iPad Air 2

[pinballchris]

Who here plays on one as well?

Do you experience dead spots on the screen? Or more so flipper lag and rollover lag? I especially see this on SST, unless it is part of the table ROM? Guess that is my question, it is my iPad or the table(s)? I haven't really seen it with other tables, but doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

[Slam23]

I play on one (besides an iPad 2) and don't recognize your issue on the whole, however: using the small flipper on SST does seem to have some lag and yesterday I thought I had a dead spot on AFM, it affected the right flipper. I'll experiment some more and report back about it.

 

[pinballrocks]

Mine is also an Air 2. Occasionally I'll run into situations in which a flipper doesn't respond. I've noticed it more often on Black Knight, but also on a few other Season 1 tables, just not as consistently. Not sure what causes it, and it doesn't happen every time I play, so don't ask me how to reproduce the problem. I can't say I've encountered flipper lag or rollover lag, however.

 

[MadScience2006]

iPad Air 2 here...no such issues as you describe.

One thing I did have to get used to coming from an iPad 4 was the Air 2's case and screen vibrations. The thinness of this thing has made sacrifices in the solidity of it. The case back is thinner than ever before and the screen glass as well. The whole thing vibrates when sounds are played.

To remedy (or at least minimize) the vibrations, I simply flip the iPad so the Home button is on top (I play in Portrait mode). The speakers are at the bottom edge near the Home button and this is where the vibrations are most pronounced. Flipping the unit so the speakers are at the top and away (to an extent) from your fingers helps alot.

I either do that or just use headphones.

 

[pinballrocks]

iPad Air 2 here...no such issues as you describe.

One thing I did have to get used to coming from an iPad 4 was the Air 2's case and screen vibrations. The thinness of this thing has made sacrifices in the solidity of it. The case back is thinner than ever before and the screen glass as well. The whole thing vibrates when sounds are played.

To remedy (or at least minimize) the vibrations, I simply flip the iPad so the Home button is on top (I play in Portrait mode). The speakers are at the bottom edge near the Home button and this is where the vibrations are most pronounced. Flipping the unit so the speakers are at the top and away (to an extent) from your fingers helps alot.

I either do that or just use headphones.

You must play at very high volume levels . I tend to use headphones most of the time, simply because I can just hear everything much more clearly. Or I connect to my little Bluetooth speaker (the game sounds great like this, actually). But one thing I love about the Air 2 is how thin it is. My old one is an iPad 3 and it feels downright clunky compared to the Air 2. I wonder how much thinner the next generation of iPads will be...

 

[MadScience2006]

You must play at very high volume levels .

Not really...no more than 3-4 clicks on the volume slider. Maybe earlier production runs of the Air 2 were not dampened internally for sound vibrations. Whatever the case, the Air 2 vibrates when sound is played through the built-in speakers, much more so than my iPad mini 2 or iPad 4. It's a common issue brought up at the Apple Support Communities. It's also most noticeable when there is NO case on it. I use a snap-on plastic back shell on mine now that helps quite a bit.

I really hope that they don't get any thinner. They are already almost too thin, to the point of almost being considered flimsy...at least compared to my iPad 4.

 

[McGuirk]

I haven't had any of those issues. But if I exit the game (by tapping the button on the iPad) and then relaunch it a little later, it takes me to the menu screen and doesn't respond for 10 seconds or so, before closing out and kicking me back to my homescreen.

 

[Gus]

I haven't had any of those issues. But if I exit the game (by tapping the button on the iPad) and then relaunch it a little later, it takes me to the menu screen and doesn't respond for 10 seconds or so, before closing out and kicking me back to my homescreen.

If you lock the screen rotation that won't happen. Works on iPad 4 at least, should be the same on other iPads.

 

[McGuirk]

If you lock the screen rotation that won't happen. Works on iPad 4 at least, should be the same on other iPads.

Thanks. I'll have to deal with the bug then, since I do like to play TPA both ways.

 

[pinballrocks]

I really hope that they don't get any thinner. They are already almost too thin, to the point of almost being considered flimsy...at least compared to my iPad 4.

If there is an Apple hallmark it is thinness. Pretty much every product Apple makes eventually gets the Air treatment, so my money is on iPads getting even thinner in the next two generations. That being said, I don't feel they're particularly flimsy. At least not any flimsier than my iPad 3, but that's just me...

 

[MadScience2006]

If there is an Apple hallmark it is thinness.

Yes...that's one advantage to their devices. But at what point (and at what cost to the user) do these things start to get *too* thin and start to affect usability? As thin as a piece of window glass (which is what we are slowly approaching)? As thin as a credit card? As thin as a piece of paper? How do you pick it up from a flat surface when it's as thin as window glass? There's no room for beveled/rounded edges to reach under...will they come with a suction cup lifting device or do you slide it to the edge of the table/surface that it's on to get under it to lift it? When we start approaching that kind of thinness, there will really be no structurable stability nor rigidity...maybe we can fold it and put it in our pockets like a paper map instead.

Sure, alot of what I said is just speculation along with some nonsense...but really though, there has to be a limit to how thin these things can be and still actually be usable.

 

[Gus]

Thanks. I'll have to deal with the bug then, since I do like to play TPA both ways.

You can fire up the table you want to play and set it to landscape or portrait, pause, hit the home button, lock rotation (swipe up from the bottom and click rotation) and then go back to TPA. It takes a few seconds and is so worth it to be able to pause games as long as you like.

 

[PitchBlank]

Haven't seen this particular issue but one thing that annoys me is the subtle difference in physics between the Air and my old iPad 3. Anyone who thinks I'm imagining things and owns one of each can try for themselves. It's most noticeable on Attack from Mars and Road Show, when you keep a flipper button pressed in order to catch and (hopefully) stop and cradle the ball. On AFM it's when the Stroke of Luck scoop shoots the ball to the left flipper. On RTRS it's the city event hole vs the right flipper.
On iPad 3, the ball stops and allows itself to be cradled maybe 9 times out of 10. There's that 10th time when it bounces off (RTRS) or rolls off (AFM) the flipper and you have to act accordingly. On the iPad Air, the bounce/roll off is the norm. Only once every 10th time does it stop like on iPad 3, as if whatever code that simulates friction called in sick. We're not talking coincidence here, I've observed this with AOM thousands of times now, hundreds w/ RTRS. As to how the difference in processor speed could have subtle effects on the physics code... ask a programmer, a shaman or a voodoo doctor, **** if I know... just reporting an observation.

 

[Slam23]

I now can report some issues with flippers gone dead, experienced those on prolonged games of TOTAN (actually multiple long games) and on Whitewater. Can't say what caused this and haven't had the issue since. I do try to keep it clean: close all other apps and also tried to start TPA after switching the iPad on/off.

 

[MadScience2006]

I think the main issue is the 32-bit (iPad 3) vs 64-bit (iPad Air & Air 2) difference. I have no idea why this would matter but it does in certain aspects of TPA.