iPad Air 2 – no rotation lock switch?!

by Deep Thinker on 16 October, 2014, no comments

So, Apple just introduced the all new iPad Air 2 (Gosh, what a mouthful of a name!).

I am still on the iPad 3 – the very first iPad with Retina, that a rapid six months later got replaced by the iPad 4, and has universally been described as way too slow to do Retina in the first place. So I have been looking forward to replace my iPad for a while now, and I am ready to pull the trigger. And the new iPad is an incredible improvement to my current one in almost every way – not least, we finally get 128 GB of storage. I have managed to fill up every iDevice I ever owned to the seams, so more storage is always welcome.

But – Apple always, always, seems to make one tiny little unexpected change or omission, which takes me completely off-guard, and throws me from my already locked in and ready to purchase stance back into doubt and hesitation: The new iPad Air 2 does not have a rotation lock switch.

What the heck, Apple?!

I can already put together the justification for this – they wanted to make it as thin as possible, and rotation lock can be done by software. Well, I use the physical rotation lock on my iPad all the time, and I never use that stupid control center, which keeps getting in the way. So I am not happy about this. It seems like a very arbitrary und unnecessary design decision.

A similar thing happened with the Mac mini – I waited ages to buy my very first one in order to use it as a TV multimedia computer, and had everything set up to and ready to go – and then the new Mac mini finally comes out and does not have a DVD drive. I had to think about it for a long time, and then still went ahead and bought it – but I also had to get a Bluray player as well. Everything works fine now, but things would have been simply more convenient with a DVD drive. (It is even more annoying as there would have been more than enough space inside the Mac mini for a DVD drive – they just chose not to. Probably to sell more iTunes movies. Hmph!)

Okay then. We know how this wil play out. I shall think about this, having been cast back into doubt and hesitation after practically having my wallet out already – and then I will end up buying the new iPad anyway, and accept that Apple always knows best.

Hmph!

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