The Weirdest iPad Update
a front for something more
Apple recently announced their M3 iPad Air.
And it’s a pretty weird update.
Features
Pretty much the exact same as the M2 iPad Air.
The only difference is M3. This is honestly not even that big of a difference.
If you look at Apple’s news page for the release, they don’t mentioned the M2 iPad Air anywhere. In literally every single comparison, the M3 is compared to either the M1 iPad Air or even older versions.
Pricing
The pricing is the exact same: “$599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model”
No difference.
Timing
The timing of this update is weird.
Apple usually goes ~2 years between iPad Air updates. Now of course, this is not a hard rule. But for the most part, the iPad Air (and similar tier products like the MacBook Air) tend to follow an 18-30 month release cycle.
Yet, the M2 iPad Air only came out 10 months ago. Why would Apple push such an incremental update when it hasn’t even been a year since the last one.
What This Means
I think Apple is cooking something up with Apple Intelligence for iPadOS 19.
The entire release page is more a promo for Apple Intelligence than the new iPads.
Because M3 appears to be designed with AI in mind, this could be Apple’s push to get AI-enabled iPads in the hands of as many users as possible before they push out some killer software.
Or this could be me grasping at straws. I hope I don’t devour feculence.
The 11th Gen iPad
If anything, I’m actually more excited about the new base-level iPad.
It basically had two changes: A14 Bionic → A16 and 2x the starting storage (64 GB → 128 GB).
The chip change is not that big of a deal. It’s expected.
However, the starting storage is. $349 for a 128 GB iPad is awesome.
You can get it for even cheaper ($329) as a student. I’m sure Best Buy and Amazon will have deals soon. And Apple’s Refurbished store will probably start stocking them for <$300 within a few months.
Final Thoughts
Some interesting updates for sure. Cool nonetheless.
Thanks for reading,
Adi
The M3 iPad Air might be weird, but Concepts isn’t. They’ve been kind enough to offer you a free 30-day trial. And no, you don't have to enter your credit card info.
Thanks Adi! ✅
I suppose another possibility is that they had surplus M3 chips they need to use somewhere. Another nice upgrade to the iPad 11 is the RAM is now 6 GB, which is a big boost to the longevity potential for that iPad. There is also a small updates to the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air.