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Tablets · Apple iPad

Apple iPad 4th generation

8owners with an opinion
67%of verdicts positive
1/0positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for durability and reliability; criticized for software.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 11 yearsStill going
You clearly haven’t tried it. My kids still use an 11 year old gen four iPad every day. It’s absolutely incredible for the $500 or so that we paid for it. We’ve gotten 11 years of entertainment out of it. The old apps still install just fine and we’ve never had to make any effort to maintain it, or fiddle with operating systems or software or anything. It’s hard to imagine a better value from a device like this, especially when you take into account the amount of time you would have to spend managing something that had more software freedom to it.
Likes itOwned 10 yearsStill going
I have a bunch of iPads in the house including the 4th generation one from 2012 that is still get used randomly to watch content. It' 10 years old and still works without any issues. It's the oldest piece of tech that I have in the house. You can always recycle them with Apple if you are worried about the waste footprint.
Likes it
I have an M3 iPad Air. I only upgraded after my M1 iPad Air 4th generation (IIRC) stopped turning off and it was way too expensive to get a replacement board. I am desperately clinging on to these because they still use TouchID. Words cannot describe how much I hate FaceID as a person with poor vision. When I'm forced to use it on my iPhone (which is all the time), I have to move it away from my face or I get the "Try again". Super-annoying. But it gets worse: after a certain number of unsuccessful tries, you're forced to use your passcode anyway and FaceID has false negatives ALL THE TIME. It's even worse on n iPad form factor where the iPad often isn't facing you directly. It might be attached to a keyboard, on a stand, on your lap or on your chest (when lying down). Many of these angles just don't naturally work with FaceID. If only Apple would give me a FaceID OPTION on an iPhone. I haven't bought a keyboard or anything. If I wanted a device to work on in any way, I'd still use a Macbook Air. But I do love my iPad Air.
Neutral
I mean, you can take your iPad back to Apple and have them replace the battery, you know. For my current one (a "4th generation" Air) that'd be $120, which is not cheap, but it's cheaper than replacing it for $700 and a lot less stressful than trying to replace the battery myself. (Having said that, I'm not ruling out replacing it, but I don't think I'll be inclined to do that until they stop updating its version of iPadOS.)
Doesn’t like it
I wish it was that simple. I use a 4th gen iPod touch, every day, only to listen to music while commuting. Just this week I needed an interval timer, and thought that I could just install one on my iPod. Nope - AppStore showed about 12 results for "interval timer", but none of them were installable on iOS 6. I thought then I will look for an online interval timer, and use it through wifi. After clicking through the first 3 pages of Google results, Safari could not make any of the pages usable. Either loaded a blank screen, or the interface didn't react to the touches - I guess some "fancy" new features that are too modern for the old Safari. I could rant about loading 10MB JS on a typical lightweight site that has the same visuals and functionality as 15 years ago, but now it makes Chrome cry on a modern machine... but I won't do that. Anyway this is how I gave up having an interval timer on my iPod. Maybe my plan was too grandiose to begin with. Neither new software, nor old software.