Apple has upgraded the iPad Air with the M4 chip which offers a huge jump in performance to make it even more capable to use for work, play and entertainment.
The new iPad Air retains the same entry level prices for the 11-inch model ($999) and the 13-inch model ($1,399).
“iPad Air gives users more ways than ever to be creative and productive, offering powerful performance and incredible versatility to help them turn their ideas into reality,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
“With its blazing performance thanks to M4, incredible AI capabilities, and game-changing iPadOS 26 features, there’s never been a better time to choose or upgrade to iPad Air.”
Under the hood is Apple’s own M4 silicon which makes the new iPad Air up to 30 per cent faster than iPad Air with M3 and up to 2.3 times faster than the M1 iPad Air.
The additional speed and performance the M4 chip brings means the iPad Air can be used for editing video with Final Cut Pro and to enjoy the latest games with ray tracing and mesh shading.
The new iPad Air with M4 is also more powerful for AI with faster memory bandwidth and a faster Neural Engine.
On the onboard unified memory has also been increased by 50 per cent to 12GB and memory bandwidth increases to 120GB/s which allows user to run AI models faster than ever before.
iPad Air also includes N1 – a networking chip designed by Apple that enables Wi-Fi 7 compatibility and Bluetooth 6 which improves overall performance and other features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.
The cellular models of the new iPad Air will also include C1X – a cellular modem which provides 50 per cent faster cellular data performance while reducing energy usage by 30 per cent.
iPad Air can also be used with Apple’s accessories including Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil Pro and the Magic Keyboard.
The iPad Air with M4 will be available in 11-inch and 13-inch models in blue, purple, starlight and space grey.
Pre-orders are open now with an on-sale date of March 11.
PRICING
iPad Air 11-inch $999 (Wi-Fi, 128GB), $1,199 (Wi-Fi, 256GB), $1,549 (Wi-Fi, 512GB) and $1,899 (Wi-Fi, 1TB)
iPad Air 13-inch $1,349 (Wi-Fi, 128GB), $1,549 (Wi-Fi, 256GB), $1,899 (Wi-Fi, 512GB) and $2,249 (Wi-Fi, 1TB).
iPad Air 11-inch with Cellular $1,249 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 128GB), $1,449 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 256GB), $1,799 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 512GB) and $2,149 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 1TB)
iPad Air 13-inch with Cellular $1,599 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 128GB), $1,799 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 256GB), $2,149 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 512GB) and $2,499 (Wi-Fi + Cellular, 1TB).
