The strange reviews of the iPad Air 2

Usually, when Apple releases a new-generation iPhone or iPad, reviews of the devices in the tech press are almost always universally glowing. The new device is often described as the best in its class, with the reviewer suggesting that – for a while, anyway – the Apple product is one the beat.

And that’s what we’re seeing with the lifting of embargoes Tuesday night on reviews of the iPad Air 2, unveiled last week during one of Apple’s patented media events. Yet something’s different this time. Yes, the consensus seems to be that the successor to the original iPad Air remains the gold standard – but there’s also a sense of disappointment. The Air 2 is only marginally better, and the reviews seem to be asking of Apple:

“Really? That’s all you got?”

Even veteran columnist Walt Mossberg, known for his enthusiastic reviews of Apple products, has reservations:

The problem was this: I couldn’t tell the difference between the Air and Air 2 while doing these things. The new model didn’t seem faster or smoother while running all my apps, perhaps because — like most people — I don’t use my iPad for the most demanding video-editing apps or high-end games. It registered pretty much the same network speeds as my Air.

From Nilay Patel at The Verge, gives the Air 2 a positive review, but then deflates it at the end:

There’s no question that the iPad Air 2 is the best iPad ever made. It’s also the best tablet ever made — its incredible hardware and enormous ecosystem of apps offer a commanding advantage over the competition. But it’s not Apple’s best product; it’s not the company’s most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.

It’s mostly just thinner.

Farhad Manjoo, the reviewer for the New York Times, even goes so far as to recommend last year’s Air over the new one for many users:

If you’re mainly interested in a tablet for surfing the Web or watching movies — for “consuming media,” as the techies say — then the iPad Air 2 is probably overkill. Go instead with last year’s iPad Air, which is slightly slower, thicker and lacks TouchID, but starts at $399 and will prove pretty capable for many users. Even a bargain-basement machine like Amazon’s $99 Kindle Fire HD is a pretty good media device. It doesn’t look look as good as the iPad, but if your needs are slight, it will get the job done.

Many of the other reviews express similar dissatisfaction, while at the same time praising the quality and technical achievements of the iPad Air 2. You can find the others via the tech aggregation site Techmeme.

What’s going on here? Has Apple lost its tablet mojo? After all, its sales were the one downer in the company’s otherwise glowing quarterly earnings report released on Monday.

Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that, at least in terms of hardware, Apple has pushed its iPad about as far as it can go with current technology. Adding Touch ID was nice, and of course the latest model of its tablet has to be thinner/lighter, even if it’s only by a smidge. That the processor is notably faster is a given, too.

Apple could make more progress in the software, as Patel points out, such as allowing multiple apps onscreen at the same time, which you can do with both Android and Windows tablets. That may come, someday – maybe as an incremental update with the iPad Air 3.

The tablet category has turned out to be a different beast. It’s a lot more like the personal computer in terms of evolution and market uptake than smartphones. There’s only so many features you can put in a super-thin tablet, Microsoft’s attempt to hybridize the category its Surface Pro product notwithstanding.

People are buying tablets and then holding onto them longer – I’ve got an iPad 3 and feel only a slight compulsion to upgrade to the Air 2, mainly because of Touch ID. I’ve heard from a lot of iPad owners who feel this way.

Brian Barrett at Gizmodo summed it up nicely in a post titled “iPads are forever”:

It’s increasingly clear that the iPad’s biggest problem is its long, long refresh cycle, one without any strong call to action beyond “lazy, opulent Christmas gift.” Compare that to the iPhone, which people replace every two years at most, or even the MacBook, which draws in legions of new students every fall. Once you have an iPad, it’s your iPad, and you either keep using it or get bored and turn it into a recipe book.

Tim Cook acknowledged as much on today’s earnings call:

What you do see is that people hold onto their iPad longer than they do a phone. Because we’ve only been in this business for four years, we don’t know what the upgrade cycle will be for people.

Tim, I think you do know. It will be like the PC upgrade cycle – three years for the average replacement, and that period will increase as tablet hardware gets faster and more capable. A PC you bought five years ago still runs most software just fine today. Until earlier this year, I was using a 7-year-old iMac that was still going strong, and could have run OS X Yosemite if I still had it.

That’s the future of tablets, too, and the future may be here sooner than you think.