New iPad Air, powered by M4

The iPad would go from a never-buy to a buy-right-away for me, if they added user profiles. It'd be a nice thing to have on your coffee table, where anyone in the household can pick it up and be logged into all of their stuff.

Windows XP had this feature. Chromebooks have this feature. It's inexcusable that such an expensive gadget can only have one user.

I just hope they update the iPad mini. That's the only model worth the money for me, at least.

I'm about to head to the gym with my 12.9-inch 2017 vintage iPad Pro, which is still going strong. I prop it up on the elliptical trainer every other day or so for entertaining me while I grind out an hour of cardio. I use it for reading, watching YouTube, listening to music, audiobooks, etc. It's been my regular gym buddy for years, and is showing no signs of needing to be replaced.

It's stuck on iPadOS 17.7.10, which is fine. I can only imagine that these new generation iPads will easily go for the next 10 years.

I don't understand people complaining about Apple using ~nearly latest processor on a device refresh. What are they supposed to do, not put a year old CPU inside, use something from a decade ago?

If you are on an iPad from 5 or so years ago there, or happy with your device, sure - there is no reason to upgrade. But the very same reason that you do not have to upgrade is that Apple put a fairly powerful chip in your device a while ago that is still holding today.

It should be a common sense that these devices are for first time buyers or for users of very old devices that finally end up upgrading, and why would those people not be treated with a fairly recent internals?

I owned a few iPads as a kid but as I get older I see less and less reason to buy one.

It kinda sits in the middle of usefulness of a phone and laptop for me. Larger screen than phone yes, but can't run any of the applications I need from a laptop. If it had MacOS, I'd be much more inclined to buy it.

To what end?

I genuinely don’t get the purpose of these high end processors in a tablet. Like more power is nice but what would I do on it that needs it?

Serious gamers mostly steer clear of Apple. Video editors presumably use desktops/laptops. Browsing doesn’t need power. Video watching doesn’t need it. Programming on iPads is cumbersome.

Who is the target audience that gains from this?

> iPad Air is a fantastic value

TIL American English treats “value” in the financial sense as a countable noun

The iPad and MacBook teams have been in market competition for nearly a decade now while clearly Apple corporate strategy has been trying to nerf each line to prevent them from actually competing. It's an artificial tension that gets more pronounced as the devices get more capable in other ways and the induced limitations are more glaringly obvious.

There's even a paragraph saying it's good for the environment. This means Apple really cares about the environment. That's good! So I suppose I can install my community OS of choice painlessly after Apple decides to stop supporting it so it doesn't turn into e-waste that day despite being perfectly good hardware for many more years?

I also suppose parts can be easily replaced without also replacing everything including the motherboard should something stop working?

Sarcasm, obviously, but until they do these things, their environment selling point is just irritating and scandalous and they should just focus on the other selling points.

Had an M4 iPad Pro for nearly 2 years. Everything's so fast and fluid I doubt I'd notice if the CPU were twice as fast.

If this ever died I'd likely replace it with an Air - the Pro is overkill for what's basically a consumption device.

My current iPad is the iPad Air 3 (the one with the backlight issue that's never been acknowledged, to my understanding.)

Can someone explain to me why an iPad at all, let alone an iPad Air, needs as powerful a processor as a M4? That's stronger than my laptop (a M2) where I run multiple VMs and more.

Apple’s hardware teams are seriously running laps around their software teams. Which is odd, because historically, it’s been the opposite.

Until iPad OS actually becomes capable for complex work and multitasking, I can’t see what the benefit of strapping such a powerful chip to an iPad is.

The iPad Air is in such a weird spot.

Heavier than the Pro, 60Hz, but more Ram in the M4 Air than the M4 Pro? It makes no sense. Who is this for?

The word "value" appears four times in that press release. I sense a theme in the marketing this week.

I have a 6 with cracked glass and won't buy another one until 3rd party browsers can release without webkit. The net is an awful place without uBlock, which I am reminded about every time I try to surf with the ipad...

This is an incredible piece of hardware, I just don't know what to do with it

how is music production on it these days?

Maybe my pockets are not deep enough, but I completely fail to understand the value proposition of iPad Air vs the regular iPad. If you want something powerful or big - go with Pro, if not - choose the "regular", much cheaper.

What am I missing?

This would go from "toy for children" to "instant buy" for me if it ran Linux and not an entertainment pipeline with a captive app store.

Tangential, iPadOS 26 is absolutely unusable on iPad Minis. Who needs window management on an 8" screen?

ipad is one of those devices that doesn't need to exist, along with apple watch.

Memory increase to 12GB, guess they still have reasonable pricing.

If you were utterly confused, like I was, how the iPad Air M4 compares to the iPad Pro M5 and the iPad Pro M4, this 3-column comparison table from Apple's website might help:

https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-air-11-m4...

The quick summary:

- iPad Air has 2 stereo speakers, rather than 4 speakers as Pro models

- Touch ID in top button rather than FaceID as Pro models

- iPad Air is slightly heavier (???) than either Pro model

- screen of iPad Air is a bit less bright

- no nano-texture display option on iPad Air

- no true Thunderbolt connectivity through USB-C port on iPad Air

- all devices can use same Apple Pencil Pro...

- ... but the iPad Air takes a special Magic Keyboard (supposedly due to form factor)

- camera array is slightly different on iPad Air (no ProRes video)

Can you connect it to USB-C/Thunderbolt monitor/dock and use it with keyboard and mouse?

I had a 2008 iPad until few years ago and I think it was the most impressive device I ever owned. I couldn't believe how much performance and longevity you can get out of such a small and simple device, for the price which hasn't changed in 8 years. I sold it because I spent most of my time on a laptop, but looking at this new M4 Air iPad makes my wallet tingle. I first want to see what the low cost Macbook is like, hopefully that's tomorrow.

I have the M3 iPad Air… I won’t have to replace it for at least 4 years because it’s stupidly powerful but both of its hands are tied because of iPad OS. Apple needs to get serious and make a version of MacOS for the iPad otherwise these upgrades are meaningless for most users.

I wish Apple hadn't decided that colors weren't for pro users. I would love to have any of those.

I still have no idea wht to do with my previous gen iPad Pro..

I bought a regular iPad in 2017, I'm really impressed that almost 9 years later it's still working and the batter is still great (especially for reading).

No side profile pics on the page. My only concern would be can it lay flat on a table for taking notes or does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?

When will I be able to run Xcode on one of these?

Is it fast enough to run Liquid glass?

Was I the only stunned by the quality of the video ad? It’s really advert at its peak, to the point yet artistic.

I love my iPad, best TV i have ever owned.

When the M1 ipad came out I said I'd upgrade from whatever my model year 2020 ipad is once I could run a Linux VM on it without rooting it.

Still waiting.

I wonder how well local inference would work on these.

If it can be used for inference, who cares right? Just have claude vibe code some objective-C or run the Enclave app.

As always, I _wish_ I had a use case for an iPad. Seem like such powerful machines hindered by where they live in the serious-computing space. The iPadOS being much more restrictive doesn't help either.

I wish they could repurpose macOS to touch screens... Oh well.

Any chances of getting a new Apple TV 4k this week in time for F1 launch on AppleTV+?

I don't understand why they still have such thick borders, compared to smartphone screens that almost get to the edge. Anybody knows if there's a technical reason for it?

I still don't get what they're for. Most people I know end up in the same situation as me, buying one thinking you'll use it mostly as a writing device but then either it ends up in a closet or just a web browser you use while sitting on the couch watching TV. In that case what does any of the improvements matter?

With first party native apps it's not great for writing, editing pdfs, nor drawing. I mean the notes app doesn't even have simple things like letting you zoom in. You'd think a common use case would be to use it as a drawing tablet for your computer? Maybe not a common use case but I think something a lot of people would end up using a few times a year (countless times I'd love to have a whiteboard on a zoom call but setting that up is annoying)

There's great third party apps to do this but I think it just shows that either Apple is disconnected or just trying to get money from developers.

It's also not great as a computer. I mean in another thread I've mentioned my laptop (macbook air) is a glorified ssh machine and frankly, an iPad should the perfect device for that because its size. But it seems they don't want me to use it like a computer and idk why iOS locks down third party terminals so much.

It also sucks as a second monitor (why is everything monitor related so bad with Apple?). Keeps disconnecting, I need to restart Bluetooth/airdrop constantly to detect it, and the angle it sits at when sitting on my desk... really?

I really want to know what you guys use it for because mine just really feels like expensive ewaste.

I still have the 2017 pro and i can't imagine a good enough reason to buy almost 10 years later a new gen. And i'm the guy who loves buying new stuff without need. It's a dumb consumer device with the hardware of a pro device but you can't use it as a pro device. So what's the point of upgrading? Watching Youtube with 10x more powerful hardware than 2017? Really?

Let me know when I can buy an M5 Max Macbook Pro that can run local open weight LLMs. Until then, nothing else is particularly interesting, everything I already own gets the job done.

what's a computer?

I have an M3 iPad Air. I only upgraded after my M1 iPad Air 4th generation (IIRC) stopped turning off and it was way too expensive to get a replacement board.

I am desperately clinging on to these because they still use TouchID. Words cannot describe how much I hate FaceID as a person with poor vision. When I'm forced to use it on my iPhone (which is all the time), I have to move it away from my face or I get the "Try again". Super-annoying.

But it gets worse: after a certain number of unsuccessful tries, you're forced to use your passcode anyway and FaceID has false negatives ALL THE TIME.

It's even worse on n iPad form factor where the iPad often isn't facing you directly. It might be attached to a keyboard, on a stand, on your lap or on your chest (when lying down). Many of these angles just don't naturally work with FaceID.

If only Apple would give me a FaceID OPTION on an iPhone.

I haven't bought a keyboard or anything. If I wanted a device to work on in any way, I'd still use a Macbook Air. But I do love my iPad Air.

Bet they were hoping for a quieter news week for these announcements.

Can you run openclaw on it?

The Pro really looks like it's struggling for a reason to exist given how much cheaper this will be and the difference in feature set.

Heavier than the iPad Pro. Again. Still.

feflefkwekwflry

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Please do not buy any Apple products until Tim Cook takes that gold bar back from Trump? Thanks.

[dead]

So base iphone 17 is 256 GB, and the iphone 17e which is the cheap version is 256 GB, and… the base version of the midrange ipad is 128 GB?

What a spiteful company

I don't understand the target audience of ipad air.

The base ipad is "really big iphone, with a few laptop-esque features". It's reasonably cheap for what it offers, especially if you want a highly mobile media consumption device and handwritten input.

Then there's ipad pro, which is wildly overpriced for its specs -- m4 pro has half!! the ram that the cheaper m4 macbook air has, which is laughable for a 'pro' anything, especially if you have apple intelligence enabled - you get what, 3GB of usable ram once you take OS and apple intelligence into account? Yet, aside from the crazy sticker price, the hardware is a lot better - the 120 Hz OLED display looks amazing and is way brighter, the speakers are quite an upgrage, full blown thunderbolt port for external display and so on. The OS is still toy-like, and ram is pitiful, but there is place for an ipad pro.

And then there's air which is... base ipad with an M-series chip and pretty much nothing else? The display is barely any better than base ipad, the storage and ram are pitiful, the speakers are from the baseline ipad and so on. Just about the only saving grace of the M4 one announced here is 12GB ram, which is the absolute lowest those really ought to have, and really puts into perspective how utterly miserly Apple was about ram pre-AI. I don't understand the value proposition - you want the baseline you buy a much cheaper base model, you want more you get the pro, right?

To be fair the asking price is far less than pro but the upgrades over base model seem so minuscule that I just don't know.

To me, the tablet form factor is dead with the arrival of the trifold.

90% of the people who use tablets I know (including myself) only has four use case: watching video, reading PDF and comics, taking notes, and playing mobile games.

All of which are very mobile-oriented tasks that are done on tablets solely for their screen sizes. With trifold bridging the gap between screen sizes and, more importantly, screen ratios, I would love to merge them into one device. This is in contrast with laptops, whose differences in OS and use cases are, to me, much bigger and necessary.

Of course, right now they are very much afar from consumers' pockets due to price and reliability. But normal foldables were once in the exact same state, and the fact that Apple is releasing one soon is a sure tale sign of the future of foldables.