The new iPad Air models come in the same 11-inch and 13-inch size options, priced at US$599 and US$799, with a move from the M2 chip to the M3 being the main upgrade. The device was twice as fast as the M1 edition from a few years ago, the company said in an online announcement. Orders are already open, with shipments and in-store availability beginning on March 12.
The M3 chip – like the M2 brought to the iPad Air last May – has a total of nine graphics cores in the GPU, or graphics processing unit, and eight main processing cores in the CPU, or central processing unit. The key upgrade in the chip is a technology called ray tracing, which makes games look more realistic.
As with last year’s model, Apple is promoting the iPad Air as supporting Apple Intelligence. The company said artificial intelligence tasks run 60 per cent faster on this year’s edition compared with the M1 version from 2022. The rest of the iPad Air’s specifications – including its 12-megapixel front and back cameras, battery life and form factor – remain the same.
Still, the iPad Air update represents a faster turnaround than usual, coming only 10 months after the last version. The company is looking to keep up momentum for the line, which saw revenue grow 15 per cent over the holidays. Apple uses its chips to differentiate its hardware and has shown a willingness in recent years to upgrade its devices more rapidly.
