Is it time to replace the iPad?

[Brek01]

i still use my ipad one, for playing scrabble when we go camping. Just sold my 3rd gen ipad pro 12.9 as it was to heavy but also too thin to be sturdy enough for the work i do.

 

[KokoTele]

I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about this iPad. Apparently, it's very powerful, processor-wise, but Apple doesn't really let you exploit that power.

I'm not sure what you mean. The M1 iPad Pro is powerful enough that a lot of people are using it as laptop replacements. You can do some things--like photo and video editing--on the new iPad Pro that would have been laboriously slow before.

 

[craigs63]

I got my wife's old one (iPad 2?) as a hand me down. Things run a little slow on it, but it makes a great strobe tuner (Peterson iStrobosoft, I think).

 

[tap4154]

I only have an iPad Mini, I think it's about five years old. I very rarely use it, but I've never been able to figure out why it only takes really low resolution pictures and videos. I've never been able to find a way to change that.

In fact it seems like iPhones do the same thing. If I get sent a pic or video from a relative that has an iPhone, it's really small and low resolution, but if I send them a pic or video from my Android, it's high resolution in a much nicer.

 

[radiocaster]

In fact it seems like iPhones do the same thing. If I get sent a pic or video from a relative that has an iPhone, it's really small and low resolution, but if I send them a pic or video from my Android, it's high resolution in a much nicer.

Plus Android devices use an ARM microprocessor, which allows you to install a variety of OSes.

Apple do this on purpose. We have an old iPhone, we tried to use it. I don't remember what the problem was, but it was some basic function and there is no way to update that. And you can't even use it as an mp3 player without going through iTunes.

I'm thinking the new computers use the M1 chip so people won't install other OSes.

 

[BobTheOwl]

iPad Air 3 - 7 years old. Has cellular. Got it through my last company; they let me keep it when I left.

I use my iPad a lot at home. It's getting very cantankerous.

It's slow to react why I type.

Sometime apps are very slow to open.

Sometimes apps don't want to open and I have to restart the thing.

Is it time to lay the old guy to rest in a closet?

What's the life expectancy of a typical iPad in your opinion?

Thanks.

If it runs the latest software, keep it updated and keep it until it’s unsupported. The updates generally consist of security stuff and considering iPads contain a lot of personal info it’s best not to leave it to chance. Are you sure it’s an iPad Air 3? They weren’t released until 2019.

 

[Chikubi]

You already replaced it, but I would have checked to see how much free space you had left in the storage capacity b/c everything you're describing sounds like it's running low in system resources. I say this because I'm still running an 11+ yr old Air 2 with iOS 14 on it and apart from the battery life being noticeably less (but still adequate), it's just as responsive and smooth as it ever was with none of what you're running into at all. It currently is only using about half of its 128GB storage so, that's likely the main reason why.

If you still have the old one, I'd try blowing out everything you can, and maybe even running a restore on it as well. Also, turn off background app refresh if you haven't already done so in order to keep crap from needlessly eating up resources and data; one of the first things anyone should do with an iPad, even when new. You most likely can still get quite a bit of use out of it as a secondary device/spare.

 

[Chikubi]

When I'm done using the app, I quickly double press the home button and swipe the app up...it's a force close. That way the app isn't running in the background hogging resources.

Just so you know, that does very little to nothing to free up resources. When you close an app, apart from anything that's actively playing music or video in the background, no apps are left running once closed. All that happens is that iOS takes a snapshot of the current state of the app at close and holds on to it to resume from when the app starts up again. That's it, so very little if any resources are actually being used.

That said, it can be beneficial to close and restart stored apps when they start acting wonky for whatever reasons as it basically resets the app to start completely fresh again and clears whatever may have gotten corrupted in the past instance.

 

[imwjl]

Plus Android devices use an ARM microprocessor, which allows you to install a variety of OSes.

Apple do this on purpose. We have an old iPhone, we tried to use it. I don't remember what the problem was, but it was some basic function and there is no way to update that. And you can't even use it as an mp3 player without going through iTunes.

I'm thinking the new computers use the M1 chip so people won't install other OSes.

The M1 chips are so the computers can outperform the competition in ways they cannot touch right now. They specialize in doing what most need vs the power requirements and heat generated by a general purpose CPU.

Installing other operating systems on just any ARM processor isn't so easy, and there are application limitations for all of them. None of the popular ones have the software options as the M1 Macs do, and would need something as good and elegant as the "Rosetta" that's not twice transitioned Macs to new generations.

Working with all the popular platforms is a no choice matter for me. They all have their strong areas but topic here - iPads or tablets - is an area where Apple has totally legit dominance. Every day we have to have around 200 tablets working for around 1000 employees. Nothing touches the iPad overall scenario. Highlights are total service life, reliability, battery life, repairability and capability.

Working with all this stuff, I'd be careful to make some statements on older devices and Apple vs others.

Something else to consider is most all of us use smart phones these days. If someone has an iPhone they get a feature set with the iPad and a Mac no one else has so good, polished or reliable.

I'm an Alphabet stockholder so love the Google and Android success in that sense but in my day job more and more Apple gets bought because the performance, reliability and quality are what we need and what makes 1000 employees most productive and happy.

 

[teletail]

iPad Air 3 - 7 years old. Has cellular. Got it through my last company; they let me keep it when I left.

I use my iPad a lot at home. It's getting very cantankerous.

It's slow to react why I type.

Sometime apps are very slow to open.

Sometimes apps don't want to open and I have to restart the thing.

Is it time to lay the old guy to rest in a closet?

What's the life expectancy of a typical iPad in your opinion?

Thanks.

I kept my last iPad for 10 years, but the last couple of years it was so slow it was only good for watching Netflix and Amazon prime.

I just bought a new iPad Pro a couple of months ago and hope to keep this one for ten years too.

 

[OlRedNeckHippy]

I need to replace mine, no doubt about that, but I'm Android.
Been shopping around, but it's so confusing, size, ram, etc., that I have not bought one yet. Frustrating. I need a teenager...

 

[radiocaster]

Nothing touches the iPad overall scenario. Highlights are total service life, reliability, battery life, repairability and capability.

My experience with Apple batteries is quite the opposite. Also had several hard drive failures in older Macs. Lower life than Dell.

 

[imwjl]

My experience with Apple batteries is quite the opposite. Also had several hard drive failures in older Macs. Lower life than Dell.

What's your use base, scope or device count? Apple hasn't even made devices with hard drives for a while so that seems like an inappropriate comparison.

My personal opinions, experiences and anecdotal stuff doesn't count or work at work. We (IT) get audited internally and externally. We have budgets. We serve just under 1000 employees and the nature of the business means we have around 200 mobile in addition to the PCs and Macs.

Apple, Cisco, HPE and Nutanix are the highest quality stuff we buy with numbers to prove it. HPE isn't same as HP you buy at department stores. Dell and HP seem to go back and forth on who might be best.

When we have hard drive problems it almost always shows as an OEM and not an end use product. For example, same brand and family drive used in Dell and HP computers.

Edit: In recent years CVSS scores more than product death are what send a lot of the Apple stuff to the grave. In a lot of cases that's been years after Microsoft EOL does the same.