What is going on everyone? Mike here and today we're talking about iPadOS.
Now there is a lot of excitement in the marketplace around iPadOS and all
the features that it's going to introduce once Apple releases it later
this fall. We're getting a brand new home screen with denser app layout.
We're getting desktop class browsing, app, slide over, split view, app expose,
and finally I mean finally we are getting file management on the iPad.
As someone who loves their I've had the general trend I've seen is that
people who are most excited about iPadOS tend to be really people who are
fully invested in the ecosystem already and they're using a brand new iPad.
You know, something like the iPad Air 3 maybe even the iPad mini 5 or even
the iPad Pro. But really not everyone can afford to drop five, six,
or seven hundred dollars on a new iPad and really kind of what's the experience
like for someone who has an older iPad and decides to upgrade iPadOS?
Well that is exactly what we're talking about in today's video. I'm going
to upgrade my five year old iPad Air 2 to the public beta to find out really
kind one, is it usable and two, I'm going to run usability tests with how
I use the iPad to see if five-year old iPad Air 2 really can still function
as expected when iPadOS is released later in September.
Now I am Mike and this is tech 24/7 TV. Thumbs if you like this type of
content and sub if you want to see more iPhone and iPad related videos.
Let's get started.
Now if you are anything like me, you depend on your iPad to pull its fair
share of weight when it comes to computing. Outside of some heavy editing
that I use my 2019 MacBook Pro, the 2018.
iPad Pro has really been my primary computing device accounting for about
80 to 90 percent of my computing tasks. Now that means my everyday usage
is really give me a mix of web browsing in Safari, spending time in social
media apps like Twitter Facebook writing and editing Word documents PowerPoint
documents editing photos in Lightroom and I really just started to dive
into how to edit videos on Luma Fusion.
Now that in addition to a handful of games I'd like to play to kill time
such as like asphalt racing and Sonic. Now with that today's usability
tests are going to be focused on real world experiences and not synthetic benchmarks like GeekBench.
Now that's not because benchmarks are invalid. But most people use experience
based metrics to communicate how good or how bad something is. You know
I don't tell you that my CPU score was 44 and it's just not working for me.
I think that it's too slow or runs hot. Now I have a full review of iOS
13 and iPadOS in the works so make sure that you are subscribed what notifications
so you can be alerted when that content drops in the fall.
Now for those you need a refresher. Apple released the iPad Air 2 in October 2014.
At that point I was running iOS 8 and it was powered by the A8X processor.
Now subsequently, Apple discontinued that device in March 2017 but really
you can actually still find this on Amazon for about one hundred sixty
to two hundred twenty five bucks depending on how you want have it configured with storage.
Now if you are asking yourself Why would I want to buy a five-year-old iPad
for that much money what I can get a new iPad? Well, first is gonna be cost.
If you want to buy a new iPad Air, the price of entry is gonna be four
hundred seventy nine dollars million which really is a lot of money when
you think about it. Again not everyone has the extra money to go and drop
several hundred dollars on a computer or a tablet.
Second when you factor in that the iPad Air is who is going to get most
of if not all the same exact features that come in iPadOS that newer I've
had devices are getting, it feels like you're really getting a little bit
more for your money.
Now from a testing perspective, We're going to test general iPad navigation, safari productivity, games,
camera and photo editing, light video editing and file management.
Now in the event that you want to come back to a certain section I put timestamps
right below the Like button so you can find them later on.
So several viewers on my last video want to know how to pair a mouse in iPadOS,
so let's just get this out of the way since I know it's going to be a hot topic.
Now first let's go in the settings. Let's go down accessibility,
we're going to tap on touch which is in the second section that's titled physical & motor.
We make sure that assistive touches on. Then we're going to keep pointing
devices we're going to tap on Bluetooth devices. And then finally after
18 steps you're going to tap on pair.
Now in a moment or two your mouse should appear in the pairing menu and
that's assuming that you've already put the mouse in the pairing mode and
if you're looking for a good mouse.
This is the MX Master 2S from Logitech which I will link in the description
down below. Now let's start with some basic navigating around the iPad.
If you recall the iPad Air 2 utilized a first generation Touch ID sensor
so it was quick, but not really fast if you catch what I'm saying.
Now I'm probably a little spoiled here because I've been using a device
that supports basic decency iPhone X. I know there's world problems but
touch and he does seem quick and maybe it's just a half second behind what
I'm used to on this device. Next let's swipe down from control center here
in the top right.
Let's adjust the brightness. Let's adjust the volume; feels no different.
Now heading over to Notification Center same thing here. And with the apps
switcher as well. It really feels consistent with previous versions of iOS.
Now the app carousel is where I'm expecting to see some changes because
this is really a net new feature for iPads. Now you see here as you kind
of scroll across the bottom or swipe across the bottom it's quick.
But there seems to be just a little bit of stutter in here this is developer
version 4 so here we are putting apps in this religious functions largely
the same.
So let's fire up safari here. Now the very first thing I notice here that
Safari isn't maintaining the previous session which results in the site's
getting reloaded. Now this is par for the course if you have an iPad Air 2
because its function really the same way since iOS 12 and before but nonetheless,
it looks like the limitation of a hardware and not indeed the software.
Now new in Safari this year the ability to open up multiple windows side
by side again this is now a system wide feature and it works with all third
party apps as long as they've updated their frameworks. Now even though
there are two windows open only one window is going to be the active window
means you have to select which window that you're gonna be typing in.
Now that's indicated by this little pill indicator at the top of the screen
that you see here it's going to dim and brighten and a switch between windows.
Now you can open YouTube in so far and get that classic web view which
we all know and love and even while watching your favorite video that's
playing picture in picture now. I only got this to work a couple of the
times it didn't really work consistently for me. But you can switch between
tabs and continue playing those videos while at the videos in the background.
What's nice here is that when you're closing tabs, there's a little pop
up box that will appear allowing you to set a preference when you want tabs closed.
So for me this is where the rubber hits the road so to speak because I'm
a product of an ear meaning that I am always trying to optimize my workflow
using the tools at my disposal. Now, lately I've been using Apple notes
to capture text and handwritten notes in addition to digging in all the
changes going into reminders. So first here we have notes we have full
screen notes functions as I would expect.
Now you've the ability to add pull up to notes side by side as I talked
about earlier this is system wide applies all the different iOS 13 and
we can go ahead and pull up App Expose to show all the open note windows.
Now let's go and dig into reminders we can open a reminder window. Go and
add a reminder. What's cool here is that you can click on the little information
button go down. You could assign this reminder to someone in your contact
list and ask to be notified when you're messaging so when you're talking
to someone if there is reminder say it's going to come up while I'm texting her
And from keyboard perspective here's the rather keyboard you can just swipe
and you get a mini keyboard and there are new keyboard shortcuts when you're
using a external keyboard. Now that won't matter if it's Bluetooth or if
it's connected to the iPad itself.
From a typing perspective, typing seems to be about a split second behind
what I remember. And it's kind of annoying in all fairness but really I
only experience this one time while watching a video and downloading the
beta update in the background. So I think it's kind of a confluence of
a number different things here. I'm gonna chalk that up to just really
kind of some process running the background because I haven't experienced it since.
New this year for the iPhone and iPod devices is the ability to connect external storage.
that doesn't matter if your device as you can be USB-C or if it's lightning,
but it does have a few nuances here.
So in order to connect external media to your lightning-equipped iPad,
you're going to be one of these three dongles: a lightning the SD card
reader which is UHS-II compliant, a lightning to USB A dongle which I probably wouldn't recommend,
or a lightning the USB 3.0 with power. Now generally speaking I would say
from the third party dangles unless they are made for iPhone at this point.
But I don't think Apple has actually license very many third party toggles
for data connectivity.
Now in terms of connecting all you do is simply plug the dongle into the
bottom your iPad and insert your media of choice through your navigate
over the files app your media should appear there in the location on the
left hand side.
Now you can copy, cut, paste, delete, zip, unzip most common file format
and all of your apps will need to be updated to take advantage of this
file picker menu. So from my experience what hasn't been working well is
the ability to go ahead and open up image files that are raw. Now I think
because do the large size of files almost every time I try to open one
of these images the file ends up timing out never opens and then the iPad re- springs.
So if you work with raw files at this point at least ones coming from a
Sony camera I wouldn't download the beta just yet. All right, so let's
let one of my favorite games Asphalt Legends 9.
Now even though this is a beta version of an unreleased operating system
on a tablet that's five years old this game runs well now there's no lag
between the key presses in which you see the game actually kind of translating
the key presses or the screen presses into actual operation. Now of course
the iPad Air 2 doesn't have the ultra smooth hundred twenty Hertz refresh
rate of the iPad Pro which I mean makes sense right. This is a five year
old tablet but I'm having no problem playing the game here. Now this really
speaks volumes to the level of integration that the game developer has
gone through to get the game to work right now what's really going to bring
in my second point.
When Apple first release iOS 13 beta in June there were a lot of apps that
weren't working right. I mean it was like a hotbed of disaster. But that
does include asphalt racing. But now here's the thing right. So if you
decide to take the risk and use a beta on your own device do not be that
person and bitch the developer when the app doesn't work well. I mean it's
a beta right you're taking the risk so that means don't go on social media.
Don't complain. Don't bad mouth developer of the app. Be respectful.
All right let's go and open up Lightroom here. Now context I don't use Lightroom
to store and seeing the majority my photos that I take here that is done
through the photos app from Apple.
But as you can see here in the top left hand corner I have just around
2600 photos that the iPad is sinking at this moment. Now I'm going to go
and edit one of my video thumbnails here from a few weeks ago even though
the app is computationally heavy. I'm able to make quick temperature intense
adjustments without lag. Zooming in and out of the forty nine megabyte
file is a little sluggish but I really imagine that through the file size
and the processor that's on the iPad Air 2. So note: if you're shooting
raw and making several complex color adjustments that might be a little
bit slow for your liking.
Now let's try the heel tool again. Not too bad but definitely not fast.
Now this could have to do with the app not being entirely optimized for iOS
13 which we really can't fault that to Adobe because it's not even out
yet if you are using Adobe for a lot of editing in Lightroom I would hold
off on upgrading to the iPadOS Beta. Now I would consider myself pretty
green when it comes to using Lumia fusion to edit video now and that's
because from my workflow perspective it hasn't been straightforward for
me to edit videos on the iPad without really kind of buying into additional hardware.
Now thankfully that's going to change now that file managements come into
the iPad OS. Now I already uploaded a few video files in dilemma fusion
and that process really took nothing more than a few seconds.
And this one video here is eight minutes and 10 seconds so that process
of uploading a video was very very quick. Now somewhat surprisingly I'm
able to scrub along this video timeline and feels snappy. So in terms of
exporting video I took a eight minute video export it through Luma fusion
and it took about 12 minutes really not too bad. So it's gonna be a lot
quicker than editing video for most people. I didn't even say Siri.
What is she doing. All in all I am still kind of pleased with being able to
edit for key video single streams on a five year old tablet. That's probably.
like the premise of this this entire video is just really how surprising
it is to be able to do a majority of things on a five year old tablet Now,
all in all I am pleasantly surprised on a couple of different fronts.
First it's going to be the Apple still supporting a five year old tablet
with the latest software updates because the iPad Air 2 or is really gonna
perform well and allow the scenarios with I've had OS and truth be told.
I really don't have a huge problem recommending it to someone who's going
to be cost conscious but wants to maximize the number of features that
they're getting.
And second by all accounts the device runs pretty smoothly. I'm able to
perform a majority of my tasks on the iPad Air 2 with ease. Now is it gonna
be as fast as a new iPad Air or even an iPad Pro. No.
But is it going to cost as much.
Of course not. And really you know you think about these other devices
that we're comparing it to are probably two to three times much more expensive.
So now the question is really is could this iPad Air 2 replace your home computer.
So for people who are either brand new to computing right or if you're
someone who's looking to upgrade from an older P.C. I think the iPad Air 2
is a great option minus the fact that it doesn't have a dedicated hardware
keyboard like the new iPad Air or even the iPad Pro. But again these devices
are two to three times more expensive.
If you already own an iPad Air 2. I feel largely confident about keeping
it when iPad OS is released in the fall.
But I want to know what your experiences are like with the iPad Air 2 comment
down below if you're someone who's looking for more performance and wanting to
upgrade to a new device or maybe you're even going to wait it out until
Apple releases iPad OS in the fall.
I am Mike Caputo and this is tech 24/7 TV hit like hits subscribe and I
will talk to you in the next one