Silver, Space Gray, or Gold? This is just one of the questions CCHS sophomores may have pondered as they signed up to swap out their current 4th generation iPad for the new iPad Air 2.

Running from May 26th to June 4th, rising Juniors will bring in their 4th generation iPads to CCHS faculty, either Mr. Jack Wager, Mr. Dustin Nies, Mrs. Kathleen Garcia, or another CCHS faculty member, in the library or the theater. From then, students will exchange their current iPad for their new iPad in a relatively “easy” process that “could take fifteen to thirty minutes per student,” said Mr. Wager, IT specialist.

In order to successfully swap for a new Pad, students must bring in their current iPads with the matching charging cables, both undamaged. Sophomores with a damaged iPad still have time to use their Apple Care Plus protection if needed, granted that they haven’t used their two accident instances yet. Apple will repair students’ accidentally broken iPads for a $50 deductible fee.

Transitioning from one piece of technology to another brings changes, and perhaps most notably in the changes between the 4th generation iPad and the iPad Air 2 is the storage. Rising Juniors’ iPads will be bumped up from 32 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes. The iPad Air 2, which weighs in at just under a pound, will be “thinner and lighter,” said Mr. Wager, along with Touch ID capability.

“We want to refresh technology every two years,” said Mr. Wager. As seen with the current senior class, who has had the same iPad for three years, old technology “is a little rough [to deal with],” he said. Refreshing students’ iPads every two years allows students to keep up-to-date with the current technology, while also making things more convenient for the students.

Once students receive their iPad Air 2s, they will still be able to access the information once stored on their old iPad. If students backed up their 4th generation iPad to their iCloud account, then when they sign onto their iCloud account on their new iPad, all those Notability notes, purchases, Pages documents, iBooks, etcetera will touch back down on their new iPad without worry.

As for the color question concerning the iPads “we don’t know yet,” said Mr. Wager. “Right now, current juniors and current freshmen both have iPad Airs, not Air 2s, and juniors have white and freshmen have black. We want to know which ones are junior iPads and which ones are freshmen iPads.”

Whichever colors the IT Department chooses for the students will be split between the rising juniors and incoming freshmen. Students will have to wait until they receive their new iPad Air 2s to answer the silver, space gray, or gold question.