This is Technology Bytes, episode 96 for January 5th, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week, a new technology has entered my life.
It’s not my technology, but it is adjacent to me and I get to experience it.
So what is it that I’m talking about?
Well, I’m talking about an iPad Air.
So a little bit of background.
Sometime back, I had purchased my wife an iPad mini, and she thought that was a good size for her and she enjoyed it.
And then at some point in the last couple months, our grandson dropped it on the floor.
He’s only three, so it wasn’t very far off the floor.
And in fact, you couldn’t even see, but just a little damage on the corner of the iPad, no damage to the screen, nothing else, but it must’ve hit at just the right corner and the screen was no longer working.
So we took it to the Apple store.
They said, there’s really nothing we can do.
We can give you a half price, you know, on a, on a replacement iPad Air.
And I’m like, eh, not sure.
My wife, wasn’t sure she would use it.
And so at that point we chose to just walk away for the moment.
And then at Christmas time, I got some money from my mother-in-law to an Apple store gift card, I guess.
And so I thought it’s a, it’s the perfect amount to go and get another Apple watch.
And my daughter and son, my wife, maybe are like, you need another Apple watch band.
And I, Oh, did I say Apple watch?
No, a band for my Apple watch.
And I’m like, well, need, uh, probably not, but there’s colors that I don’t have.
And, you know, maybe something that I would like, and I saw that Apple had come out with the green one.
So I was going to purchase that.
And in the process, my wife says, you know, I think I’d like a little bit bigger iPad, a little more screen real estate, a little easier for me to read, a little easier to see in the kitchen.
And, but I don’t need anything fancy like what you buy.
So that’s always a challenge for me because I always buy not necessarily top of the line, but in essence, yes, because my iPad pro is the 13 inch and it’s got the M4 processor.
Um, you know, it is the latest and greatest.
And, um, that’s what I like to buy.
It seems to last a long time, but I’m like this, you know, I don’t really need to spend that money.
And my wife can get something that is super useful for her and does the things that she needs it to do.
So the next one that I would purchase or think about even purchasing is the iPad Air.
I would not buy the initial or the entry level iPad.
I just don’t think it’s enough for, you know, maybe a child, I guess.
So my wife doesn’t want the big one.
So we’re settling on the 11 inch and it does come in more colors than the iPad pro, but they’re very subtle.
Um, but it has a starlight color that she really wanted for her watch that they don’t have in the, the 10 version 10, but they did have in the iPad air.
So we settled on the 11 inch with the, um, in the starlight color.
She really likes it, but she knows she has to get a case.
And so she doesn’t need a keyboard case.
She’s not going to use it in that manner.
So a smart folio case seemed to be the way to go.
The, the problem there is at that point, you’re hiding the color that she likes of the iPad that she just purchased.
And the colors of the cases do not correspond with the color of the iPad.
And it’s always been a challenge, iPhones, iPads, whatever it is.
If you want to show off the color cases often keep you from doing that.
The iPhone does come with some clear cases, but in this case, she chose the denim blue smart folio case.
So it actually matches what I use on my iPad pro.
So when they’re sitting around the house, even though mine’s bigger, sometimes you quick glance, you’re not sure which one is yours, but that’s fine.
Um, we don’t mind matching.
We’ve been married for a very long time.
So the other thing is that the, well, they’ve done some good things.
They moved the cameras.
I think that actually camera went on the, um, landscape side on the iPad air before it went on the iPad pro.
Um, but they’ve maintained the touch ID on the side button.
Is that the power button?
It’s not really anyway.
Um, and so no face ID with that camera system that they have on the iPad air, which is fine and it works well.
Um, and the screen, you know, I actually don’t know the difference between what I have on my iPad pro and what’s on the iPad air, but the screen is obviously good and that’s just what Apple does with their technology.
So I had purchased my wife, uh, Apple pencil when we got the iPad mini.
And so I said, well, let’s pull that out.
We can charge it up and use it with your iPad air.
And so we put it on there.
It’s, we know it hasn’t been charged for a while.
It seemed very dead, but as you put it on the, um, magnetic side of the iPad air, it didn’t seem to lock into place.
That was very weird and it wouldn’t charge and it wouldn’t connect.
And, and we tried a couple of different things and I tried it on my iPad and it still wouldn’t connect or charge or anything.
And so today we went to the Apple store to tell them this pencil was broken.
And that’s when we learned, as he looked at the name of it, that what she had was an Apple pencil and that no longer works with the iPad air.
Um, I think I knew that.
I think I had heard others complain about that, but anyway, it doesn’t.
So we ended up not having a problem with the pencil, except that it doesn’t work with the iPad air.
So we purchased a Apple pencil pro and it works, it connects, it’s going to do its job.
And, and I’m going to do a little bit of training with my wife to show that.
Functionality of the new Apple pencil.
I think she’ll like that.
So no more money out of pocket, um, that we hadn’t really expected to, to spend, but at the same time, the functionality of the, um, Apple pencil pro is probably worth the expense.
So the one thing we did upgrade on the iPad air was the memory.
And oftentimes we don’t, well, not the memory, but the, the basically hard drive space or the storage amount.
And the, the iPad air starts at one 28 and her phone is a two 56 or computers at two 56.
I decided, you know, she needs to do that with the iPad air.
So we did upgrade to that amount of storage space.
Um, but other than that, that’s the only thing we, we changed the iPad air comes with the M two processor.
So still a very good processor.
It is one step up from her Mac book air, which I think is the M one.
We got that early on, but it has Apple intelligence.
So let’s her do the things that, um, Apple has been releasing over time in the version 18 of the iPad iOS.
And so, you know, we, I talked last week about how we used it on our computer.
Um, I told her that is now available on your iPad.
And so I think there’s just some things that I would like to show her there as well.
I had to pick my times and, and how much time I can actually spend on it because some of it may not be of all that much interest to her, but I want her to know it’s there and it’s there for use.
So I’m looking forward to that as well.
And so now while her phone cannot do Apple intelligence, the iPad can and her computer can, and I think that’s enough for the moment.
So all in all really happy with the purchase.
I think my wife really likes it.
She’s actually been using it more than she did the iPad mini.
And I think she will use it more.
And it also is a much better second screen for her Mac if she chooses to use it that way.
So, um, that is the latest technology in my life and all I have for today.
As always, if you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytesatmerigfamily.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.
I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
