Apple announced the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, but previous versions of the popular tablet will still be available for sale. The first-generation iPad mini, which is now two generations old, will start at $249 while the newer iPad mini 2 will be available for $50 more at $299. The new iPad mini 3 will come in at $399.
The original iPad air will also still be available coming in at the same price as the iPad mini 3, $399, for the base model. The iPad Air 2 will go for $499.
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This is starting to make me seriously question Apple’s direction.
They seriously kept the antiquated A5 processor in their lineup for ANOTHER year? This processor is having trouble running iOS8 up to par, will it be able to run iOS9 at all? What about iOS10?
Someone at Apple needs to wake up and stop holding onto the old for so dang long. The A5 should have been gone over a year ago. And that isn’t even getting into their keeping the anemic 16GB size, which the abysmal iOS8 adoption numbers should have shown them is a problem.
Here is hoping someone gets a reality check at Apple for next year and they finally kill the A5 processor and the absurdly small 16GB storage size.
Of course, they will be catching flack for a couple of years over this bad decision today.
Judging from the fact that they seem to totally ignore feedback, they probably won’t get the reality check that is needed. It’s fine to keep the last model around. They seem to work well. Keeping the two year old first gen iPad mini on sale shows that they must be totally unaware of how lousy it runs iOS 8. I wish I could downgrade, but Apple blacklisted iOS 7 so it will fail to verify if I try.
I agree. And to not even update the mini at ALL!
FU!
The first gen iPad mini runs like crap on iOS 8. I certainly hope that iOS 8.1 will fix that. Otherwise, Apple is being very irresponsible selling them with iOS 8 installed.
Why on earth are they keeping iPad mini 2 on sale? It’s spec for spec EXACTLY the same as the iPad mini 3 except for TouchID. It’s like they don’t want us to purchase the new one at all.
Perhaps iPad mini 3 is the “iPad 3” of the mini size. In other words a clunky “non-update” that will be replaced mid-year with something actually worthwhile.
And what’s with using images in the presentation that show iPad Air *without* a rotation lock button, and then not even mentioning one way or the other if it’s staying around. I mean not once did he even mention it, and then he shows a giant image with the button missing?
WTF? Is it there or not? If you’ve removed it, why not at least f*cking mention the fact. A lot of images on the store show it as missing as well, but they show it as still there on the mini.
I doubt that people will still be interested in the iPad Air when the iPad Air 2 with a A8X processor is available. Also, the camera on the iPad Air 2 is much better: http://versus.com/en/apple-ipad-air-2-vs-apple-ipad-air
Curious to hear details about the battery – is the battery life much improved?
The 16gb size is fine, particularly if you were getting it for young kids or older users, but the A5 chip is abysmal