That's a good takeaway. If they are still launching products based on a 3+ year old SoC in 2019 it's safe to say the iPhone 7 will continue to be supported for a few more years. That might explain why carriers are pushing them so hard - because they know they will still be supported through a 2 year contract.
That's really amazing when you consider the iPhone 7 competed with the long-discontinued Galaxy S7, which like the even newer Galaxy S8, won't even get Android 10.
And that right there is why Apple devices hold their value and Samsungs' do not. I'll never understand why people buying an Android phone buy a Samsung when there are so many more options that continue receiving support nearly as long as Apple devices.
At least models talked here - 2 years updates with OS update. +1 year security updates. While in Ios you cannot update your web browser without OS update. I would say Ios needs a longer update cycle than it is now.
I don't think updates are as important on Android, my brother has an S7 edge and it's not really missing out on any major features even almost 4 years on.
Only had to have the battery replaced recently because it had degraded.
Didn't they sell the iPhone 6 until a few weeks before dropping support for the A8? This doesn't inspire me with confidence. Earlier this year I was thinking about buying an iPad 2018, just to see what iOS is all about (a lot of friends have iPhones, I've always had WinMo 6.0 to 6.5 and Android starting at the Galaxy S2) and it is a pretty good tablet experience by all accounts. But I wouldn't buy it right now with just a few pixels more and everything else the same. Maybe next year it gets a more compelling upgrade and some future proofing (2GB of RAM, heh, good one).
Samsungs not holding their value means you can get them second hand for cheap. That's a good reason to get a Samsung instead of an Apple. Also, what matters is the security updates, Android is pretty much feature complete since 2.3
Android is a more modular OS than ios. You do not need more than two OS upgrades on an Android device, be it top of the line. Outside of security patches, the most important updates are done by Google(not the OEM). Those are Google Play Services and Android System Webview. These two are the glue that allow the latest apps to run on older Android devices. Google supports all Android devices for as long as possible with these two critical updates. Only recently they dropped support for KitKat - that's a 6 year old OS.
My Galaxy S7 just received the Aug 2019 security update last week. That's 3.5 years of updates so far (Mar 2016 release). Granted, there were only 2 major OS upgrades (6.0 - 8.0) in that time. But that's a hell of a lot better than Samsung did for all the prior phones.
Samsung has done a lot of things wonky over the years, and has chosen to go all in on some odd hardware choices, but their software support game has certainly improved since 2015.
"Though by no means a slouch, A10 is among Apple’s older SoCs – the company only supports devices going back to the A9 – and as a result it comes with the same basic image processing and Wi-Fi capabilities as the earlier iPad."
The upcoming iPadOS actually supports devices back to the A8-based iPad Mini 4 so the A10-based iPad 7 should still be getting OS updates for 3-4 years, which is shorter than some other iPads, but still a decent support period overall.
It's annoying that they increased the overall size to that of 10.5" iPads yet only put in a 10.2" screen. It's hard to believe that extra 0.3" diagonal screen size would really have been too much of a cost increase to necessitate introducing yet another screen size. Especially because 10.2" is just over Microsoft's 10.1" screen size limit to get free basic Office which was a useful selling point of the iPad as an entry-level tablet than can do more than media consumption. Perhaps Apple and Microsoft can work out an agreement to increase the screen size limit for free Office to 10.2" since it's mutually beneficial by retaining a selling point of the entry-level iPad for Apple and keeping price conscious customers in the Office ecosystem for Microsoft versus Gapps.
The point of a low-end iPad like this is to provide minimum functionality at minimum cost. For example, when my mother was sick in hospital I bought her one (obviously not this one, but the previous low-end model), filled it with songs, movies, music, and gave it to her. Overall, it's just not much to spend to make a month long hospital visit a lot easier.
And THAT is the sort of task this iPad is designed for. All that was necessary for THAT job (hospital companion) was present, what was missing was not missed...
Agree. For this price there's no other tablet in its class. Android tablets are a graveyard with seemingly everyone just buying cheap Amazon Fire tablets instead.
Yup, I basically use my air 2 around the house for streaming. I would like slimmer bezels and stuff but the cheap ipad is still waaaaayyyy more than i need.
The problem with that argument is that a Kindle Fire 10 tablet will do all those tasks perfectly well for half the price. The iPad has to do more than media consumption which is ltcommanderdata's argument.
A10 is still quite fast. Yes the A12 in the iPad Air ($499, Mar. '19) and the A12X in the Ipad Pro 11" ($799 often on sale for $699, Nov. '18) are better but they are not really that much better to justify literally twice the price point.
Hopefully there is some clearance firesale prices for the old iPad 9.7" but I doubt the price will go below the $249 which the 9.7" has often been on sales such as black friday.
Pretty much the only competition in the tablet space [not convertible space] is Apple's own products. Apple bothered with this minor change in order to unify accessories they help to upsell the customer on nothing more. This was a good reason to bother from their perspective.
Besides giving you incentive to upgrade via paying more for the precious A12 / A13. The A10 is on TSMC 16nm, while A12 and A13 are on TSMC 7nm. This way Apple is not competing with itself on supply issues for they can use older wafers at both lower price and priority with TSMC not competing for the latest and greatest fabs.
Now they could have gone with A11 which only the $449 iPhone 8 still uses (the original iPhone X / 10 has been phased out) and that uses TSMC 10nm foundry, but why pay for 10nm when 16nm works fine.
Pretty sure you're bang-on the money here - A10 is guaranteed to be significantly cheaper for TSMC (and thus Apple) to produce than A11, A12 and A13, and it's definitely not going to be supply constrained.
I sure as Hades hope this thing doesn't have just 2 GB RAM. A10 was bad enough, but if it got just 2 GB RAM, that would just be outright shameful for a 2019 product. My prediction is 3 GB RAM though.
I guess the good news is that although they made it have fairly large bezels, it is the same size as the iPad Pro 10.5 and iPad Air 10.5, and has the same Smart Connector. Therefore, it can use exact same full-sized Apple Smart Keyboard Folio, which is an excellent accessory for these iPads.
The other good news, for me anyway, is my iPhone 7 Plus (A10), my iPad Pro 10.5 (A10X), and my Apple TV 4K (A10X) all will probably get iOS / iPadOS / tvOS updates for a long time.
Can't help but feel like Apple has bins and bins of old CPUs such as the A10s, and rather than toss them out, can use them in low-end products like these.
They took the same hardware into a tad bigger body. Some serious cost cutting at this level needs to be done. They say 250 mm is much better width for the added keyboard than 240. First I love original 9,7 inch why not stay at that. Second the smallest MacBook with true full size keyboard is 280 mm. Or iPad Pro size. But this is just preference and all... 9,7 inch is the original after all. And those people killed it :(.
Also NON laminated display.... This is one plus seven pro level of crap.
Not much of an upgrade. Same hardware basically, slightly larger screen. Yawn. Apple really needs to do something to drive Rev growth on hardware if they want to keep investors happy. Service growth can only go so far if people begin to move to other devices.
Small updated to keep margins high and price low (for Apple product!) if you wan to get more speed, go for air or pro. All in all this destroy all Android in the same price gategory... we need good affordable Android devices too!
What other devices though? Apple owns the tablet market except at the extreme low end where there is zero margin anyways. Even with the a10 being old their SOCs are so far ahead of android that its probably similar to the power you'd get in a high end android tablet.
A12 is manufactured on 7nm which is still a relatively expensive process. A10 uses 16nm - as well as that being an established process, TSMC will be seeing more capacity freeing up on that node as other partners transition to 7nm. In summary, even if they're still manufacturing those chips, using A10 makes financial sense for their low-end product. The target audience literally could not care less.
Classic Apple with nearly all of the dimensions matching the Air 3 except for the depth. Why have case compatibility across multiple devices when you can contribute to your partners generating tons of straight-to-landfill waste?
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digiguy - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
the air 3 has 3 GB RAM, not 4plewis00 - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
It’s also Lightning not USB-C.fangdahai - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
I wish it supports WIFI 6s.yu - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
So basically the only good thing about it is the jack.Colin1497 - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
Seems like this means they'll support the A10 for quite a while.Samus - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
That's a good takeaway. If they are still launching products based on a 3+ year old SoC in 2019 it's safe to say the iPhone 7 will continue to be supported for a few more years. That might explain why carriers are pushing them so hard - because they know they will still be supported through a 2 year contract.That's really amazing when you consider the iPhone 7 competed with the long-discontinued Galaxy S7, which like the even newer Galaxy S8, won't even get Android 10.
And that right there is why Apple devices hold their value and Samsungs' do not. I'll never understand why people buying an Android phone buy a Samsung when there are so many more options that continue receiving support nearly as long as Apple devices.
debem - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Android 18-24 months of updates, iOS, 5 years.Karmena - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
At least models talked here - 2 years updates with OS update. +1 year security updates. While in Ios you cannot update your web browser without OS update. I would say Ios needs a longer update cycle than it is now.olafgarten - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
I don't think updates are as important on Android, my brother has an S7 edge and it's not really missing out on any major features even almost 4 years on.Only had to have the battery replaced recently because it had degraded.
jabber - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
I do agree. I think the Android updates thing is just something lazy IT journalists can roll out on a quiet news day.After all the new Android OS always promises much but...
Meet the new OS, same as the old OS.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Didn't they sell the iPhone 6 until a few weeks before dropping support for the A8? This doesn't inspire me with confidence. Earlier this year I was thinking about buying an iPad 2018, just to see what iOS is all about (a lot of friends have iPhones, I've always had WinMo 6.0 to 6.5 and Android starting at the Galaxy S2) and it is a pretty good tablet experience by all accounts. But I wouldn't buy it right now with just a few pixels more and everything else the same. Maybe next year it gets a more compelling upgrade and some future proofing (2GB of RAM, heh, good one).judasmachine - Sunday, September 22, 2019 - link
The Pixel promises 3 annual updates and security updates even longer. It does have other debatable features but you do get support for a bit longer.fred666 - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Samsungs not holding their value means you can get them second hand for cheap. That's a good reason to get a Samsung instead of an Apple.Also, what matters is the security updates, Android is pretty much feature complete since 2.3
id4andrei - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Android is a more modular OS than ios. You do not need more than two OS upgrades on an Android device, be it top of the line. Outside of security patches, the most important updates are done by Google(not the OEM). Those are Google Play Services and Android System Webview. These two are the glue that allow the latest apps to run on older Android devices. Google supports all Android devices for as long as possible with these two critical updates. Only recently they dropped support for KitKat - that's a 6 year old OS.phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
My Galaxy S7 just received the Aug 2019 security update last week. That's 3.5 years of updates so far (Mar 2016 release). Granted, there were only 2 major OS upgrades (6.0 - 8.0) in that time. But that's a hell of a lot better than Samsung did for all the prior phones.Samsung has done a lot of things wonky over the years, and has chosen to go all in on some odd hardware choices, but their software support game has certainly improved since 2015.
losi - Sunday, September 15, 2019 - link
Such as?ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
"Though by no means a slouch, A10 is among Apple’s older SoCs – the company only supports devices going back to the A9 – and as a result it comes with the same basic image processing and Wi-Fi capabilities as the earlier iPad."The upcoming iPadOS actually supports devices back to the A8-based iPad Mini 4 so the A10-based iPad 7 should still be getting OS updates for 3-4 years, which is shorter than some other iPads, but still a decent support period overall.
It's annoying that they increased the overall size to that of 10.5" iPads yet only put in a 10.2" screen. It's hard to believe that extra 0.3" diagonal screen size would really have been too much of a cost increase to necessitate introducing yet another screen size. Especially because 10.2" is just over Microsoft's 10.1" screen size limit to get free basic Office which was a useful selling point of the iPad as an entry-level tablet than can do more than media consumption. Perhaps Apple and Microsoft can work out an agreement to increase the screen size limit for free Office to 10.2" since it's mutually beneficial by retaining a selling point of the entry-level iPad for Apple and keeping price conscious customers in the Office ecosystem for Microsoft versus Gapps.
name99 - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
If you want a better iPad, pay for it!The point of a low-end iPad like this is to provide minimum functionality at minimum cost. For example, when my mother was sick in hospital I bought her one (obviously not this one, but the previous low-end model), filled it with songs, movies, music, and gave it to her. Overall, it's just not much to spend to make a month long hospital visit a lot easier.
And THAT is the sort of task this iPad is designed for. All that was necessary for THAT job (hospital companion) was present, what was missing was not missed...
Jumangi - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Agree. For this price there's no other tablet in its class. Android tablets are a graveyard with seemingly everyone just buying cheap Amazon Fire tablets instead.crohana - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Yup, I basically use my air 2 around the house for streaming. I would like slimmer bezels and stuff but the cheap ipad is still waaaaayyyy more than i need.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
"The point of a low-end iPad like this is to... "Artificially increase the price of the 'better' units. It's basically a physical marketing device.
BedfordTim - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
The problem with that argument is that a Kindle Fire 10 tablet will do all those tasks perfectly well for half the price. The iPad has to do more than media consumption which is ltcommanderdata's argument.debem - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
" 10.2" is just over Microsoft's 10.1" screen size limit to get free basic Office". Do you think that is an accident?Jumangi - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
No they go back to the Air 2 which uses the A8X.Wheaties88 - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
I’m not sure why they bothered if they weren’t going to upgrade the SOC.Roland00Address - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
A10 is still quite fast. Yes the A12 in the iPad Air ($499, Mar. '19) and the A12X in the Ipad Pro 11" ($799 often on sale for $699, Nov. '18) are better but they are not really that much better to justify literally twice the price point.Hopefully there is some clearance firesale prices for the old iPad 9.7" but I doubt the price will go below the $249 which the 9.7" has often been on sales such as black friday.
Pretty much the only competition in the tablet space [not convertible space] is Apple's own products. Apple bothered with this minor change in order to unify accessories they help to upsell the customer on nothing more. This was a good reason to bother from their perspective.
Wheaties88 - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
I know the A10 is fast, but they brought out a new model with the same chip as the previous one. It’s just strange.Roland00Address - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
Not strange from Apple's point of view.Besides giving you incentive to upgrade via paying more for the precious A12 / A13. The A10 is on TSMC 16nm, while A12 and A13 are on TSMC 7nm. This way Apple is not competing with itself on supply issues for they can use older wafers at both lower price and priority with TSMC not competing for the latest and greatest fabs.
Now they could have gone with A11 which only the $449 iPhone 8 still uses (the original iPhone X / 10 has been phased out) and that uses TSMC 10nm foundry, but why pay for 10nm when 16nm works fine.
Spunjji - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Pretty sure you're bang-on the money here - A10 is guaranteed to be significantly cheaper for TSMC (and thus Apple) to produce than A11, A12 and A13, and it's definitely not going to be supply constrained.Midwayman - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
A screen swap is super easy vs a whole new board. It looks like they even kept the same battery which would have been dead easy to upgrade.yacoub35 - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
So they get stingier and stingier, not even giving it a slight performance boost with an A11 chip. Sad.Alistair - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
seems to be a theme this year, nothing at allEug - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
I sure as Hades hope this thing doesn't have just 2 GB RAM. A10 was bad enough, but if it got just 2 GB RAM, that would just be outright shameful for a 2019 product. My prediction is 3 GB RAM though.I guess the good news is that although they made it have fairly large bezels, it is the same size as the iPad Pro 10.5 and iPad Air 10.5, and has the same Smart Connector. Therefore, it can use exact same full-sized Apple Smart Keyboard Folio, which is an excellent accessory for these iPads.
The other good news, for me anyway, is my iPhone 7 Plus (A10), my iPad Pro 10.5 (A10X), and my Apple TV 4K (A10X) all will probably get iOS / iPadOS / tvOS updates for a long time.
imaheadcase - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
No USB-C? LIttle ram? No real appeal.It sounds like a way to milk people for money that think a new tablet OS is worth the money.
UtilityMax - Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - link
Still no stereo sound in landscape orientation. Pass.Karmena - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
you are holding it wrong.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Pointless as the speakers point in the wrong direction anyway.scottrichardson - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Can't help but feel like Apple has bins and bins of old CPUs such as the A10s, and rather than toss them out, can use them in low-end products like these.GC2:CS - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
They took the same hardware into a tad bigger body. Some serious cost cutting at this level needs to be done. They say 250 mm is much better width for the added keyboard than 240. First I love original 9,7 inch why not stay at that. Second the smallest MacBook with true full size keyboard is 280 mm. Or iPad Pro size. But this is just preference and all... 9,7 inch is the original after all. And those people killed it :(.Also NON laminated display.... This is one plus seven pro level of crap.
boozed - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
$130 to throw a mobile radio chip in it! Can you FEEL the margins? *grunts*Supercell99 - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - link
Not much of an upgrade. Same hardware basically, slightly larger screen. Yawn. Apple really needs to do something to drive Rev growth on hardware if they want to keep investors happy. Service growth can only go so far if people begin to move to other devices.haukionkannel - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
Small updated to keep margins high and price low (for Apple product!) if you wan to get more speed, go for air or pro. All in all this destroy all Android in the same price gategory... we need good affordable Android devices too!Midwayman - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
What other devices though? Apple owns the tablet market except at the extreme low end where there is zero margin anyways. Even with the a10 being old their SOCs are so far ahead of android that its probably similar to the power you'd get in a high end android tablet.peevee - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
Do they have a million of ancient A10s lying around and want to get rid of them? No reason not to use AT LEAST A12 otherwise.Spunjji - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
A12 is manufactured on 7nm which is still a relatively expensive process. A10 uses 16nm - as well as that being an established process, TSMC will be seeing more capacity freeing up on that node as other partners transition to 7nm. In summary, even if they're still manufacturing those chips, using A10 makes financial sense for their low-end product. The target audience literally could not care less.Spunjji - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Classic Apple with nearly all of the dimensions matching the Air 3 except for the depth. Why have case compatibility across multiple devices when you can contribute to your partners generating tons of straight-to-landfill waste?faisal2626 - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
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