The iPad Air is now available, and if you were lucky enough to pick one up, it's time to fill it up the right way. We're here to give you five great apps, and five great games to install on your iPad Air right out of the box. Each app, and game selection is great in their own right, and will really shine on the thinner, lighter, and faster device that maintains the same great retina display.
The iPad Air comes in white with a silver rear casing, or black with a space gray case. The space gray variation looked particularly nice in person, matching what the iPad mini had already offered with its first iteration.
The iPad Air weighs in at just 1lb (or 453g) and 7.5mm thick - a significant step up from its predecessor, and in the hand that difference is genuinely startling.
Apple's iPad Air takes the tablets design to a new level of portability. At just one pound and 0.29 inch thick, the tablet is light enough to hold with just your fingertips.
Apple promised 10 hours of battery life on the iPad Air. My model, which came with Verizon 4G LTE, gave me more than a full day of usage that included movies, music, web browsing, email, action game-playing, video editing, photo editing, and more. At the end of the day, I still had roughly 50% power.
Apple now provides a lot of incentive for owing multiple iOS and even OS X devices. As I was testing the iPad Air, I was also looking at the new MacBook Pro 15-inch and setting up my own new iPhone 5S. With one Apple account I’m able to receive iMessages on all three devices. These messages are often sent to my phone number via SMS, but as long as they’re received on an iOS device, iMessage sends them to all devices. Similarly, I can communicate with any of my contacts through the iMessage platform on all of these devices.
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google all offer excellent cloud-based services. Apple iCloud is great for backing up the iPad Air, storing and sharing work files and making sure all my photos and videos end up safely stored in the cloud — and away from fallible and losable local hardware. Unfortunately, Apple’s base (free) iCloud offering of 5GB is kind of skimpy.
Thanks to its much narrower bezels, we had no problem navigating the device as we held the tablet in one hand ... On the inside, the iPad Air features an A7 processor that proved snappy when we were opening and closing apps, as well as playing a quick round of Infinity Blade 3.
Safari got a significant makeover in iOS 7, but it's not consistent across mobile devices. For now, the iPad version lacks my favorite feature: the ability to view web pages in a card view and dismiss open tabs by flicking them away. It's still a very good browser and the Shared Links from those you follow on Twitter (under Bookmarks) is especially useful.
The iPad Air comes in white with a silver rear casing, or black with a space gray case. The space gray variation looked particularly nice in person, matching what the iPad mini had already offered with its first iteration.
The iPad Air weighs in at just 1lb (or 453g) and 7.5mm thick - a significant step up from its predecessor, and in the hand that difference is genuinely startling.
Apple's iPad Air takes the tablets design to a new level of portability. At just one pound and 0.29 inch thick, the tablet is light enough to hold with just your fingertips.
Apple promised 10 hours of battery life on the iPad Air. My model, which came with Verizon 4G LTE, gave me more than a full day of usage that included movies, music, web browsing, email, action game-playing, video editing, photo editing, and more. At the end of the day, I still had roughly 50% power.
Apple now provides a lot of incentive for owing multiple iOS and even OS X devices. As I was testing the iPad Air, I was also looking at the new MacBook Pro 15-inch and setting up my own new iPhone 5S. With one Apple account I’m able to receive iMessages on all three devices. These messages are often sent to my phone number via SMS, but as long as they’re received on an iOS device, iMessage sends them to all devices. Similarly, I can communicate with any of my contacts through the iMessage platform on all of these devices.
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google all offer excellent cloud-based services. Apple iCloud is great for backing up the iPad Air, storing and sharing work files and making sure all my photos and videos end up safely stored in the cloud — and away from fallible and losable local hardware. Unfortunately, Apple’s base (free) iCloud offering of 5GB is kind of skimpy.
Thanks to its much narrower bezels, we had no problem navigating the device as we held the tablet in one hand ... On the inside, the iPad Air features an A7 processor that proved snappy when we were opening and closing apps, as well as playing a quick round of Infinity Blade 3.
Safari got a significant makeover in iOS 7, but it's not consistent across mobile devices. For now, the iPad version lacks my favorite feature: the ability to view web pages in a card view and dismiss open tabs by flicking them away. It's still a very good browser and the Shared Links from those you follow on Twitter (under Bookmarks) is especially useful.
