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Splatoon is a simple game: You’re a squid- or octopus-like humanoid in a post-apocalyptic world, and all you wanna do is shoot people with colorful ink and buy cute outfits. I had never played a Splatoon game before Splatoon 3 was released last week, but my friends were all hyping it up, so I jumped in. There’s not a ton of backstory to catch up on in this third installment — just accept that you’re a squid now.

It’s been about a week. Reader, I am hooked. I simply cannot stop splatting. I don’t even like shooter games — I don’t need more gun violence in my life, even if it’s fictional and contained to a Nintendo Switch screen — but Splatoon is different.

In the main mode of play, called Turf War, you’re split into two teams of four with other online players. Each team has its own color ink, like a bright Nickelodeon orange, a greenish-yellow that looks like toxic waste, or a purple color that matches The Verge’s redesign. Over the course of three minutes, it’s your team’s goal to cover as much territory as you can with your color ink.

There are different types of weapons — some guns that shoot out small amounts of paint but can easily kill splat your enemy, sending them back to their home base. There are bombs that you charge up by saying “Booyah!” — which, by the way, is one of only two phrases your character can say in-game, with the other being the less delightful “This way!” There’s also a crab tank, and … I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a crab tank.

Personally, I’m a fan of the roller-style weapons, where you simply push a paint roller around and run over your enemies. The rollers are great for someone like me who is not dexterous enough to aim a paint gun. But the real reason why I am so committed to the roller is that they’re so satisfying. You’re just a squid and/or octopus, running around making a clean, colorful streak of ink. The roller can ink the edges of the map, crisply sliding along and covering every last pixel. If your team is losing badly, just charge ahead into a sea of enemy-colored ink, zig-zaging your pink paint in a sea of neon green until you inevitably get splatted by a “Sploosh-o-matic” or a “Bamboozler.” When you run out of ink, you recharge your weapon by swimming, an experience that somehow manages to release the stress from your real-world flesh sac. It’s like yoga, but squids.

Somehow, even journalism is enjoyable in Splatoon. The game starts with a news cast called “Anarchy Splatcast” hosted by Deep Cut, who are both a rock band and broadcasters? It’s confusing, especially for a Splat-noob like me, but Shiver and Fyre are just that talented, I guess. In Splatoon 3, the duo are also joined by Big Man, a talking manta ray who starts all of his sentences with “Ay!”

But my favorite NPC has got to be the guy who runs the clothing shop. He is a species of Jellyfish called the Man-o-War. And he sells clothes. So his shop is called … the Man-o-Wardrobe.

Games writers have pointed out the other great attributes of Splatoon, even calling it “the ideal social platform.” They are correct. Others have noticed that if you grind all the way to level 98, you can make your character dab, which is just brilliant. But Splatoon is all about the ink, and boy do I love the ink.

If you’re someone who frequents Reddit’s r/oddlysatisfying or watches those soap cutting and paint mixing videos, Splatoon is the game for you.

There’s one problem for me, though. I am not very good at Splatoon.

Splatoon is the video game version of those ASMR-like ‘oddly satisfying’ videos by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

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EU lawmakers are moving in on the metaverse and making it plain that, whatever newfangled virtual world/s and/or immersive social connectivity that tech industry hype involving the term may refer to, these next-gen virtual spaces won’t escape one hard reality: Regulation.

There may be a second metaverse certainty too, if the Commission gets its way: Network infrastructure taxes.

The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, said today it believes some of the profits made in an increasingly immersive software realm should flow to providers of the network backbone required to host these virtual spaces — a suggestion that’s sure to trigger a fresh round of net neutrality pearl-clutching.

The Commission has been signalling for some months that it wants to find a way to support mobile operators to expand rollouts of next-gen cellular technologies — via imposing some kind of a levy on U.S. tech giants to help fund European network infrastructure — following heavy lobbying by local telcos.

Last week, Breton revealed it plans to consult on network infrastructure cost contribution ideas in Q1 next year — as part of a wider metaverse-focused initiative, with the latter proposal coming later in the year.

More details of the bloc’s thinking on fostering development of virtual spaces and the network pipes needed to connect them has emerged today.

EU initiative on virtual worlds

In a Letter of Intent published today, setting out the bloc’s policy priorities for 2023 — and accompanying her annual State of the European Union speech — the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed the Commission will put forward an “Initiative on virtual worlds, such as metaverse” next year.

The letter offers scant details on what exactly will be inside the EU’s virtual worlds package. But Breton — via a blog post on LinkedIn of all places — has picked up the baton to flesh out his views on how to deal, in broad-brush policy terms, with (the) metaverse(s) — something he couches as “one of the pressing digital challenges ahead of us.”

Breton presents his remarks as “Europe’s plan to thrive in the metaverse.” Though it remains to be (officially) confirmed whether he’s flying a little solo here — or playing advanced messenger on the direction of next year’s initiative. (We asked the Commission for more on the forthcoming virtual worlds initiative but with so much EU action today our contact warned there could be a delayed response — before pointing back to Breton’s blog, suggesting he is indeed signposting where the bloc is headed on virtual worlds.)

First up, both Breton (at length) and von der Leyen (in passing) are clear in planting a regulatory stake in virtual ground — by pointing out that would-be metaverse monopolists will have to contend with existing EU rules, such as the recent major EU digital rule reboot.

Rebooted digital rules

In her letter penned in difficult geopolitical and economic times, von der Leyen urges the bloc to stay the course on the green and digital transitions — which formed a key plank of her policy plan when she took up her mandate at the end of 2019. “This is about building a better future for the next generation and making ourselves more resilient and more prepared for challenges to come,” she writes, encouraging EU institutions to stick with the transformative push for sustainability and digitalization and implement key pieces of the plan already agreed on.

“This includes implementing the landmark agreements on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) which saw the EU take global leadership in regulating the digital space to make it safer and more open,” she goes on, name checking two big components of the digital reboot agreed by the EU’s institutions earlier this year — before adding a further nod to what else may be coming: “We will continue looking at new digital opportunities and trends, such as the metaverse.”

In his blog post, Breton makes it even more plain that metaverse builders are already subject to EU rules. “With the DSA and DMA, Europe has now strong and future-proof regulatory tools for the digital space,” he writes, pointedly adding: “We have also learned a lesson from this work: We will not witness a new Wild West or new private monopolies.

“We intend to shape from the outset the development of truly safe and thriving metaverses.”

This conviction was doubtless cemented by Facebook’s corporate pivot last year to Meta — a self-declared “metaverse company” — as the tech giant sought to escape years of operational scandals and reputational toxicity stuck like a barnacle to its social media brand by deploying a crisis PR rebranding tactic that implies a pivot, without it having to make meaningful reform to its business or business model.

While no one can say for sure whether the metaverse will ever exist (or merely remain an amorphous marketing label), should anything of substance actually materialize it’s pretty clear it won’t be located that far away from the kind of social connectivity Meta already monetizes through mass surveillance-based profiling and behavioural ads. So it seems a safe bet Zuckerberg is hoping to bankroll Facebook’s ‘metaverse’ future via plenty of user-profiling and behavioral ads too, at least in large part.

But if the Facebook founder was betting on a little corporate rebranding exercise to get Meta ahead of pesky regulators — such as privacy watchdogs in Europe that are finally starting to land some sizeable lumps on the company — he may be disappointed to find virtual worlds aren’t an escapist paradise after all.

A Commission spokesperson told TechCrunch: “The Commission is closely monitoring potential specific legal issues, such as defining the applicable law in various ongoing interactions and transactions by metaverse participants (including anonymous participants or those coming from third countries), liability questions or issues around digital assets.”

“The European regulatory framework (with the DSA, DMA and future AI and Data Acts) is also being revamped to address the challenges of the digital space and will ensure that users are protected and that SMEs can benefit from market developments and are not driven out of the market by abusive behaviours by gatekeepers, regardless of the technology used,” the spokesperson further noted.

Out with the old growth playbook

Taken as a whole, Breton’s remarks suggest the EU will be coming with a blended ‘sow and scythe’ package for virtual worlds — offering support initiatives (to encourage development and infrastructure) but also warnings that it will step in actively to steer and shape development, to ensure any new wave of ever-more-immersive socio-digital spaces don’t just repeat the same toxic growth playbook as Facebook.

Key EU preoccupations here appear to be enforcing user-centric safety issues (such as in areas like content moderation); and ensuring platforms remain open and contestable to the whole market (via mandating interoperability standards).

“Our European way to foster the virtual worlds is threefold: People, technologies and infrastructure,” Breton writes, summarizing the planned approach. “This new virtual environment must embed European values from the outset. People should feel as safe in the virtual worlds as they do in the real one.

“Private metaverses should develop based on interoperable standards and no single private player should hold the key to the public square or set its terms and conditions. Innovators and technologies should be allowed to thrive unhindered.”

There is also a reference to launching a “creative and interdisciplinary movement” — with the goal of developing “standards, increas[ing] interoperability, maximising impact” — a movement Breton says he wants to involve IT experts, regulatory experts citizens’ organisations and youth, in a similar fashion to the new European Bauhaus initiative the EU has applied to encourage engagement with sustainability-focused ‘green deal’ goals.

This piece of the EU plan contrasts to the more single-minded focus of Meta president (and former EU lawmaker), Nick Clegg, who — in his role evangelizing metaverse for Meta — has spent a lot of words talking up the volume of developer jobs that will be needed to build the immersive future Meta is betting its corporate continuity on.

Breton’s point appears to be that the EU wants a far more diverse mix of expertise to be involved in any ‘metaverse’ development. (Or, tl;dr: ‘We all know what happens when tech worlds are built, owned and operated by too many techbros — and we sure don’t want a repeat of that!’)

Ecosystem support — and infrastructure taxes?

A second big chunk of Breton’s blog post focuses on the technologies and tech skills the Commission sees as necessary for the bloc to have the power to bend virtual world makers to “European values.”

Breton notes these span many areas — of “software, platforms, middleware, 5G, HPC, clouds, etc.” — but with “immersive technologies and virtual reality” identified as being “at the heart” of the metaverse “phenomenon.” So immersive tech looks to be where the EU will direct the meatiest ecosystem support in the forthcoming virtual worlds package.

But for starters Breton has announced the launch of a VR and AR industry coalition.

“The Commission has been laying the groundwork to structure this ecosystem,” he writes. “Today, I am happy to launch the Virtual and Augmented Reality Industrial Coalition, bringing together stakeholders from key metaverse technologies. We have developed a roadmap endorsed by over 40 EU organisations active in this space, from large organisations to SMEs, and universities.”

On this a Commission spokesperson pointed us to a strategic paper it commissioned ahead of launching the VR/AR industrial coalition — also telling us: “The objective is to support the uptake of XR [extended reality] technologies for industrial applications and use cases in key sectors such as construction, manufacturing, health, media and education. European projects have fostered a European XR community including user industries, researchers, solution providers, content creators, as well as national and regional hubs. In the cycle 2023-2024, the Commission will inter alia further support specifically the development and integration of advanced XR hardware components as well as the development of new solutions for creating virtual worlds and 3D models, realistic avatars and intelligent agents.”

Breton’s post goes on to give a nod to the European Chips Act — which aims to mobilize public and private investment to drive on-shore semiconductor manufacture in a supply chain resilience and digital sovereignty drive — with the commissioner recognizing that hardware development and production is a core component for virtual worlds, underpinning its development (and, ultimately, most likely, determining whether immersive technologies like VR and AR remain a niche (sometimes) nausea-inducing pastime for the geeky few or actually make the leap into a transformative mainstream medium).

“The next step will be a quantum leap from current virtual reality and other enabling technologies to a world that truly blends the real with the virtual,” pens Breton, a former telco exec, in full tech evangelist mode.

The EU commissioner saves the most controversial piece of the upcoming metaverse plan for last: A plan for infrastructure taxes to come down the policy pipe. And he confines himself to trying to tamp down any objections by laying out a case for some form of levy to fund the necessary connectivity — aka the high-capacity, high-bandwidth, high-speed, low-latency networks we’re told will be needed to sustain these hyper immersive virtual spaces we’re also told we’ll want to pause our off-line existence to spend time in.

There are no firm details on what the EU is proposing on virtual world taxes as yet — just an affirmation that a consultation is coming down the pipe.

“The current situation, exacerbated during the COVID pandemic, shows a paradox of increasing volumes of data being carried on the infrastructures but decreasing revenues and appetite to invest to strengthen them and make them resilient,” writes Breton, drawing on long-standing telco gripes about scale of network investment demanded to roll out techs like 5G vs dwindling returns.

“The current economic climate sees stagnating rewards for investment and increasing deployment costs for pure connectivity infrastructure,” he goes on. “In Europe, all market players benefiting from the digital transformation should make a fair and proportionate contribution to public goods, services and infrastructures, for the benefit of all Europeans.”

Case made, Breton ends by trailing what he couches as a “comprehensive reflection and consultation on the vision and business model of the infrastructure that we need to carry the volumes of data and the instant and continuous interactions which will happen in the metaverses” — thereby landing a second blow of his case-hammer backing metaverse infrastructure taxes.

Still, you have to admire the EU’s repurposing of the tech industry’s latest shiny new hype vehicle to truck back the other way and deliver an age-old demand for a revenue share.

This report was updated with responses from the Commission re: the upcoming virtual worlds initiative

Europe wants to shape the future of virtual worlds with rules and taxes by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

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Fridaaaaaay. It was a short week, but it still dragged on a little.

We’ve got some exciting Twitter Live action coming up on September 13, so mark your calendars! At 8:00 a.m. PDT / 11:00 a.m. EDT we are talking with Andrew Chan about why Gen Z VCs are trash, and at 12:00 p.m. PDT / 3:00 p.m. EDT, we’re talking with M13 partner Anna Barber about what today’s founders can learn from the dot-com bubble bursting.

Enjoy your weekend!  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• More layoffs: Patreon, a company that enables content creators to offer monthly payment subscriptions to customers, confirmed that it let go of five people from its security team. Zack reports there are not a lot of details about the layoffs, but did have some information about how Patreon will manage its security going forward. 
• Thank you, Mr. Roboto: Amazon announced it is acquiring Cloostermans, a mechatronics company based in Belgium. The e-commerce giant’s focus on robotics has Ingrid writing that Amazon “is taking an interesting turn in that strategy as it expands its industrial warehouse capabilities.”
• We like a startup with a fun name: Cryptocurrency is a hot market in Africa, and Tage writes about one blockchain payments startup, called Bitmama, that raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to show what it can do in new markets.

Startups and VC

For our episode of Chain Reaction this week, our trusty crypto desk discussed the latest drama surrounding crypto mega-exchange Binance, which is shaking up the stablecoin ecosystem as it looks to muscle its way to supremacy. It’s a fantastic episode and well worth a listen.

Over the past decade, startups migrated north from Silicon Valley to make San Francisco the country’s hottest tech hub. The streets of the city were bustling with throngs of workers, writes Mary Ann. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and things slid to a halt. Now, more than two years and several vaccines later, San Francisco’s office scene has still not rebounded and the city’s streets remain eerily quiet.

Let’s do a few more, shall we:

• All on the cards: Renowned founders Brian Lee and baseball Hall-of-Famer Derek Jeter have a new sports card biz ,where collectors can trade and verify their cards, reports Connie.
• That’s a lot of giggly-bytes:  A new enterprise fiber network, Vorboss, is ready to deliver up to 100 Gbps high-speed internet to London businesses, as part of a $290 million investment in the city’s infrastructure. The company promises a minimum 10 Gbps of enterprise fiber to the nation’s capital, Paul reports.
• Papers, please, without the papers: Jobbatical — which specializes in relocating workers and whose business has seen an uplift in the post-pandemic work environments as many workers become “digital nomads” — raised €11.6 million to make it all paperless, Mike reports.
• A flighty glance: Flight tracking is coming to an iOS 16 lock screen near you, as Flighty’s app will bring flight tracking and more, reports Sarah.
• Straight outta California: Minneapolis-based Branch was founded in 2015, and Anita reports why the company’s founder moved to Minneapolis to build his B2B fintech startup.

Use DORA metrics to support the next generation of remote-work models

Nontechnical CEOs often rely on someone else’s assessment to find out how good their developers are. Without data, that’s a pretty subjective process.

Startups that don’t use DORA (DevOps research and assessment) metrics have a harder time measuring a software delivery team’s performance. For example, a group that has a high failure rate may cover their deficiencies (for a time) by deploying quickly.

Remote work is the new normal, especially for engineers, says Alex Circei, CEO and co-founder of development analytics tool Waydev. By using DORA metrics, CTOs, CEOs and HR managers can “get back on the same page to support their tech teams and business outcomes.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

India is taking more control over which lending apps are permitted in app stores. Manish and Jagmeet keep us updated on the country’s efforts to bring more disclosures and transparency to the world of digital lending, which they write is full of “sketchy and unethical lenders.”

• Whoa blocks: Taylor brings us a pair of Roblox stories, including that the company’s new vision involves older audiences beyond its teen and tween origins. Roblox is also handing out $500,000 each to a handful of game developers.
• More to the story: Carly is keeping up with the ransomware attack on the Los Angeles Unified School District and wrote up a helpful guide of everything she knows so far.
• Speedy delivery: Both Rocket Lab and Sierra Space have shiny new contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense to further develop their technology around rocket cargo delivery, Aria writes.

Daily Crunch: Former employee says Patreon has laid off its entire security team by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Apple’s latest base-model iPad cribs a lot of features from the more expensive iPad Air. But it also is
considerably more expensive than before, making it a tough sell.

The new 10th-generation iPad is ostensibly the new starting point
for the iPad line. It’s got a bigger screen, faster processor, and better design than the ninth-gen
model that came out in 2021 and has been the entry point for the iPad line for the past few years. The
bigger size screen and many of the design features have trickled down from the more expensive iPad Air, but the 10th-gen iPad has
an older processor and makes some other omissions to bring the price down.

At its core, this iPad is an excellent tablet with fast performance, reliable battery life, and a
vast library of optimized apps to make use of its large touchscreen.

But along with those upgrades comes a higher price: the 10th-gen iPad starts at $449, $120
more than the previous model, and can be kitted out to over $1,000 with storage, cellular, and accessory
upgrades. This is for the entry-level iPad with no qualifier after its name, the one that you buy for
casual use, kids, schoolwork, travel, and content consumption — it’s not really a device to replace your laptop
with.

Apple seems to be aware of this conundrum because it’s still selling the ninth-gen iPad for $329, a much more
palatable and accessible price for the many people just looking for a basic iPad to do basic iPad things.

That puts this iPad in a weird spot — it’s certainly better than the ninth-gen model (which is still
great), but it costs considerably more and is not as good as an iPad Air. And since you can find a current iPad
Air on sale fairly easily at this point, this new iPad is not the iPad to buy right now despite the fact that it
has a lot going for it.

Looking the part

The 10th-gen iPad brings the squared-off, even-bezel, home button-less design
Apple introduced on the iPad Pro way back in 2018 to the sub-$500 price point. It’s very nearly a clone of the
last two iPad Air models, with the same size display and chassis measurements within a millimeter of the Air in
every dimension. (Those millimeters do mean it’s different, though, and precisely fitted cases can’t be swapped
between the Air and the new iPad.)

The updated look is much more modern than the ninth-gen iPad, but since we’ve seen variations of this
for four years now on other iPad models, it doesn’t look particularly fresh. It just looks like an iPad.

Like virtually every other iPad ever made, the new model has an excellent fit and finish that feels
nice to hold and interact with. My review unit is a yellow that I’m not especially fond of, but thankfully Apple
sells it in three other colors, including silver, blue, and pink.

Apple says the iPad has an “all-screen design” in its marketing materials, but let’s be honest here:
the front of this new iPad is not “all-screen.” There is a considerable bezel area framing the display, and
though it’s nice that it is the same size all around and provides a place to hold the thing without accidentally
touching the screen, it’s far from edge-to-edge. Plus, there’s a camera on the front. So even if you don’t count
the bezel, it’s not “all-screen.”

The camera is good news, though: in a long overdue change, Apple’s stuck the front-facing camera in
the bezel on the long edge of the screen, which makes using it for video calls in landscape orientation much
easier. It’s surprising that this is the first iPad to actually have the front camera in the right spot, but
it’s a safe bet we’ll see this change in future updates to other iPad models (though not for this year’s iPad
Pro M2, oddly). The camera itself is just fine, but the better placement makes using it for video calls from a
desk much less awkward. It still supports Apple’s self-centering Center Stage feature, but there’s no real point
to using it now that the camera is in the right spot, and I left it off for the majority of video meetings I
took on the iPad.

The biggest upgrade over the ninth-gen iPad, other than the updated design, is the larger screen,
which stretches out to 10.9 inches diagonally from 10.2. It’s the same size as the iPad Air’s screen, and it has
the same brightness and resolution. It’s a good size for a tablet and comfortable enough for getting light work
done as well as watching movies, reading, or playing games, even if it feels a bit cramped as a laptop
replacement. The roughly 3:2 aspect ratio also works well in either portrait or landscape orientations.

But unlike the screens on the iPad Air or Pro, this is not a laminated display, and it
has an inferior anti-glare coating to those models. That results in a screen that’s just not as nice to look at,
with more reflections, a noticeable gap between the glass and the LCD panel, and shifts in brightness when you
view it off-axis. These issues are much more forgivable at $329, but it’s a lot tougher to excuse this display
at $449.

Also carried over from the iPad Air and Mini models are the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the power
button on the left side (when in landscape orientation) and a USB-C port for charging and data in place of the
prior iPad’s Lightning port. The Touch ID scanner works well enough, even if it’s not quite as seamless and
convenient as the iPad Pro’s Face ID system. The USB-C port makes charging and attaching accessories like USB
hubs much more convenient than before, though it is limited to USB 2.0 data speeds and 4K 30Hz (or 1080p 60Hz)
external displays. I don’t think either of those limitations will matter much for the consumer uses this iPad is
meant for.

The big thing that’s missing here is a headphone jack, which is a baffling deletion for the iPad that
is supposed to appeal to the widest range of people. A lot of schools and parents buy entry-level iPads for
kids, and not having a universal and easy way to plug in standard wired headphones will be frustrating. Apple
does include a braided USB-C cable (nice) and a 20W charging brick (bless) in the box, but there’s no USB-C to
3.5mm wired headphone adapter. That’ll cost you $9.

Magic Keyboard Follies

Despite the 10th-gen iPad looking like the iPad Air and iPad Pro
models, it doesn’t share any accessories with them. Instead of using the same Magic Keyboard as the Air and Pro,
the 10th-gen iPad gets a wholly new keyboard accessory called the Magic Keyboard Folio. (If you’re keeping
count, that brings Apple’s iPad keyboard
lineup up to six distinct models, and no, you can’t use this new one with an iPad Air or Pro.)

The staggeringly expensive $249 Magic Keyboard Folio (a full 55 percent of the iPad’s starting price,
putting an iPad-plus-keyboard kit at $700) has a two-piece magnetic design with a back cover with a kickstand
and a separate keyboard. The keyboard connects to the iPad via the Smart Connector on the tablet’s edge,
eliminating the need for a battery or Bluetooth connection.

Typing on the Folio keyboard is satisfying — the keys have the same amount of travel as Apple’s Magic
Keyboard, and they are well-sized and spaced apart. The trackpad is also excellent and even slightly larger than
the one on the Magic Keyboard. The inclusion of a function row with quick access keys for things like media
control, volume, and brightness, is much appreciated; the lack of any kind of backlighting is a dumb omission,
especially at this price.

Unlike the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air and Pro, which features a unique floating design, the
Magic Keyboard Folio is a design we’ve seen many times before. It’s very similar to Microsoft’s Surface
keyboards and basically identical to the keyboards that are bundled with inexpensive tablets like Lenovo’s $300
Chromebook Duet. It’s even effectively the same design as the $160 Logitech Combo Touch, which comes in versions
for the iPad Air, Pro, and now the 10th-gen iPad.

This two-piece design provides more flexibility than the Magic Keyboard — you can pull the keyboard
off and still have a kickstand holding the tablet up for movie watching or gameplay with a controller. But it’s
also much less stable on my lap — I’m able to make it work, but it’s not nearly as comfortable as the Magic
Keyboard or a proper laptop. Microsoft solved this somewhat with more magnets to hold the keyboard in place
better, but Apple’s keyboard is much floppier on a lap. You really have the best experience using this on a desk
or table.

Apple’s design also limits how far back the kickstand can travel, so you can’t push it down to a
20-degree angle ideal for drawing or writing like you can with many other keyboard cases of this type. And just
like the Magic Keyboard, the Magic Keyboard Folio provides virtually no protection against drops — if you need
something with more protection, you should look at Logitech’s offering.

Lastly, the Magic Keyboard Folio only comes in white, so you’ll want to be careful using it while
eating a Doritos Locos Taco unless you want a slightly orange Magic Keyboard Folio.

Pencil predicaments

Another confounding accessory situation is that the 10th-gen iPad doesn’t work
with the second-gen Apple Pencil, which has been shipping since 2018. It only works with the first-generation
model that came out way back in 2015. But since the new iPad doesn’t have a Lightning port anymore, pairing and
charging the $99 first-gen Pencil with this iPad requires a new $9 USB-C to Lightning adapter that plugs into a USB-C
cable that then plugs into the iPad itself. (Apple is bundling the adapter in the box with first-gen Pencils
purchased now, but if you’re upgrading from an older iPad and still want to use your Pencil with this one,
you’ll have to buy the adapter.)

So despite the new iPad having the same design as the iPad Air and Pro, complete with a flat side
that could be home to a second-gen Pencil, you’re stuck with a comical umbilical cord charging situation and
nowhere to store the Pencil when you’re not using it.

Those limitations with charging and storage were always weird with the first-gen Pencil but made more
sense when it was introduced as an add-on to an existing iPad design that wasn’t built to accommodate it. Apple
figured out a better iPad and Pencil solution back in 2018, and this iPad uses that better design, so
it’s baffling that we’re in this situation with a new iPad released in 2022.

So, yes, there’s an awkward charging situation and a silly little end cap that’s easy to lose. But
don’t worry, the first-gen Pencil is also worse to use than the second-gen model and doesn’t support things like
double-tap to switch between writing and erasing. Its glossy surface is also not as nice as the matte finish of
the newer model, and it has a much greater tendency to roll off a desk due to its circular design.

As for its performance, the first-gen ApplePencil is the same as the second-gen, and it has very
little lag and a smooth stroke. It’s pressure sensitive and has tilting support — both good for art and drawing
purposes — but I prefer Samsung and Microsoft’s softer-tipped styli for handwriting. The Pencil’s hard tip slips
and slides across the glass of the iPad and makes more noise when writing compared to the others.

For those who already have a first-gen Apple Pencil and are just looking to upgrade to this iPad,
it’s great that the older stylus is compatible with the new iPad. But Apple could have designed the iPad to work
with the second-gen Pencil and provided backward compatibility for the first-gen one for those that need it, and
it chose not to.

An Air on the inside

Inside, the 10th-gen iPad is a dead ringer for 2020’s fourth-gen iPad Air.
It’s got an A14 Bionic chip, Wi-Fi 6, and either 64GB or 256GB of storage. While the A14 is not as fast as the
M1 or M2 processors Apple’s putting into the more expensive iPads, I’d be shocked if most people can really
tell. This iPad has no problem doing the exact same tasks I use my 11-inch iPad Pro M1 for, from running
multiple apps side by side to jumping between tasks to playing games like Genshin Impact smoothly and
without issue.

Apple now has four different processors (five if you count the still-available ninth-gen iPad) in its
lineup of iPads, but outside of the most demanding uses, all the iPads I’ve used perform effectively the same.
If you’re coming to this iPad from a model that’s considerably older, you will certainly notice a faster
experience using it. But you’ll also get a faster experience from the $329 A13-powered ninth-gen iPad and save
$120.

Consistently, what’s struck me the most in the time I’ve been using this iPad is just how similar it
is to every other modern iPad once you look past its lower-quality screen. There really wasn’t anything I
couldn’t or found frustrating to do on this iPad that I’m accustomed to doing on the iPad Air or an 11-inch iPad
Pro. That’s a different experience than I have with MacBooks, where I can notice the difference in performance
between a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro.

Battery life on this iPad is right in line with what we’ve come to expect from every iPad released
over the last decade or so — it will last about 10 hours or more for basic tasks, closer to six or seven if you
try to use it for office productivity work. The 10th-gen iPad also has optional sub-6GHz 5G support, making it
useful when you don’t have Wi-Fi available, but that’s a $150 upcharge, and at that price, you might as well
just consider an iPad Air.

iPadOS 16

The iPad runs iPadOS 16, which isn’t a huge departure from the last couple of
versions of iPadOS. It’s got a lot of the features that arrived on the iPhone in iOS 16, including editable
iMessages, live text for video, and the ability to pull a subject out of a picture and place them into another
app. It also has more options for adjusting the way apps are arranged in split-screen mode, as well as more
configurability for toolbar layouts in apps.

What’s missing in iPadOS 16 on this model compared to the Air or Pro is the Stage Manager windowing
feature and the ability to adjust the display scaling to show more things on the screen at a smaller size. At
least lacking Stage Manager isn’t a loss — it’s not a great experience in its current state — and unless you’re
coming to the new iPad from an Air or a Pro and are used to the scaling option, you’re not likely to miss that,
either.

iPadOS remains very straightforward and easy to use for tablet tasks, such as reading, light email,
watching movies, or playing games. It can also handle light workloads — I wrote much of this review on the iPad
in Google Docs in the Safari browser — but it still struggles with multitasking and heavier workloads compared
to a laptop. The 10.9-inch screen quickly gets cramped when working with longer documents and multiple apps, as
well. I don’t think many people are actually replacing their laptop with an iPad at this level, and if they are,
they are likely light users and aren’t hamstrung by iPadOS’s limitations.

I have seen some odd graphical and display bugs here and there, though, which tarnishes the polish
that we’ve come to expect from Apple’s platforms. Given that iPadOS 16 is actually launching as iPadOS 16.1, I’d
have expected these bugs to be ironed out, but it’s clear Apple still has some work to do.

Oh, and I feel like I’m beating a dead horse here, but I still think Apple should add multi-user
support to iPadOS, even though with each passing year, it seems less likely to happen. Entry-level iPads are
often shared devices in homes, as opposed to the iPad Pro, which is likely purchased for use by one person. Not
being able to support more than one user account at a time makes for a lousy experience when sharing an iPad.
The most basic Android tablets can support multiple users, complete with parent and children accounts — it’s
long past time Apple did as well.

In a vacuum, there’s very little to complain about with the 10th-gen iPad.
It’s an excellent tablet that does all of the things you expect from a tablet very well. Even though its screen
isn’t as good as other iPads, it’s still good enough, and its performance is unimpeachable. If this was the only
iPad Apple sold, many people would buy it and be perfectly happy with it.

But in context with the many other iPads that Apple sells, I’m not sure why you’d pick this one. If
cost is a factor, you’re buying an iPad for a kid, or need a headphone jack, the still-available and much less
expensive ninth-gen model is the one to go with. For a lot of people, the ninth-gen model is the better iPad for
their needs. If you want the bigger screen and more modern design, the iPad Air is right there with its better
display, even faster processor, and better accessory landscape, and you can frequently get it for less than $100
more than the new iPad.

It’s likely that this iPad will be the entry-level iPad at some point, fully
replacing the ninth-gen model. But I hope that Apple brings the price down quite a bit by the time that happens
and adds the headphone jack back (which is, admittedly, unlikely to happen). Until then, the 10th-gen iPad sits
as a weird sub-midrange, not really budget-level middle child in Apple’s sprawling iPad lineup.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

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