At first glance, with the Apple Reality
Distortion Field at full power, the iPad Air seems like an impeccable,
immaculate device that could only ever be conceived by the magicians at Apple
in California. The iPad Air is some 30% lighter and 20% thinner than the iPad
that it replaces, while still retaining the same Retina display and 10 hours of
battery life. Somehow, just somehow, Apple made us feel that it had yet again
pulled off the impossible. In reality, the iPad Air, while very attractive,
isn’t remarkable at all. The new Kindle Fire HDX, for example, has a
higher-resolution screen, more battery life, weighs less, and even costs less
than the iPad Air.
Apple has this amazing ability to dress up
mundane advances in software and hardware as remarkable, life-changing
features. This isn’t to say that Apple doesn’t have an industry-leading
industrial design department and supply chain, but objectively the lead
that Apple has over the software, design, and manufacturing departments of other
companies is nowhere near as large as we think. This is what we refer to as the
Apple Reality Distortion Field (RDF).
The cause of the RDF is multifaceted. The term
was originally applied to Steve Jobs himself, who used a mix of charisma,
hyperbole, and cult of personality to convince people — colleagues, developers,
an adoring audience — that Apple was capable of regularly making the impossible
possible. At some point, though, following a slew of beautiful and functional
products — the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad — Apple itself became the source of
the RDF. Without going into the sociological and psychological causes of the
RDF, it’s simply enough to say this: If you sell hundreds of millions of devices
that regularly score the highest marks in customer satisfaction surveys, and
often provide the first high-quality computing experience the person has ever
had, those devices become revered — and the maker of those devices is
deified.
As you probably know, when reverence, faith, or
love enter the equation, all hope of objectivity goes out the window. For those
inside the RDF — for those who look at Apple with rose-tinted glasses — there
is nothing particularly unusual about this behavior. Much in the same way that
we find a lover’s mannerisms disproportionately adorable, or put up with
friends and loved ones treating us poorly, Apple appears to be capable of doing
no wrong. For those of us outside Apple’s RDF, however, this blind belief and
adherence to a corporate and massively profitable god is puzzling at best and
intolerably stupid at worst.
Which leads us neatly onto the topic of Apple’s
latest illusory masterpiece: The iPad Air. If you take a quick look at your
favorite tech websites, or ask a devout Apple fan for their opinion, you would
think that the iPad Air is the thinnest, lightest, and most marvellous slab of
technology to ever grace this planet of ours. If we take a step back and look
at it objectively, though, we can see the Air for what it truly is: A very well
designed tablet that is ultimately no better, and much more expensive, than an
8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX.
The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX ($400) has a
quad-core Snapdragon 800 SoC, a 2560×1600 (339 PPI) display, and battery life
of between 12 (mixed use) and 18 hours (reading). Perhaps most importantly,
though, the HDX is just 7.8mm thick and weighs 374 grams. The iPad Air is
slightly thinner (7.5mm), but in almost every other way — weight, resolution,
battery life — it is inferior to the HDX. The Snapdragon 800 is perhaps a
little slower than the Air’s A7 SoC, depending on the benchmark. It’s also
important to note that the iPad Air’s display is 10.1 inches at a 4:3 aspect
ratio, while the HDX is only 8.9 inches at 16:10, which works out at around 20%
more screen real estate for the iPad. The larger display could explain the iPad
Air’s extra heft (469 grams), but the HDX’s svelte dimensions and better
battery life are still very noteworthy.
It’s unfair, however, to naively compare the
hardware without also looking at the rest of the package — and even the most
hardened haters have to admit that Apple has a mighty fine package. Again, to
put it in the most simple terms, if Apple didn’t produce devices that look and
feel good, and operate almost flawlessly, then the Reality Distortion Field
would’ve long ago faded. For those of us outside the RDF, we constantly look
for flaws, no matter how small or meaningless, that can be thrown in the face
of the Apple devotees — anything, really anything, to deconstruct their
blind faith.
Deep down, though, we know such efforts are in
vain. It will always be possible to find flaws in Apple’s software and
hardware, but it’s evident that they’re ultimately of little or no consequence.
Apple’s sales figures continue to swell. New users are trying Apple
devices for the first time, being blown away by the experience, and becoming
zealots in record quantities. Despite the continuing protestations of
detractors who will do or say anything to push Apple from its pedestal, the
Reality Distortion Field remains in place and in full effect.
Maybe the RDF isn’t around Apple any more,
though. Maybe… the Reality Distortion Field has moved so that it’s now around us,
around those who stubbornly refuse to admit how awesome Apple actually is.
