There’s not much new in Apple’s latest refresh of the iPad Air, so there’s not much to say about it, but it’s worth taking a brief look regardless.
In almost every way, this is identical to the previous generation. There are only two differences to go over: the bump from the M2 chip to the slightly faster M3, and a redesign of the Magic Keyboard peripheral.
If you want more details about this tablet, refer to our M2 iPad Air review from last year. Everything we said then applies now.
From M2 to M3
The M3 chip has an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores. On the GPU side, there are nine cores. There’s also a 16-core Neural Engine, which is what Apple calls its NPU.
We’ve seen the M3 in other devices before, and it performs comparably here in the iPad Air in Geekbench benchmarks. Those coming from the M1 or older A-series chips will see some big gains, but it’s a subtle step up over the M2 in last year’s iPad Air.
That will be a noticeable boost primarily for a handful of particularly demanding 3D games (the likes of Assassin’s Creed Mirage,Resident Evil Village, Infinity Nikki, and Genshin Impact) and some heavy-duty applications only a few people use, like CAD or video editing programs.
Most of the iPad Air’s target audience would never know the difference, though, and the main benefit here isn’t necessarily real-world performance. Rather, the upside of this upgrade is the addition of a few specific features, namely hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-accelerated AV1 video codec support.
This isn’t new, but this chip supports Apple Intelligence, the much-ballyhooed suite of generative AI features Apple recently introduced. At this point there aren’t many devices left in Apple’s lineup that don’t support Apple Intelligence (it’s basically just the cheapest, entry-level iPad that doesn’t have it) and that’s good news for Apple, as it helps the company simplify its marketing messaging around the features.
Other iPads are nicer and faster, but I end up using all of them the same way.
The basic iPad’s Apple Pencil situation is most charitably described as “sub-optimal.” Credit: Andrew Cunningham
The basic iPad’s Apple Pencil situation is most charitably described as “sub-optimal.” Credit: Andrew Cunningham
Apple released a new version of the basic $349 iPad this week, though you could be forgiven for not noticing. The new 11th-generation iPad (also known as the “iPad (A16)” or just plain-old “iPad”) looks identical to the previous version, it was introduced in a single paragraph buried in the middle of an iPad Air announcement, and the company didn’t offer to send any to reviewers. The one I have I bought myself for our 5-year-old, whose hand-me-down 2019 iPad Air 3 is slightly older than he is and a little worse for wear.
There’s nothing exciting or even particularly interesting about this tablet. The design is recycled from 2022’s 10th-generation iPad, which was itself a lower-rent version of the 2020 iPad Air design. It’s powered by a variant of the Apple A16, originally an iPhone chip from 2022. It still doesn’t support the regular Apple Pencil or Pencil Pro or the same keyboard accessories as other iPads. It still doesn’t have an anti-reflective screen coating, and the screen doesn’t feel as nice to use as an iPad Air’s or Pro’s.
But for all that, this is still probably the purest expression of what the iPad is: a cheap Internet-connected screen for reading and watching things. I say this as someone who has tried every new piece of hardware and software that Apple has introduced to try and make the iPad a powerful and versatile laptop replacement—it still feels like trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The more expensive iPads are nice, but I don’t end up using them much differently from how I use this bare-bones tablet.
Features and limitations
Apple’s 11th-generation iPad, with a USB-C Apple Pencil and a cheap case/cover. Credit: Andrew Cunningham
The A16 iPad is a typical post-Home-button iPad design, with a slim-ish symmetrical bezel running all the way around a 10.86-inch screen. Apple used to round this up to 10.9 inches, and now it rounds it up to 11 inches, but what has changed is the rounding and not the screen size.
A Touch ID fingerprint reader is embedded in the power button; the headphone jack is gone; the iPad branding has been removed from the back; and there’s a USB-C port on the bottom (one benefit of upgrading for me—the old iPad Air was the last Lightning device in the house, give or take a Magic Trackpad or Apple TV remote). The design hasn’t changed at all, which means any accessory made for the 10th-gen A14 iPad should fit this one without issue.
This screen ends up feeling like the biggest downgrade from an iPad Air, not because of its size or quality but because of the air gap between the front glass and the actual LCD panel. Other iPads have “laminated” screens, which means that the LCD panel and the glass are fused. This slightly improves color and contrast at the expense of repairability—with a laminated screen, cracked glass means you’re replacing the screen and the glass, not just the screen—but mainly, it makes the tablets feel more solid, and when you’re touching and drawing, it helps your fingers and Pencil feel closer to what you’re interacting with on screen. The air gap between the glass and the screen makes the iPad feel hollow. Along with the lack of anti-reflective coating, it’s the downgrade you’ll feel the most.
Apple’s reliance on older and slower internal hardware also means that the 11th-gen iPad is missing some of the features present on more expensive iPads, though I don’t currently view any of these features as essential. One is Stage Manager, the updated (and widely panned) multitasking experience introduced in iPadOS 16. One component of Stage Manager is actual multi-display support that can run iPad apps on an external screen; without Stage Manager, the iPad is limited to the traditional “video playback and display mirroring only” support.
A basic, flash-less, single-lens 12 megapixel camera and power button-mounted Touch ID sensor. Credit: Andrew Cunningham
Apple Intelligence is also missing here, even though it’s a feature Apple has gone out of its way to include on every device it has launched since last fall (including the iPhone 16e). Again, none of these features are especially great, and some of them are actually kind of bad, so I don’t feel their absence here. If anything, some people might consider it a plus not to have Apple Intelligence flipping itself back on every time you install a security update. If and when Apple ever releases its delayed Siri update, maybe you’ll be sorry your iPad doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, but for now, there’s not much to miss.
One thing that remains frustrating is the Apple Pencil situation. Apple offers two options: the $79 USB-C Apple Pencil, which attaches to the side of the iPad magnetically but doesn’t pair or charge magnetically and doesn’t offer pressure sensitivity, or the $99 first-generation Apple Pencil, which does support pressure sensitivity but is a decade-old design that is less comfortable to hold, doesn’t attach to the tablet at all, and can’t even pair or charge without an adapter. A USB-C Apple Pencil with pressure sensitivity would be an acceptable compromise here; using the deeply flawed first-gen Apple Pencil to fill that gap is just unacceptable at this point.
Apple has removed the “iPad” text and regulatory markings from the back of this iPad, making it a blank aluminum slab aside from the camera bump and Apple logo. Credit: Andrew Cunningham
Accessory pricing is another sore point. All of Apple’s cases and accessories run a bit expensive for my taste, but it’s particularly egregious for a budget tablet. The iPad does have a Smart Connector for Apple’s Magic Keyboard Folio, which at its normal retail price adds a staggering $249 to the price of your $349 iPad. Apple also has a regular Smart Folio case for the iPad, offering a foldable screen-cover-turned-stand and basic back protection for $79.
Luckily, third-party accessories can step in here and keep your total price close to or below $500, even if you’re trying to use the iPad as a computer. Logitech’s Combo Touch keyboard case adds a keyboard and trackpad for $160 and goes on sale with some regularity. Logitech also has separate Bluetooth keyboards like the $30-ish Pebble Keys 2 (formerly the K380s) or $50-ish Pop Icon Keys that can turn the iPad into a good writing machine for less money. MoKo’s iPad cases are decent and cheap and can add a touch of color or personalization. The best feature of the iPad is the price—don’t let expensive accessories mess that up.
Performance: A16 non-Bionic, plus more storage and RAM
Look at the “Chip” section on Apple’s spec pages for the iPhone 15 and the iPad 11, and you’ll note that the iPad’s A16 is missing the word “Bionic.”
Originally used to denote a chip with a mix of large high-performance CPU cores and small high-efficiency CPU cores, Apple has been dropping this label for new A-series processors for a while now (the A17 and A18 don’t use it at all). But in the new iPad’s case, it seems meant to denote that this is a slightly cut-down iteration of the A16, with five CPU cores instead of six and four GPU cores instead of three.
Benchmarks for the 10th-gen iPad have been pulled from publicly available numbers in each benchmark’s official results database.
Geekbench 6 doesn’t distinguish between the performance and efficiency cores, but it does say that the iPad has one cluster of two cores and one cluster of three cores. That means it’s likely one of the four efficiency cores that have been disabled, so the impact on the day-to-day user experience should be pretty minimal.
Performance in benchmarks is “faster, but not by much.” In our testing, the new iPad is still substantially slower than the M1 iPad Air from 2022. And using benchmarks pulled from public databases, it looks like a measurable but modest upgrade over the A14 Bionic in the 10th-generation iPad: a 20 percent-ish improvement in single- and multi-core CPU performance and between 15 and 30 percent faster graphics performance (depending on the benchmark). It’s good enough to be a kid’s Roblox machine, but it might struggle a bit with newer or more intensive games and apps.
The new iPad’s best spec upgrades are measured in gigabytes—the base model jumps from 64GB to 128GB of storage, and RAM increases from 4GB to 6GB. While still short of the unstated 8GB RAM requirement for Stage Manager or Apple Intelligence, that’s two extra gigabytes of memory the iPad can use for apps and Safari tabs before it has to start ejecting things from RAM to make more room. If you’re upgrading from something older, like 2021’s 9th-gen iPad or the iPad Air 3 we’ve been using, you’re doubling your memory from 3GB to 6GB. Not exciting, but not too shabby.
Still the default iPad
A cheap cover and Bluetooth keyboard can still turn the cheap iPad into a solid writing machine (not this keyboard, which is a Logitech MX Keys S I bought for something else, but an inexpensive Logitech Pebble Keys 2 or Pop Icon Keys are both good fits). Credit: Andrew Cunningham
The next time I buy an iPad for myself, I will still probably manage to talk myself into some kind of iPad Air. I occasionally need to test and write about the full range of iPad features, including Stage Manager and Apple Intelligence, and the laminated screen and anti-reflective coating are quality-of-life upgrades I’m pretty attached to. Sometimes, you spend a little more money on a nice thing because it is nice, even if it’s not strictly necessary.
But for just over half the price? For people who are just reading or doodling or watching TV, or for a kid who needs something basic but reliable for games and school and chatting? The basic iPad makes a strong case for itself. That was already kind of true of the 10th-generation iPad, which debuted at a who-is-this-for price of $449 before gradually falling to a more sensible $349 last year. This new iPad is just that one with a faster chip, 50 percent more memory, and 100 percent more storage.
It is a little frustrating that Apple couldn’t at least give people the option to use Apple Intelligence since the cheap iPad only sees an update once every couple of years—if there ever actually is a killer Apple Intelligence feature, this iPad won’t see it. But don’t let the tablet’s whisper-quiet, nothing-to-see-here launch or low price fool you—it still does pretty much all of the stuff that people actually enjoy doing on their iPads.
The good
A reliable, functional multi-purpose computer for $349
More RAM and double the storage of the previous-generation model
Decent performance and a nice-looking screen for this price
iPadOS has a solid library of games, productivity apps, and other software that Android and Windows tablets have never successfully replicated
Compatible with the same ecosystem of accessories as the 10th-generation model
The bad
You have two Apple Pencil options, and neither is ideal
Still slower than a 3-year-old M1 iPad Air
Apple’s accessories can drive the price way up
No Apple Intelligence, I guess? You’re not missing anything now, but you might one day miss out on a feature you actually want
The ugly
The gap between the glass and the screen gives it a hollow feeling and makes drawing less satisfying
Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.
The new 13-inch iPad Air with the Apple M2 processor inside.
Andrew Cunningham
In portrait mode. The 13-inch model is a little large for dedicated tablet use, but if you do want a gigantic tablet, the $799 price is appealing.
Andrew Cunningham
The Apple Pencil Pro attaches, pairs, and charges via a magnetic connection on the edge of the iPad.
Andrew Cunningham
In the Magic Keyboard. This kickstand-less case is still probably the best way to make the iPad into a true laptop replacement, though it’s expensive and iPadOS is still a problem.
Andrew Cunningham
The tablet’s USB-C port, used for charging and connecting to external accessories.
Andrew Cunningham
Apple’s Smart Folio case. The magnets on the cover will scoot up and down the back of the iPad, allowing you a bit of flexibility when angling the screen.
Andrew Cunningham
The Air’s single-lens, flash-free camera, seen here peeking through the Smart Folio case.
Andrew Cunningham
The iPad Air has been a lot of things in the last decade-plus. In 2013 and 2014, the first iPad Airs were just The iPad, and the “Air” label simply denoted how much lighter and more streamlined they were than the initial 2010 iPad and 2011’s long-lived iPad 2. After that, the iPad Air 2 survived for years as an entry-level model, as Apple focused on introducing and building out the iPad Pro.
The Air disappeared for a while after that, but it returned in 2019 as an in-betweener model to bridge the gap between the $329 iPad (no longer called “Air,” despite reusing the first-gen Air design) and more-expensive and increasingly powerful iPad Pros. It definitely made sense to have a hardware offering to span the gap between the basic no-frills iPad and the iPad Pro, but pricing and specs could make things complicated. The main issue for the last couple of years has been the base Air’s 64GB of storage—scanty enough that memory swapping doesn’t even work on it— and the fact that stepping up to 256GB brought the Air too close to the price of the 11-inch iPad Pro.
Which brings us to the 2024 M2 iPad Air, now available in 11-inch and 13-inch models for $599 and $799, respectively. Apple solved the overlap problem this year partly by bumping the Air’s base storage to a more usable 128GB and partly by making the 11-inch iPad Pro so much more expensive that it almost entirely eliminates any pricing overlap (only the 1TB 11-inch Air, at $1,099, is more expensive than the cheapest 11-inch iPad Pro).
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call the new Airs the “default” iPad for most buyers—the now-$349 10th-gen iPad still does everything the iPad is best at for less money, and it’s still all you really need if you just want a casual gaming, video streaming, and browsing tablet (or a tablet for a kid). But the M2 Air is the iPad that best covers the totality of everything the iPad can do from its awkward perch, stuck halfway between the form and function of the iPhone and the Mac.
Not quite a last-gen iPad Pro
The new iPad Airs have a lot in common with the M2 iPad Pro from 2022. They have the same screen sizes and resolutions, the same basic design, they work with the same older Magic Keyboard accessories (not the new ones with the function rows, metal palm rests, and larger trackpads, which are reserved for the iPad Pro), and they obviously have the same Apple M2 chip.
Performance-wise, nothing we saw in the benchmarks we ran was surprising; the M2’s CPU and (especially) its GPU are a solid generational jump up from the M1, and the M1 is already generally overkill for the vast majority of iPad apps. The M3 and M4 are both significantly faster than the M2, but the M2 is still unquestionably powerful enough to do everything people currently use iPads to do.
That said, Apple’s decision to use an older chip rather than the M3 or M4 does mean the new Airs come into the world missing some capabilities that have come to other Apple products announced in the last six months or so. That list includes hardware-accelerated ray-tracing on the GPU, hardware-accelerated AV1 video codec decoding, and, most importantly, a faster Neural Engine to help power whatever AI stuff Apple’s products pick up in this fall’s big software updates.
The 13-inch Air’s screen has the same resolution and pixel density (2732×2048, 264 PPI) as the last-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro. And unlike the 13-inch Pro, which truly is a 13-inch screen, Apple’s tech specs page says the 13-inch Air is still using a 12.9-inch screen, and Apple is just rounding up to get to 13.
The 13-inch Air display does share some other things with the last-generation iPad Pro screen, including P3 color, a 600-nit peak brightness. Its display panel has been laminated to the front glass, and it has an anti-reflective coating (two of the subtle but important quality improvements the Air has that the $349 10th-gen iPad doesn’t). But otherwise it’s not the same panel as the M2 Pro; there’s no mini LED, no HDR support, and no 120 Hz ProMotion support.
Enlarge/ Apple’s latest iPad Air, now in two sizes. The Magic Keyboard accessory is the same one that you use with older iPad Airs and Pros, though they can use the new Apple Pencil Pro.
Andrew Cunningham
Apple has a new lineup of iPad Pro and Air models for the first time in well over a year. Most people would probably be hard-pressed to tell the new ones from the old ones just by looking at them, but after hands-on sessions with both sizes of both tablets, the small details (especially for the Pros) all add up to a noticeably refined iPad experience.
iPad Airs: Bigger is better
But let’s begin with the new Airs since there’s a bit less to talk about. The 11-inch iPad Air (technically the sixth-generation model) is mostly the same as the previous-generation A14 and M1 models, design-wise, with identical physical dimensions and weight. It’s still the same slim-bezel design Apple introduced with the 2018 iPad Pro, just with a 60 Hz LCD display panel and Touch ID on the power button rather than Face ID.
So when Apple says the device has been “redesigned,” the company is mainly referring to the fact that the webcam is now mounted on the long edge of the tablet rather than the short edge. This makes its positioning more laptop-y when it’s docked to the Magic Keyboard or some other keyboard.
The most welcome change to the Air is the introduction of a 13-inch model (blessedly, no longer “12.9 inches”). It looks like the old 12.9-inch iPad Pro design from circa 2018 but with the simpler single-lens 12 MP camera and the Touch ID button rather than the Face ID sensor.
With the iPad Pro and the Air next to each other, it’s clear which has the superior screen—the 120 Hz refresh rate of ProMotion and the infinite contrast of OLED are definitely major points in the Pro’s favor. But if you’re just looking for a big screen for watching videos, reading books, or playing games, or if you’re just looking for a general-use laptop replacement tablet, Apple is still using a great 60 Hz LCD panel here. And the $799 price tag is considerably lower than any of Apple’s past 12.9-inch iPad Pros.
Like the 15-inch MacBook Air, it’s a way for people to get a bigger screen without paying for advanced screen technologies or faster processors if they don’t want or need them. It’s hard to find a downside to that, as long as you’re OK with iPadOS’ differences and restrictions relative to macOS.
Apple today announced the first 13-inch iPad Air. The company is also releasing a revamped 11-inch iPad Air next week, meaning the tablet will be available in two sizes for the first time.
The 13-inch iPad Air has 30 percent more screen real estate than its smaller counterpart, so Apple is marketing it as being for multitasking and applications like iPadOS’ Split View. During its Let Loose event today, Apple said it decided to release a 13-inch iPad Air because more than half of iPad Pro users opt for the larger (12.9 inches versus 11 inches) size.
In addition to a larger screen, the 13-inch iPad Air will offer better sound quality than the 11-inch version, Apple says, due to it offering twice the bass. Both tablets have landscape stereo speakers and Spatial Audio support.
Both iPad Airs will come with an M2 chip that Apple claimed will give the devices 15 percent faster CPU performance, 25 percent faster GPU performance, and a 40 percent faster neural engine. With improved memory bandwidth as well, the new iPad Airs will be 50 percent faster than M1-based predecessors, Apple says.
Apple also says the new chip will make the tablets more appropriate for AI-based tasks, like visual look-up, subject lift, and live text capture.
The new Airs will also have a front-facing, ultrawide 12MP camera that supports Apple’s Center Stage feature for keeping users in a central field of view during video calls. Apple moved the camera positioning to one of the tablet’s longer edges to appeal to the way people tend to use tablets for video calls.
Enlarge/ The new iPad Air cameras support 4K video and 240-fps slo-mo.
Apple
Apple’s new thin tablets will come in four colors.
Enlarge/ Apple’s new iPad Airs in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray.
Apple
The 13-inch iPad Air will start at $799 with 128GB of storage, and the 11-inch iPad Air will start at $599, with storage going up to 1TB. The tablets will be available starting May 15.
Enlarge/ The promotional image for Apple’s May 7 event.
Apple
On May 7, Apple will host a product announcement event at 9 am ET. Labeled “Let loose,” we expect it will focus on new iPads and iPad accessories.
We won’t be liveblogging the stream, but you can expect some news coverage as it happens. Below, we’ll go over our educated guesses about why Apple might be doing this.
Why hold an event now?
It’s unusual for Apple to host an event shortly before WWDC. New products debut at that event all the time, so if it’s just a faster chip and a nicer screen for the iPad Pro and iPad Air, why not wait until June?
We’re not completely sure what the answer is, but we can make educated guesses.
Apple has been criticized by commentators over the past few weeks for three things. First, iPads have not been selling well. Second: While the Vision Pro introduced a new product category that may grow over time, its initial launch didn’t sell that well. Lastly, Apple is perceived by many as way, way behind on generative AI tech, which is already transforming other companies. There have also been rumors that Microsoft might announce a new silicon that will be fiercely competitive with Apple Silicon for AI tasks, and Microsoft’s chips could be announced at a planned event between May 7 and the start of WWDC.
Given all that, our best guess is that Apple wants to focus its messaging—and the time window for that messaging—on the right targets without muddying the message by trying to address everything at once.
Talking about the iPad’s challenges while also preempting Microsoft with a new chip announcement could be Apple’s focus for this event. Getting those things out of the way now would allow WWDC and its new operating system announcements to focus heavily on AI, which is the bigger question the company is looking to answer.
What new iPads might look like
Given that an Apple Pencil is in the event’s promotional image—a much more explicit hint than Apple usually provides—there’s no question iPads will be a focus.
As is often the case these days, we have a plethora of leaks, supply chain reports, and, of course, insider reporting at sites like Bloomberg and The Information to give us a rough idea of what to expect from Apple’s new hardware.
iPad Pro
It’s likely that the star of the show will be a significant redesign of the iPad Pro for the 11-inch and 12.9-inch sizes.
Both are rumored to get OLED displays, a huge step up over the LCD display in the current 11-inch iPad Pro. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a MiniLED display, which competes directly with OLED in the consumer TV space, so it won’t be as big a leap for that device, but we can still expect better contrast and richer colors.
Enlarge/ The M2 iPad Pro. The updated version will come with refined designs and new accessories.
Apple
If you’ve been waiting for new iPads to come out, prepare to wait just a little longer: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that redesigned iPad Pros with Apple’s M3 chip, plus refreshed iPad Air models with the M2 and a larger-screened option, should now arrive sometime in “early May.” Gurman had previously reported that new iPads could arrive in March or April, not long after the updated M3 MacBook Airs.
Gurman suggests that “complex new manufacturing techniques” for the new iPad screens have “contributed to the delay,” and that Apple is also “working to finish software for the devices.”
The details of what the new iPads will look like hasn’t changed. The new iPad Pro models will shift to using OLED display panels for the first time and will have their designs tweaked for the first time since the 2018 iPad Pros introduced the current rounded, slim-bezeled look. Those new iPad Pros will also come with redesigned Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories, though it’s unclear whether those accessories will be totally rethought or if they’ll just tweak existing designs to work with the new tablets.
The iPad Air refresh will be more straightforward. It should retain the current design, which is very similar to the 2018-era iPad Pro refresh but with a power button-mounted TouchID fingerprint sensor instead of a FaceID camera for authentication. But the new Airs will come with an M2 chip instead of the current M1, and a 12.9-inch variant will provide a less-expensive large-screened option for people who want to use their iPad as their primary computer but who don’t want to pay for the extra bells and whistles of the Pro.
Some rumors have suggested the iPad Pro could come with a price hike relative to the current-generation model, though the sources of those rumors can’t agree on how big a jump it would be. Gurman hasn’t mentioned Apple’s pricing plans in his reports.
New hardware is always nice to have, but it does continue to feel like the power of Apple’s M-series chips is a bit wasted on Apple’s tablets. The iPad’s relatively limited multitasking model, restrictions on third-party software and the general dearth of performance-intensive high-end apps in Apple’s app store mean that performance really isn’t a problem on current-generation iPads; there’s nothing an iPad can currently do that an M1 can’t handle with room to spare. Apple will announce new operating system versions at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 10; it’s possible that iPadOS will get some new features that more fully leverage the power of Apple’s newer chips.
