“It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly five years since Jobs introduced that first iPad, and even harder to believe how completely the iPad changed the way computers fit into our lives,” Nilay Patel writes for The Verge. “The iPad brought tablets into the mainstream, upended the entire PC business, and for several years looked like a runaway success on par with the iPhone. The question wasn’t whether tablets would replace laptops for most people, but how quickly.”
“Pick up an iPad Air 2 and you’ll immediately understand why Apple pursues that thinness with such single-minded zeal. It’s so, so thin: 18 percent thinner than the older Air, and even slightly lighter. It’s hard to believe that there’s a computer back there, let alone a computer as powerful as the laptop computers of just a few years ago,” Patel writes. “If there is anything magical about this new iPad it is this, this feeling of impossibility. The Air 2 makes the original iPad look and feel archaic, like a horrible monster from a long-forgotten past.”
“There’s no question that the iPad Air 2 is the best iPad ever made,” Patel writes. “It’s also the best tablet ever made — its incredible hardware and enormous ecosystem of apps offer a commanding advantage over the competition.”
