Apple iPad Air 2, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to get Bluetooth 4.2 upgrade.
Apple has been showing an interesting trend, somewhat of a “no device left behind” policy, where, as new technologies are developed, they are later on migrated to existing product lines.
The effects of this trend became obvious with the mass-upgrade of all Apple devices’s display to Retina, across the board, from iOS to MacBooks. This year, with the unveiling of the 12 inch MacBook Retina, Apple moved on to upgrading all MacBooks with the Force Touch trackpad, and the new keyboard featuring Apple’s own “Butterfly” mechanism.
According to a comparison chart featured on Apple’s website, the iPad Air 2, will get an upgrade on its existing Bluetooth 4.0 hardware, to Bluetooth 4.2.
This comes in the wake of Apple outfitting its newly announced iPad Pro, with Bluetooth 4.2 technology, and as it turns out, the upgrade has also been extended to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Bluetooth Core Specification 4.2 is designed to provide support for low-power connectivity, for instance when connecting to smaller devices, like the Apple Watch. Like all radio frequencies used for communication, a weaker signal often translates into higher battery usage, to compensate and provide for better reception. This latest update to the Bluetooth standard represents an improvement in battery life for the iPad Air 2 and the iPhone 6/6 Plus product lines.
Better battery performance also means smaller batteries, which is great news for Apple’s future products, as it means one less thing to worry about in the way of designing thinner devices, without compromising on specs.
What else will Apple hand down to its existing line up?
The two major technologies recently unveiled by Apple are the Apple Pencil, and 3D Touch. By this token, there is a chance for these two technologies to follow a similar trend, in regard to the iPad Air and the iPad Mini.
Enabling support for Apple Pencil and 3D Touch in other iPad models aside from the iPad Pro, could potentially translate in a boost for iPad sales, but the best reason to allow such an upgrade is the fact that iPad users who are looking to take advantage of iOS 9’s new capabilities in the way of taptic feedback and gesture control found in the iPad Pro and the iPhone 6S, will find it easier to use applications like Microsoft Office 2016, with the added bonus that due to the fact that all iPads with the exception of the iPad Pro have display sizes within Microsoft’s definition of mobile device, Office will be available on those devices without an Office 360 subscription.