Mar 15, 2016 12:00 AM
3120 Views
The iPad Air is the fifth-generation iPad tablet computer designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It was announced on October 22, 2013, and was released in space gray and silver colors on November 1, 2013. The iPad Air features a thinner design with similarities to the contemporary iPad Mini 2, along with the same 64-bit Apple A7 processor with M7 coprocessor.
The iPad Air comes with the iOS 7 operating system, released on September 18, 2013.Jonathan Ive, the designer of iOS 7's new elements, described the update as "bringing order to complexity", highlighting features such as refined typography, new icons, translucency, layering, physics, and gyroscope-driven parallaxing as some of the major changes to the design. The design of both iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks(version 10.9) noticeably depart from skeuomorphic elements such as green felt in Game Center, wood in Newsstand, and leather in Calendar, in favor of flat, colourful design.
It can act as a hotspot with some carriers, sharing its Internet connection over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB, and also access the Apple App Store, a digital application distribution platform for iOS. The service allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with Xcode and the iOS SDK and were published through Apple. From the App Store, GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, and the iWork apps(Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) are available.
The iPad Air comes with several applications, including Siri, Safari, Mail, Photos, Video, Music, iTunes, App Store, Maps, Notes, Calendar, Game Center, Photo Booth, and Contacts. Like all iOS devices, the iPad can sync content and other data with a Mac or PC using iTunes, although iOS 5 and later can be managed and backed up without a computer. Although the tablet is not designed to make phone calls over a cellular network, users can use a headset or the built-in speaker and microphone to place phone calls over Wi-Fi or cellular using a VoIP application, such as Skype. The device has a dictation application, using the same voice recognition technology as the iPhone 4S. This enables users to speak and the iPad types what they say on the screen, though the iPad must have an internet connection(via Wi-Fi or cellular network) because the speech is processed by Apple servers. Apple also began giving away its popular iLife(iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband) and iWork(Pages, Keynote, Numbers) apps with the device.
On June 8, 2015, it was announced at the WWDC that the iPad Air would support most of iOS 9's new features when it is released in Q3 2015. Air users with iOS 9 will be able to take advantage of two features called Slide Over and Picture in Picture. Slide Over allows a user to "slide" a second app in from the side of the screen in a smaller window, and have it display information alongside the initial app. Picture in Picture allows a user to watch video in a small, resizable, moveable window while remaining in another app. Another feature, dubbed Split View(which allows the user to run two apps simultaneously in a 50/50 view), will not be supported by the Air, instead it will only run on iPad Air 2.
