The M4 iPad Air Is Here, and It’s More ‘Pro’ Than We Expected
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Alongside the new iPhone 17e, Apple also unveiled the latest entry in its iPad Air lineup, bringing it into the modern M4 silicon era. However, those who were hoping for bigger changes will be disappointed to know that the iPad lineup seems to have settled comfortably into an iterative era of minor spec bumps.
Today’s M4 iPad Air is almost a direct echo of last year’s M3 iPad Air, which literally changed nothing over its predecessor except the chip inside. That model came as a bit of a surprise, as problems with the M3 chip led to speculation that Apple would jump straight to the M4. Considering the M3 chips never fully rolled out in the Mac, the M3 iPad Air felt like an opportunity to clear out old silicon, and that was held up as a possible reason why that was the only update.
However, the M4 iPad Air has now made it clear that Apple is quite happy with the design and features of its mid-tier tablet, and feels the only year-over-year changes it needs are performance boosts. That’s what the iPad Air is getting in spades, as Apple notes that it’s up to 30 percent faster than its predecessor, and comes in 2.3x faster than the original M1 iPad Air.
“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.”
What’s New in the M4 iPad Air
While the M4 iPad Air may look a lot like its predecessor, Apple has made a few other key changes inside that go beyond the new M-series chip. It’s also added its latest N1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, along with its C1X 5G modem for the cellular models. That matches what it did with the M5 iPad Pro last fall, but it’s also a change everyone expected; if anything, the iPhone 17e surprised us this morning by sticking with its predecessor’s legacy third-party chips, making the new iPad Air the most affordable device with Apple’s custom N1 silicon.
The new N1 chip provides some useful upgrades, including Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, plus tight integration with Apple’s hardware and software that will deliver more power efficiency and better performance for core features like AirDrop and Personal Hotspot. The improvements are noticeable in the iPhone 17, and while they may be less crucial on an iPad, where features like Bluetooth are less commonly used, they’re still beneficial, and Wi-Fi 7 is a definite bonus over the Wi-Fi 6E of last year’s models.
There’s also a benefit to the M4 chip that shouldn’t be overlooked: the newer silicon comes with a 50% boost in RAM, which means the M4 iPad Air now packs in 12 GB, which should make the windowed multitasking features in iPadOS 26 flow much more smoothly with multiple apps open, especially since the memory bandwidth has also increased to 120 GB/s. That’s a big enough change to make the iPad Air a more viable alternative for power users who might find the iPad Pro to be a bit too rich for their blood.
However, while the new silicon offers significant boosts in performance and efficiency, that’s as far as the changes go. The M4 iPad Air is visually indistinguishable from last year’s M3 model; even the color selection is the same — space gray, starlight, purple, and blue. There have been no changes to the cameras, screen, speakers, or microphones; rumors of an OLED iPad Air persist, but the reality is still a couple of years away, and the iPad mini may actually be first in line.
Price and Availability
The M4 iPad Air has the same $599 starting price for the 11-inch model as its predecessor, but unlike the iPhone 17e, Apple hasn’t made any storage changes, so you’ll still be getting only 128 GB of storage for that price, with the same 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB upgrades available at the same pricing tiers. As usual, add $150 if you want cellular connectivity.
The 13-inch M4 iPad Air starts at $799 for the Wi-Fi model and $949 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model, with the same color and storage tier upgrade options as its smaller sibling.
Both models will be available for pre-order this Wednesday, March 4, and begin arriving to customers and showing up in retail stores on March 11.
