Further Reading Op-Ed: Tablets really are the new PCs; nobody needs to buy them any more

Yesterday's WWDC keynote will probably be best remembered for the overlong, awkward, and uncharacteristically unpolished Apple Music reveal that closed it out. But what I'm left thinking about the most is the iPad Air 2—all of a sudden it makes a lot more sense than it did when it launched.

Even at the time, it was clear that the iPad Air 2's hardware was created in anticipation of something bigger. There's nothing in iOS 8, save perhaps Safari tab reloading, that makes full use of the A8X's beefy tri-core CPU, its GPU, and its 2GB of RAM. It was faster, but anything it could do could also be done by the fourth-gen iPad from late 2012. This was noted in many reviews of the device, including ours.

iOS 9 changes that. That hardware is exactly what allows two iPad apps to run simultaneously side-by-side without sacrificing performance (at least, based on the live demos run onstage). A common explanation for the slow year-over-year decline in iPad sales is that there just isn't much of a reason to replace them every two to three years like you do with smartphones. Software that didn't keep pace with the advancements in hardware wasn't helping.

The iPad's full-screen app model was used in part because mobile chips in 2010 and 2011 offered just a fraction of the performance they do today—now that A8X's performance is approaching the low end of the Mac lineup, it makes sense to rethink that model and make the iPad a bit more Mac-like. It's no mistake that OS X's full-screen, split-view mode and the iPad's multi-window mode look essentially identical.

The bad thing, the one legitimate complaint that just about any existing iPad owner could make, is that this future-proofing process wasn't started sooner. iPads with Apple A7s (the original Air and the Minis 2 and 3) can't use the split-screen feature, though they can use the handy-but-less-capable Slideover feature. It loads an app in a sidebar over the top of the app you're using but doesn't let you interact with both simultaneously. Older 32-bit iPads can't do Slideover, either.

It's understandable when three-year-old hardware that you aren't selling anymore doesn't get all of your new software's new features, but when they won't work on a whole bunch of products you're still actively selling, it's harder to forgive. Older iPads still stand to gain quite a bit from iOS 9, but this one is a big feature to leave behind.

Almost three years ago, I purchased a fourth-generation iPad for my personal use. Review loaner iPads have come and gone, but I've stuck with that one because it did all the software stuff well (AirDrop, Handoff, and so on) and the hardware features of newer iPads (lighter weight, TouchID) weren't compelling enough to get me to drop $500 or $600 minus the resale price of the older iPad.

Last night, I hopped on Apple's refurbished store and bought a 64GB iPad Air 2. It's partly because I'm responsible for reviewing iOS 9 and I need it to evaluate all of the features. But it's also because Apple has gotten around to offering a software update that makes good use of the new hardware.