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Is Apple kidding? iPads don't have to be big iPhones

M8 for fitness tracking, improved rear camera, and thinness over battery capacity? Bringing iPhone specs and features to the iPad makes little sense. Here's why.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer
Is Apple kidding with new iPads? M8 for fitness tracking, improved rear camera, and thinness over battery capacity make little sense
Image: Apple

Apple announced its new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 tablets yesterday and some of the new functions and improvements make little sense for tablets.

I previously used iPads primarily for media consumption as it served as a convenience device, not a necessity. This is the same story I get from many people, especially since Apple limits what you can do with a third party keyboard (really only supports direct text entry).

As expected, Apple brought the latest iPhone features to the iPad, including the M8 coprocessor, improved rear camera, Touch ID, and thin design. Touch ID makes sense for security purposes, but the rest look to have been done just to match phone specs.

Does anyone carry their iPad with them as often as their phone? If not, then the M8 coprocessor is only helping you gather activity data for a part of your life and partial tracking is useless.

Don't you hate it when people hold up their iPad to take photos or video at events like concerts and ball games? The only people that get a pass here are those with impaired vision who need an iPad to serve as a usable viewfinder, but everyone else should be using a phone or camera instead of blocking the view of everyone around them. I would prefer to have seen Apple completely remove the rear camera and focus on a high quality front facing camera.

The last generation iPads were quite thin and other than a claim as the world's thinnest tablet, there was no reason for Apple to make the iPad thinner. If it would have kept the same thickness Apple may have been able to put in a larger capacity battery and provide you with even better battery life.

Since I just recently replaced my iPad mini with Retina display with an iPhone 6 Plus I have even less need for a new iPad. Top it off with the fact that the Surface Pro 3 is an excellent tablet and my home desktop computer and you will understand why there is no place for an iPad in my life.

Do you find anything compelling enough with these new iPads to upgrade your current tablet? What else could Apple have done to improve the iPad experience?

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