Is the M2 iPad Air Coming Soon?

iPad Air Credit: Onur Binay / Unsplash
Text Size
- +

Toggle Dark Mode

It’s only been a year since Apple brought its powerful M1 chip to the mid-tier iPad Air, but there are indications that a refreshed model could already be in the works for sometime this year as stock levels begin to dwindle at carriers and third-party retailers.

Earlier this month, Canadian carrier Bell Mobility began offering $240 off the 2022 iPad Air for customers willing to opt for a two-year contract — the type of move the carrier often makes when products are about to be phased out in favor of newer models.

For instance, last August, I picked up an iPhone 13 Pro for my daughter for a monthly price less than that of the iPhone 13. Stock levels were limited enough that she had to settle for Graphite rather than her preferred color of Sienna Blue, but the price was hard to beat.

Obviously, Bell Mobility and other carriers were clearing the way for the September launch of the iPhone 14 Pro. Still, there’s additional evidence that they could be doing the same for a next-generation iPad Air model.

With the discount in play, I opted to order an iPad Air earlier this week. Colors were limited to Space Grey and Purple, and only the 64GB models were available; however, that was still a good deal for an iPad for casual use and testing iPadOS 17.

However, according to an email I received today, this model of iPad Air 2022 “has been discontinued.”

Of course, that’s obviously not true on a broader scale — Apple is still selling the 2022 iPad Air in all colors and capacities — so the message may simply suggest that Bell has dropped it from the lineup of products it sells.

That could mean Bell has simply decided to stop carrying that particular product. Still, it would be an unusual move for the carrier, which has always sold Apple’s entire iPad lineup — albeit sometimes with a more limited selection of colors.

When Will Apple Launch the Next iPad Air?

Nevertheless, it’s important not to read too much into this, and with WWDC having just concluded, it’s unlikely we’ll see new iPad models appear before this fall. Unlikely, but not impossible; Apple could slip a new iPad model out more quietly via a press release. It did that with the third-generation iPad Air in 2019, and even the announcement of the current 5th-generation iPad Air at Apple’s March 2022 Peek Performance event took less than ten minutes of stage time.

For that model, Apple wanted to highlight the new M1 chip and 5G support, both of which were a pretty big deal. Apple had added the M1 to the iPad Pro less than a year earlier, and few expected it to bring that same power to its mid-tier iPad.

In fact, for about six months, the iPad Air was on par performance-wise with the flagship iPad Pro. Apple rectified that last fall by introducing the new M2 iPad Pro models,

Bumping the iPad Air to an M2 chip would be much less exciting. It’s simply the next logical upgrade. We’ve already seen that Apple has no problem with the iPad Air and iPad Pro sporting the same class of M-series chips — the Pro model has much more to set it apart than raw performance, anyway.

Further, Apple’s M3 chip could be ready by this fall, leading to the launch of an M3 iPad Pro later this year or early next year, maintaining its performance lead.

Nevertheless, we haven’t heard much from the rumor mill about a new iPad Air, so at this point, it’s purely speculative. Further, unlike the iPhone, Apple’s iPad product release cycles are much more difficult to predict, although the frequency seems to have increased since Apple moved to its M-series chips; now that the iPad Air and iPad Pro are more mature products, Apple seems content to focus primarily on regular spec bumps rather than trying to introduce significant new features.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]

Sponsored
Social Sharing