iPad Air (2022) might be too thin for its own good

Date:
Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:30:16 +0000

Description:
Some iPad Air (2022) units are creaking, and it's seemingly due to a thin backplate.

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The iPad Air (2022) has landed with rave reviews, including a 4-star one from TechRadar, but now that its in users hands, some of them are reporting concerns about the build quality.

A number of users on Reddit and elsewhere have claimed that the aluminum back panel is so thin that you can almost feel the battery through it, and presumably as a result of this the tablet creaks when held.

The iPad Air (2022) is very thin at just 6.1mm thick, but its worth noting that the iPad Air 4 is every bit as slim and the iPad Pro 11 (2021) is even thinner at 5.9mm, so its seemingly not the overall thinness of the device thats causing the issues, just the build of the backplate.

Or perhaps its not even to do with how thin it is, but rather how the slate has been put together. In any case, this issue doesnt appear to affect every iPad Air (2022), as other users have chimed in to say theirs are fine.

But there are enough reports of creaks that Apple may have some sort of quality control issue though with forum posts its always hard to know for sure how widespread an issue actually is.

This being a hardware issue theres no real fix for it other than getting your tablet replaced, but theres also no guarantee that the next one wont have the same problem. Since this is unlikely to affect the performance of the tablet you might want to just live with it, but that will be a personal choice.

If reports of this issue keep emerging its likely Apple will address it eventually, but for now theres no official comment from the company.
Analysis: not the first Apple hardware problem

As good as Apples devices are, they arent immune to hardware problems, and this isnt the first instance of a potentially widespread issue.

Back in 2014, the company was criticized for whats become known as BendGate . This name came from reports of iPhone 6 Plus units bending when placed in a pocket. Given the thin, creaky build quality of some iPad Air (2022) units, there could be concerns of bending or breaking here too, but so far that
hasnt been reported.

Before that, there was Antennagate , where iPhone 4 units would lose signal if you didnt hold them properly (as Steve Jobs infamously said).

Whether this creaking issue will become its own -gate (CreakGate perhaps?) remains to be seen, but there will probably be another gate sooner or later anyway. Grab some of the best free iPad apps

Via Apple Insider



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/ipad-air-2022-might-be-too-thin-for-its-own-goo d/


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