iPad Air review: Still going with iOS 10

Although the iPad Air shipped with iOS 7, it has since been upgraded to iOS 8, you can read all about this in our full iOS 8 review. You get interactive notifications to easier deal with the stream of alerts; Continuity so that you can take calls from your iPhone on your iPad and respond to text messages. You also get Automatic Hotspot connection with your iPhone, making it far easier to share a connection between your two devices and bringing a new lease of life to Wi-Fi only devices.

iWork and iLife

Buy an iPad Air today, or in fact any iOS device, and you get a free copy of iWorks and iLife. With the iWorks productivity suite, you get the Pages word processing app, the Numbers spreadsheet, and the Keynote presentation app. In this version all of the files are compatible with the desktop version of the apps, so you can create and edit documents anywhere on any Apple device. With the option to save to iCloud, too, you never have to be without your files.

It also shows how the iPad is moving from just a device that’s for consuming content to one that’s also there to create content. All of the iWorks apps have had a major interface overhaul, both in-app and desktop versions. We’ll bring you a full review of the suite soon, but we think you’ll be impressed at how easy it is to create on the iPad. That’s quite important, as it means that you can now really get some work done on your iPad, rather than struggling with apps that attempt to recreate the Microsoft Office interface, which is hard to use on a touchscreen device.

It’s great to see iLife included for free, too. This suite includes iPhoto for editing and managing your photos, iMovie for editing and creating films, and Garageband for creating music. Of the three iPhoto has had the least changes, although it’s still a great touch-based tool for tweaking and editing photos. New to this version is built-in integration with the print store, where you can order standalone photos, posters, panoramas and photo books.

With iMovie you get new transition effects, advanced audio editing and the iMovie Theater, where you can save edited clips to iCloud, so you can view them later on the web, via iOS devices and through Apple TV. It turns the iPad into a capable and powerful editing device. Thanks to its large screen, we love editing videos on this tablet, pulling in a video shot on other devices. To do this you have to save photos and videos to the iPad camera roll.

Garageband has also had an update, including a brand-new interface, support for 32 tracks on 64-bit devices and an incredible new intelligent auto-drummer, which you can set to perform tricks and fill-ins automatically.

App store

Of course, there’s a huge range of apps available in the App store. While Android, via the Google Play store, has been catching up, there’s no denying that the iPad has the largest and best-range of apps available for it. There’s everything in there from productivity to the latest games (even games for your cats!). Thanks to the quality control that goes into the App Store, you know that everything will run properly on your tablet, too.