Apple unveils its most powerful iPad Air ever

Apple today introduced an all-new iPad Air which they call the most powerful, versatile, and colorful iPad Air ever. Now available in five finishes, iPad Air features an all-screen design with a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, camera and audio upgrades, a new integrated Touch ID sensor in the top button, and the powerful A14 Bionic for a massive boost in performance, making this by far the most powerful and capable iPad Air ever made. The new iPad Air will be available starting next month.

“Today we’re excited to introduce a completely redesigned and far more powerful iPad Air, debuting Apple’s most powerful chip ever made, the A14 Bionic,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With its gorgeous new all-screen design, larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, next-generation Touch ID, and a massive boost in performance with A14 Bionic, the new iPad Air brings customers powerful pro features at an even more affordable price. Along with major upgrades to the iPad Pro and eighth-generation iPad this year, and the powerful new features of iPadOS 14, this is our strongest iPad lineup ever, giving our customers even more ways to enrich their daily lives.”

All-new iPad Air design in five beautiful finishes

The new iPad Air features a completely new thin and light design in five gorgeous finishes: silver, space gray, rose gold, green, and sky blue. The new all-screen design features a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display for a stunning visual experience, with 3.8 million pixels and advanced technologies, including full lamination, P3 wide color support, True Tone, and an anti-reflective coating for an amazing visual experience.

To allow the display to extend on all sides, a next-generation Touch ID sensor is integrated into the top button, providing the same fast, easy, and secure way to unlock iPad Air, log in to apps, or use Apple Pay that customers know and love. iPad Air is compatible with Magic Keyboard and its floating design, and built-in trackpad, Smart Keyboard Folio, and new Smart Folio covers, as well as Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side for easy pairing, charging, and storing.

Most powerful iPad Air with A14 Bionic

iPad Air delivers a massive boost in performance with Apple’s most advanced chip, A14 Bionic. Handling even the most demanding apps, A14 Bionic makes it even easier for users to edit 4K videos, create gorgeous works of art, play immersive games, and more. Using breakthrough 5-nanometer process technology, A14 Bionic is packed with 11.8 billion transistors for increased performance and power efficiency in nearly every part of the chip. This latest-generation A-series chip features a new 6-core design for a 40 percent boost in CPU performance, and a new 4-core graphics architecture for a 30 percent improvement in graphics.

To deliver breakthrough machine learning capabilities, A14 Bionic includes a new 16-core Neural Engine that is twice as fast, and capable of performing up to 11 trillion operations per second, taking machine learning apps to a whole new level. A14 Bionic also includes second-generation machine learning accelerators in the CPU for 10 times faster machine learning calculations. This combination of the new Neural Engine, CPU machine learning accelerators, and high-performance GPU enables powerful on-device experiences for image recognition, natural language learning, analyzing motion, and more.

Upgraded camera and immersive audio

iPad Air, which includes a 7MP front-facing FaceTime HD camera, now features the same 12MP rear camera used in iPad Pro for higher resolution photos and 4K video capture. The new design of iPad Air features stereo speakers in landscape mode, elevating the audio experience so users can enjoy wider stereo sound while watching video.
iPad Air now features a USB-C port for up to 5Gbps data transfer, which is 10 times faster, for connecting to cameras, hard drives, and external monitors up to 4K. With Wi-Fi 6 performance and 60 percent faster LTE connectivity, along with A14 Bionic, this is by far the most powerful iPad Air ever.

Distinct iPad experience with iPadOS 14

iPadOS 14, available beginning Wednesday, September 16, brings new features and designs that take advantage of the unique capabilities of iPad, such as its large Multi-Touch display, and versatile accessories. iPadOS 14 further integrates Apple Pencil into the iPad experience for better note-taking capabilities, and new ways to work with handwritten notes. When taking notes on iPad, Smart Selection uses on-device machine learning to distinguish handwriting from drawings, so handwritten text can easily be selected, cut, and pasted into another document as typed text using the same familiar gestures.

Shape recognition allows users to draw shapes that are made geometrically perfect and snap right into place when adding diagrams and illustrations in Notes. Data detectors work seamlessly with handwritten text, recognizing phone numbers, dates, addresses, and links, making it easy for users to perform actions like tapping a handwritten number to make a call.

iPadOS 14 also brings Scribble to iPad, allowing Apple Pencil users to handwrite directly in any text field, making actions like replying to a quick iMessage or searching in Safari fast and easy — all without ever needing to put Apple Pencil away. Scribble uses on-device machine learning to convert handwriting into typed text in real-time, so writing is always kept private and secure.

New sidebars for many apps including Photos and Files, and streamlined toolbars that consolidate controls into a single place, making them more useful than ever.
Beautifully redesigned widgets that present timely information at a glance right on the Home Screen.

Most environmentally friendly, most advanced iPad lineup ever

The new iPad Air is designed to be environmentally friendly and supports Apple’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2030. The iPad Air uses a 100 percent recycled aluminum enclosure and 100 percent recycled tin for the solder on its main logic board. The new speakers in iPad Air also use magnets with 100 percent recycled rare earth elements. iPad Air remains free of harmful substances, is highly energy-efficient, and uses wood fiber packaging that is recycled or comes from responsibly managed forests.

iPad Air joins the powerful iPad Pro, the eighth-generation iPad, and iPad mini to form the most advanced iPad lineup ever. With support for Apple Pencil, best-in-class performance, advanced displays, and all-day battery life, whether customers prioritize portability, power, or price, there’s an iPad for everyone. Learn more about the iPad family at apple.com/ipad/compare.

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JBL Bar 1000: The soundbar to beat?

04/11/2023

Content consumption has evolved throughout the years. You can now watch or stream your favorite TV shows and movies wherever you are just by using your laptop or even your phones.

Although, of course, if you want the complete, immersive experience, the movie theater is still your go-to.

What if you want to bring that same experience to your home? That’s when home theaters come into play. And when talking about full immersion, audio plays a big part.

What we have with us is the JBL Bar 1000 — a soundbar with 7.1.4 channels that deliver true surround sound. It also features Dolby Atmos sound with MultiBeam and DTS:X that all aim to deliver rich, natural-sounding surround experience.

And one of the coolest parts? There are two detachable speakers that you can place around you to literally put you in the middle of what you’re watching and make it feel like you’re part of each scene.

Setup and design

Setting up is a no-fuss process and once you bring out the soundbar and connect the necessary cables, you’re pretty much halfway done.

The company knows that every room where you’re setting up the soundbar is different so a quick calibration is necessary to fully take advantage of the speakers.

This is easily done by either pressing the calibrate button on the remote or by downloading the JBL One app that shows a more detailed way of calibration. It shows you what to do and does the calibration all by itself and you just need to reposition the detachable speakers twice. After just a few minutes, the speakers are ready.

In terms of design, things are pretty straightforward. It comes in a traditional soundbar form factor but is quite long when you look at it from end to end since, as mentioned earlier, it comes with detachable speakers that you can place around you.

The package also comes with rubber covers that you can use so they still look nice without exposing their connectivity points.

Going back to the main speaker, you have buttons up top for volume and power, and on its face is a small panel that shows all the information you need.

Turn it around and you see its available ports for multiple HDMI inputs and even one that supports eARC for enhanced audio. You can also use an optical cable if you prefer and for wireless connectivity, there’s Bluetooth pairing.

Taking care of the lows is a massive 10-inch wireless subwoofer so you can place it anywhere that’s convenient and out of the way. If you want to hear just how massive the bass is on these speakers, be sure to watch the video above for some audio samples.

The package also contains a remote control, of course, wall brackets for the soundbar, wall mounts for its detachable speakers, and side caps, along with manuals and warranties.

Features

For its features, it comes with more than a handful to ensure quality and enjoyment while watching or playing music.

Headlining its array of features are Dolby Atmos, Harman’s MultiBeam, and DTS:X audio codec all designed to provide theater-quality 3D surround sound. Additionally, it also comes with PureVoice technology that enhances dialogue when you watch movies to ensure you get an immersive experience.

Other features include built-in WiFi with AirPlay, Alexa Multi-Room Music and Google Chromecast built-in so you can easily throw music or your favorite podcast from a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Plus, you can even do that with simple voice commands as the soundbar is compatible to work with voice assistant-enabled speakers.

Performance

Now, for its performance, JBL isn’t joking when they say it can deliver a theater-like audio experience. Because it simply does.

Sound quality in itself is top-notch and the 10-inch wireless subwoofer does deliver powerful, low kicks that can effortlessly fill up the living room of our 70sqm apartment unit. Dialogues are easily understandable when watching movies and vocals are clear when you switch to playing music.

Although I noticed that at low volumes (for when it’s late at night and we don’t want to disturb people in the next apartment) dialogue could be softer compared to when sound effects are in full swing like in an action scene.

Compressing the dynamic range on the TV helps, but dialogues still come up a bit soft for our liking. But on full blast, it’s truly just a satisfying experience.

Moving on to its detachable speakers, putting them behind you does deliver a true surround performance that elevates your movie-watching experience. You can hear explosions going around you, cars speeding by, and even hear the radio playing in the background when the scene is in a restaurant, for example.

You can even adjust the volume of these speakers to suit your preference. I usually just go for the second level right here as, for me, it gives the right balance of sound without overpowering the main speakers.

And speaking of adjustments, there’s one each for bass level and ATMOS that you can tweak. Again, depending on your preference or what kind of content you’re playing.

Having all these working together simply brings content consumption to a whole new level.

It’s having that spatial awareness of what you’re seeing on your screen. You know where almost every sound is coming from whether you’re watching movies or playing games.

For gaming, it actually helps a lot when you’re playing as you can hear where enemies are coming from so that’s another advantage to these speakers.

Final thoughts and price

If you’re on the lookout for your next home theater speakers, this is one great contender that you should check and include in your list.

The sound quality is nothing short of impressive and the surround system definitely puts you at the center of each and every scene you’re watching. And with its additional convenience feature of being able to throw audio content from your mobile devices and even use voice commands, it’s an invaluable piece for your living room or home theater.

The JBL Bar 1000 is priced at PhP 59,999 but at the time of writing, you can get it for only PhP 53,999. It’s available at any OnWard store in the Philippines so do check it out or even try it at the experience area of the store.

You can also grab it online through Onward’s official e-commerce channels (Shopee PH, Lazada PH). For US customers, it’s now also available on Amazon. 

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