Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in one handy summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it pairs really well with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you also want to read it during lunch or dinner hours.
Shrink differently
The iPad is in a tough situation. As I’ve said before, there’s really nowhere to go: the post-PC world never came to be, leaving a shrinking market of couch-based tablet users for whom specs and very basic features are more than good. enough, and who will need a lot of persuasion to replace their existing model with something new.
Soon, Apple is expected to reveal its iPad master plan to the world. But it remains to be seen whether the world will be convinced. One theory is that we’ll have an iPad Air with a larger screen, which is a sensible but unexciting idea. While another more recent prediction suggests that Apple will shrink the bezels.
Reducing bezels is one of those ideas that always sounds good to consumers and journalists, but I suspect it sounds less pleasant to engineers’ ears. From the outside, that annoying screenless chunk around the edge of your iPad looks like dead wood, begging to be replaced with either more screen (who wouldn’t want more screen real estate in a device of the same size?) or nothing at all (who wouldn’t want a smaller device with the same screen space?). But of course, in practice, there’s no such thing as dead wood in the design of a current-generation iPad, which is so packed with vital high-power components that a 1960s rocket scientist would think it’s magic.
So while dekissing may seem like a simple and obvious change, there are complications that may not be apparent to the layman. Adding components for additional screen real estate incurs costs in terms of weight, battery capacity, and literal cost; just like removing the components that are under the frame that you have now removed. An iPad is a finely tuned ecosystem of interlocking parts, and a change in one area will have consequences elsewhere that you probably won’t like.
Anyway, we’ve been here before. The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max have had their bezels shrunk slightly compared to the previous generation, barely registering on our reviewer’s radar. The MacBook Air M2 has thinner bezels than its predecessor, but that meant the front camera had to be placed in an annoying notch. More screen space overall, therefore, but also a more distracting visual profile.
The iPhone 16 generation will likely see a similar decline, as will an upcoming big-screen iMac, because it’s the kind of change that Apple’s marketing machine can frame as entirely positive. But I would dispute that. At best, this has very little effect on the user experience.
Glasses fever is a dubious pursuit, as far as I’m concerned, but particularly so in the case of the iPad. An iPhone with nearly invisible bezels can still be held in relative comfort, while a frameless MacBook can be placed on your lap or held from below. But the frameless iPad would fit between the two stools. Its weight and physical design mean that there is almost always a steady thumb crawling across the front surface, which is fine when it’s on the frame, but frustrating when it’s obscure and leaves thumb prints on the active screen.
There’s a lot Apple can change in the iPad lineup; they may or may not save it from irrelevance, but they are worth a try. Reducing glasses seems like a waste of time to me.
Trending: Featured News
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Podcast of the week
Apple has taken steps recently in the world of AI. Let’s find out what this means for Apple users.
You can watch every episode of the igamesnews Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
Reviews corner
The rumor mill
Save the date: Apple is rumored to launch new iPads on Tuesday March 26. Or maybe
Two AirPods 4 models are arriving this year with noise cancellation and Lower price.
Apple reportedly in talks to obtain a license Google’s Gemini AI for use under iOS.
Report: New anti-glare, scratch-resistant screen hits the market iPhone17.
Software updates, bugs and issues
Apple made a real mess of macOS Sonoma with the Update 14.4.
‘GoFetch’ flaw in Apple’s M-series chips could leak hidden encryption keys.
The tests show how the MacBook Air M3The best feature of may harm performance.
Oracle warns: Java users should wait for the update to macOS Sonoma 14.4.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s apple breakfast. If you would like to receive regular summaries, subscribe to our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads or Twitter to discuss the latest Apple news. See you next Monday and stay Appley.
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