IPads - Need your collective wisdom on what to consider?

Before getting my iPad I chatted with a customer support online with apple and explained what I would be using it for. Then asked me how much memory, how much I would be on it and what I would use it for. I suggest calling them or chatting online with them. Explaining what you need like I did.

They are great at helping out. I hope you find the one you need. Best of luck to you.

What are you testing/demonstrating? Are you using lots of large movie/image files or mostly just text? The current iPad Air 2 has been out for over a year, with rumors that an iPad Air 3 won’t be released until 2016 at the earliest. This is a lousy time in the cycle to buy one (usually the best value is to buy a used one, right after the newest version ships).

Buy refurbished. They are just like new.

http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad

And without know what you need to use it for we can’t really help much.

You’ll need an OS that works, so you’ll need one that has not been updated; iOS 9.0.x still has issues. You will also need to borrow a Mac; the Windows versions of iTunes is a slap-dash kludge that only exists so that Apple can claim to be usable by those who own PCs instead of Macs, but shit is shit, and no amount of slackjaw fanbois saying it works 2,000,000,000% perfectly will erase my own personal experience across multiple versions of iTunes over seven systems using five different versions of windows.

To answer your sub-questions though…

There are many models, and given what time of year it is, I expect it to change some time between me typing this and you reading it.

For reasons of RAM, I would not use any iPad earlier than 3rd generation that has 1GB; enough to actually be able to run tasks quickly while still having enough RAM to keep the OS going. Now, if you are talking storage instead of memory, then you should know that the 16GB models leave little space for anything, and the OS knocks that down to around 12GB. Personally, my phone has 32GB (16GB internal and a 16GB micro-SD card) and my tablet 24GB (8 internal + 16 card) and I find both big enough to be useful but only because of the SD card. But 64GB or more would be too much for something that will mostly collect dust while you use a real tablet. I’d go for 32GB models if available.

All have wi-fi support. Getting one with 3G/4G support costs about $120 extra, at least on the current generation.

What is wrong with iOS 9? I have had it since day one and no problems, along with my sister, and her three kids, and Allie, and Stella, and my aunt, and my uncle, and Amber Lee and so on.

I am the dude that 50 people come to when they have computer problems. No real iOS9 problems so far. Sure, there will be odd bugs when 100Million people install software. Wanna talk about Windows?

And you can totally use iOS without ever touching iTunes. It is totally contained now if you want. Out of everyone I know I am the only person that uses iTunes for anything phone related.

@johnpowell I inherently distrust most x.0 releases anyways, and have seen enough reports of people having issues with iOS 9.0.x to solidify that opinion. It’s normal “teething pains” stuff that I’ve seen so, so, so many times over the years, nothing more, and nothing a couple more patches won’t fix. It’s the same attitude I have towards any software regardless of OS.

As for the iTunes, all I will say to that is that I have needs that exceed the capabilities of iOS and iTunes without the intervention of a middle layer of software, as well as being presumably greater than the needs of the OP, and don’t want to get into it unless this question moves to Social or gets enough replies that derailing the thread won’t be so bad. It’s been barely half a day, so I think OP is still looking for answers.

Maybe tomorrow I might go into why I don’t want to pay $25 a year to store music I already paid for so that I can access my CD rips rather than just do it for free with Android, the niceties of being flawlessly accessible across all three major operating systems, and the troubles I’ve had trying to get PDFs to iDevices, but not right now.

There are 3 different sizes of iPads, don’t know what size you are looking for, @elbanditoroso, so I will list all the gens of all of them, as best I can recall.
The original iPad was one with a 9.7 inch screen. I will call this the mid-sized one, since there is now larger one called the iPad Pro. Then there is also the iPad mini with approx. a 5 inch screen. So, here goes:

In the beginning, there was just the mid-sized iPad. Let’s call this gen 1.

Gen 2: iPad 2

Gen 3: iPad third generation

Gen 4: iPad 4th generation; iPad mini

Gen 5: iPad now called iPad Air; iPad mini 2

Gen 6: iPad Air 2; iPad mini 3

Gen 7: iPad mini 4; iPad Pro (no iPad Air 3 yet)

The most recent iOS is iOS 9.0.2, and it runs on all of them except the first 2 generations of iPad (mid-size).

They all have WiFi. That’s a given. As an added option, you can get a model that also has 3G/4G/LTE. And they come with different amounts of memory. I still have my iPad 3rd generation, it runs iOS 9.0.2, still runs great, and I’ve had absolutely no problems. How much memory you need will, of course, depend on what you plan to do with it. My iPad has 64 GB and I’ve still got plenty left after all these years. But I don’t take very many pictures with it, nor do I store much music on it, because I usually stream my music from various sources in “the cloud” (personal music stored on Amazon, iTunes, or even DropBox, internet radio, YouTube, etc.)

So, the most current models are iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, and iPad Pro. Anything else would be an “earlier model”, which many people say represent a better value than buying a current model.

Jerv: I get it, you talk shit without using any Apple products. And you call us sheeple and fanboys.. iOS is on 9.0.2 now… Pretty solid and we get security updates.

I understand that some airlines have put their entire flight manual that pilots have in the cockpit on an iPad mini. Freed up a ton of space because those manuals were quite voluminous. They first used the larger size iPad, but found the size a bit too unwieldy. The mini was just right.

@jerv @johnpowell I use both Apple products and Windows, and I find that they each have their good points and their bad points, just like everything else.

@2davidc8 – GA – exactly the data I needed, I think I’m honing in on the Air or Air2; they’re the latest generations and represent what people are getting.

@johnpowell How many bad experiences does it take for you to stop doing something? How many times have you stuck your hand on a hot stove and burnt yourself before learning stoves are hot? How many times did you get hit by a car before learning to look both ways before crossing the street? Since you consider my opinion wrong, I can only assume that you burn yourself a lot and get hit by cars on a regular basis; I learn from my experience and do my best to avoid repeating past mistakes.

You forget; I used to LOVE Apple. Then they got competition that suits my needs better with less hassle at a much lower price. That opened my eyes a bit, as did finding out how much Apple stifles and steals ideas rather than actually creating anything. And now you’re claiming Apple is so blessed that they are utterly incapable of adhering to fundamental laws of nature.

But my main thing against Apple is people like you. Something about smugly superior ignorance of reality tends to ruffle my feathers. If you guys stop worshipping then I’ll dial it back a bit… and still avoid Apple products due to their cost, inability to fulfill my needs, and hoops one must jump through to do things that don’t require any hoop-jumping with non-Apple products. Merit nudges me away gently, and evangelists make sure I stay away.

@elbanditoroso I’m thinking that you’d be fine with an older model. Unless your employer is paying for it, there’s not enough improvement with this generation to warrant the cost compared to what you can find “old” iPads for. As I said above, anything 3rd-gen or newer with 32+ GB should suit your needs. And the Pro is probably severe overkill.

@jerv – I’m think a newer model, because I’m going to be playing with some test software that our customers will be getting, and I“m making the assumption that most of the public are buying the Airs or have more recent models.

This is something my employer will pay for, and I don’t intend to use it for pleasure, just for work related stuff. So storage, which is important on my Android, is not really important here.

@elbanditoroso My reasoning was that the main thing that determines compatibility is the OS, and every iPad with the exception of the original 2010 model all run (or at least can run) the same version of iOS; the most recent one.

As I said above, I think that the iPad Pro would be overkill. And while I prefer 7” tablets for personal use, if I were to use a tablet for anything productive, I would opt for a 10”, so the Minis are out. I don’t think 512 MB of RAM is enough for testing, so we can eliminate the iPad 2.

Once we eliminate models based on those criteria, we have three choices; the iPad 3, iPad 4, and iPad Air. The only real relevant differences between them are related to speed; the CPU, GPU and whether it uses DDR2 or DDR3. If having a 1.2 megapixel front camera insted of a 0.3 megapixel one is important to you then you can disregard the iPad 3, but I don’t do the video-chat/teleconference thing so the front camera isn’t important to me. (All three have the same rear camera.) In other words, since all three could get the job done, we are simply balancing speed and price unless you have other criteria that aren’t specified thusfar.

This is where benchmarks and cost comparison come in. Despite my rather heated disagreements with @johnpowell, I wholeheartedly agree with him that refurbished units are worth considering; you get the same thing at a lower price. Is it worth it to you to pay even more to have “the latest and greatest” when it’s possible to get “does what I need it to do” intead and save a couple hundred dollars in the process?

@johnpowell What little I’ve seen of 9.0.2 is favorable enough that I’m thinking they are close to what I would consider “done right”. Or are you claiming that 9.0.0 was better?

@jerv – no objection to refurb units. I’ll check those out, as well.

Cool. And it’s entirely possible that you’ll find a newer unit for such a small price premium compared to an older model that the performance boost of the newer one is worthwhile.