I'm quite a bit late to the party here, but I currently own both tablets, so I'm game to chime in:
I purchased an iPad Air 64GB with LTE recently, as I wanted a full-sized tablet with a data plan. The Air is the first Apple product I have ever owned, and I have to say that I have gotten massively, MASSIVELY frustrated with it. But more about that in detail, later. I've been an android user for several years, and I got the Note 10.1 2014 edition the first day it was available. However, I've been with AT&T forever, and I wanted to stick with them for my "full size tablet with a data plan." And AT&T just doesn't have a decent, current Android device available -- I really actually LIKE what Samsung does with Android, so I definitely prefer going with a Samsung device. But, AT&T does not have the Note 10.1 2014, or even the original Note 10.1, nor the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 -- all they have is the old, bottom-feeding Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 -- no thanks. So, I figured I'd get an iPad Air, which is the highest-end tablet AT&T offers, and then I could at least learn about it and get to understand it personally.
knuck1111's list, above, is really very comprehensive, and I agree pretty much 100% with it. But, there are other things I can add, so here goes -- mainly, I just have daily frustrations with the iPad software, since it has absolutely nonsensical issues, as follows:
1. Might as well begin with my current issue: I have 248 e-mail messages on my iPad Air that I've already read on my desktop computer. Actually, with Android, once you receive a message on your desktop's mail application, it disappears from the Android device. Perhaps not what you want all the time, but at least you don't have to spend hours re-maintaining things on your tablet. But with the iPad Air, I have looked and looked on the device and searched the Internet, to find, as it obviously appears to be: There is absolutely NO WAY WHATSOEVER to "mark all" and delete messages in bulk. No, Apple has determined that YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS. For crying out loud, WHY??
2. OK, then let's go over to Safari. Pretty quickly, you realize that all of the pages you have visited are showing up in tabs each time you start it up -- and once again, quickly you have an overload of tabs for all of the web sites you've ever visited. So, if you don't want to have dozens of tabs for everything you've ever visited, you have to MANUALLY CLOSE EACH AND EVERY ONE once you're done visiting a page. Is there any way to turn this behavior off? NO!! Is there any way to just "start with the page of favorites? NO!! Okay, so I'll just say good-bye to Safari, and use Dolphin, which I have happily been using for years on my Android devices. I'll just set it as my default browser, like I've done on my Androids. BUT WAIT!! Of course, YOU CAN'T DO THAT, EITHER. Apple software is all about "NO CHOICE FOR YOU."
3. And then let's talk about the iTunes store. I decided to splurge a few bucks and a few gigabytes to purchase a few episodes of the Top Gear TV show. Initially, I purchased three episodes, which downloaded to my iPad Air just like I expected, and I was pretty satisfied. But afterwards, I decided to buy a fourth episode from "in the Videos app." And it apparently downloaded to the "iCloud," which I haven't ever even signed into before. All I knew was that there was a little "cloud with a down-pointing arrow" icon beside the new episode. So, I don't want to use up my data just to watch the thing -- I bought a large-capacity tablet so that I could have everything on my device. So, HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD THAT TO MY iPAD AIR?? Tapping on the little icon apparently did nothing -- it didn't animate, or produce some text saying that something was happening, or show the usual "circle of progress" that is often displayed to show downloading progress. NOTHING happened. And then I started digging through the device itself, then the Internet, then the Apple forums, all asking the very simple question: HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD SOMETHING FROM THE iCLOUD TO MY iPAD?
And you know what I've gotten so far? A couple of replies from an Apple representative -- definitely a good effort there -- but NOTHING that actually answers HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD SOMETHING FROM THE iCLOUD TO MY iPAD. In fact, the latest message advised me to contact "real" Apple support. REALLY?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Apparently, this is NOT such a simple question. I really just boiled it down to three questions:
1. How do you know if and when an iTunes purchase will download to your device, or to the iCloud?
2. Is there any way to choose whether an iTunes purchase will download to your device, or to the iCloud?
3. How do you download something from the iCloud to your device?
Three very simple questions. And so far, an Apple representative utterly, utterly cannot answer them. That's why I'm here -- I'll be asking if anyone here in iMore can answer them.
At any rate, after a while, I noticed that the little "cloud with a down-pointing arrow" icon had disappeared from alongside my newly-purchased episode, and I was able to physically back up that episode to my desktop -- some way, some how, it actually DID download from the iCloud to my device. But how?? I certainly tapped that icon a few dozen times -- did THAT initiate the download, which means that the icon was actually a CONTROL that lacked any means of confirming that you had actually initiated an action, and lacked any means of showing you the progress of that action? I certainly didn't find anything else that described any action to download that file to my device -- did it just MAGICALLY happen?
4. And then there is iTunes itself. I've spent a couple of DAYS doing what I could accomplish in a couple of hours with an Android device. On the Android, just connect a USB cable and drag over anything you want -- folders full of MP3 files, videos, pictures, whatever. From wherever they existed, to wherever you want them on your device. But in iTunes, you have to put all of your pictures under a single folder, and if you have them in different folders, it will put them into albums with those folder names -- but only if you choose to import "selected" folders, instead of "everything" under that main folder -- if you do that, you don't get any "albums" at all. With videos, it's more like how it works in Android land, but of course it will only copy over MP4 format videos -- it will ignore anything else, such as AVI files. And then music is handled completely differently, as all of your MP3 and WMA fles must be converted into Apple's proprietary format. And some tags just don't work quite like they've done in every other device I've ever used -- I've had some wonky results with album names that I've given to "various" tracks, trying to get them into one album I could play.
And so on. "If you care" about the little details that make a device "usable" rather than "frustrating," well, I have been frustrated with a number of very basic things on my new iPad Air. I presume all of the people who absolutely love everything Apple just can't possibly care about this kind of stuff, but I sure do.
Otherwise, as knuck1111 mentioned, the Air is a beautiful device, and one thing I can say is that it is FAST. I don't consider the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition to be "slow" in any way, but I have definitely noticed an essence of speed in loading up web pages, e-mail messages, and so on.
As for "apps," I'm sorry, but I'm just not impressed with what I have found in the App store -- or rather, what I HAVEN'T been able to find. On Android devices, I've always used an app for setting up different sound and vibration profiles -- such DOES NOT EXIST in Apple land. I've used an on-screen icon to switch off the display, but again, there's no such thing in Apple land. "Just use a smart cover," I'm sure people will say, but I haven't really liked anything with one, so far. And something funny happened when I looked up "all of the Apple-only apps" that I've seen advertised for years -- and they are mostly PAID SUBSCRIPTION apps, like for iPad versions of magazines. Not to say that I don't like to pay for apps, but again, these things have mostly been "tablet version subscription" things. So, in the end, I don't see any advantage on the Apple side for "useful" apps -- I see a definite LACK of apps for those of us who would like to set up our tablets the way WE want them to work -- I have definitely seen the kind of "APPLE WILL CHOOSE FOR YOU" how their devices work, and you'd better be willing to go along with that. Frankly, I see MORE apps on the Android side than on the Apple side, if you're looking for "useful" things -- perhaps Apple has more "entertainment" things like games and such.
And finally, let's talk about those "cases." I've tried the Smart Cover and the Smart Case -- and while they are quality-built, they just aren't very useful as stands. And I don't like the kind of "multi-segmented" covers that flop around so much. I definitely prefer the Samsung "book cover" cases to the Apple cases -- they have "less floppy covers" and far better "stand" functions. After trying a few cases for my iPad Air, I've settled upon a simple Solo case with a stiff, one-piece cover, which converts to a genuinely useful stand. But it lacks a magnetic on/off feature, so I've got to push that hardware button to do it, every single time.
In the end, once I complete getting my media files over to the Air (mainly taking more time to rebuild tags for every single MP3 file I want to move over, and converting the AVI files I want to move over), I'll pretty well say good-bye to the frustrations of iTunes, and I am absolutely DONE with the nonsensical iTunes store. And then I can probably manage along with the iPad Air, spending all of my free time closing web pages in Safari, and deleting every single e-mail I'll ever get manually, one by one.
And when AT&T finally gets something like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition available for purchase, perhaps I'll chuck this iPad into the river, and get a tablet I can control.
thoots