, but we do know that Touch ID takes up some room and that the Air screen is different. I suspect that for whatever reason, Apple couldn't get the manufacturing yield it wanted at 11" with the screen it wanted to use. It's unlikely in my view that this was done for market segmentation reasons, since Apple was very willing to let the Air beat the Pro (significantly) on single-core processing speed, offered the Air in more color options, etc.
 
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joeblow7777 said:
I just meant that it’s not like the bezel is actually 0.1 inch thicker. The entire surface area of the display is 0.1 inch less. That means that the bezel thickness on any side is only actually millimeters more at most.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it’s clearly discernible. Not that it makes any difference in terms of operations. Aesthetically, the slimmer bezels look more modern, or perhaps I should say, futuristic.

For most people though, the deciding fact is very likely price and, to a lesser extent, storage capacity.
 
I'm OCD about bezel thickness and I went with the Air, regardless.
Yes, the Pro's are thinner and wished the Air had the same thickness.

I'll just get use to it, just as people have gotten use to the notch on the iPhone.
Frankly bezel could be significantly thinner across the board on every one of their products.

But I've resigned to the fact that Apple treats bezels as a marketing feature.
So I expect bezels to be thinner every year until they're completely gone by 2026. 😆
 
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