Apple Introduces Redesigned 10.9-Inch iPad Air With A14 Chip, All-Screen Design, Touch ID in Power Button, and USB-C

[Digitalguy]

A14 is going to be better than A12X/Z. Roughly on par on multicore, and much faster on single core, which is what matter most for speed on an ipad... and what people will notice most...
The new touch id could even be an advantage over face id for some people...
And pro-motion is not a big deal for everyone...
What remains to be seen is how much better are the speaker compared to the current air and how much worse than the pro...

 

[xpxp2002]

This would be exactly what I want, if it only had 5G. Surprised they released this with the A14 and within a month of the iPhone 12, but didn't include 5G...

 

[mguzzi]

This is the iPad I would buy if I didn't already have an iPad Pro. I love the new colors and the A14 chip looks like a performance beast.

 

[James Godfrey]

So with the 11” Pro (£769 base) vs iPad Air (£579), what does an extra £190 get you.

-Slightly larger screen
-Face ID
-Quad Speakers (not Dual)
-120Hz Promotion Display
-Double the storage
-Better cameras
-Better microphones
-Thinner device
-Brighter screen
-LiDAR
-Probably similar chip performance A14/A12Z (the A12Z will likely be better for multi-tasking)

 

[MacAddict1978]

I wonder if this means a bigger update coming to the iPad Pro in the spring. Maybe the 11” goes away, 12.9” drops to 799 and a 15”(?) is added at 999?

Who on Earth would want to manhandle 15"? Ipads or other things....

 

[r-m]

Has it got multi-user support yet?

 

[MacAddict1978]

Has everybody just collectively forgotten about the iPad mini? It only seems to get stealth spec bumps on random days of the year with no fanfare.

An iPad mini sized device with a larger edge to edge screen like the iPad Pro would be my dream device. I personally know more people with iPad minis than either iPad or iPad Pro. The mini’s perfect for being able to fit in a jacket pocket, able to be held edge to edge by one hand, and use full iPad apps and iPhone apps. It seems to be the runt of the litter, nobody seems to care much about it.

Speaking of overpriced.... I almost forgot about the Mini.

 

[Menthol]

I actually love the colors, especially the sky blue one. If I didn’t have a 2020 iPP, I’d be all over that one.

I agree that's the nicest of them.

 

[Neepman]

I thought they'd use the A13, I'm pleased they said "hell with it" and used the A14. I'm happy for the lucky people who will be buying it. I assume you bought the iPad Pro 2020 because it fit your use-case and still does?

I'm surprised they didn't do 13 especially if they are courting the Chinese market where its a lucky number.

 

[Neepman]

Speaking of overpriced.... I almost forgot about the Mini.

I love my mini and have nightmares they will drop it from the line to make way for more SKU's for watch bands.

 

[meteoreos]

Is there a difference in using the pen on a 120Hz screen vs. 60Hz? That’s all I care about as I’ll be using the iPad for work.

 

[James Godfrey]

I was shocked it had the A14, I do wonder how it will perform against the A12Z, my prediction is the A14 will perform slightly better doing single things on the iPad but the A12Z will likely out perform the A14 when multitasking.

 

[MacAddict1978]

And finally a more affordable iPad which has a 12MP sensor,

I'd rather have a camera-less option for less money. Who is running around using iPads as cameras? A good front facing for Facetime yes, but rear? Almost no one uses the rear camera. Maybe if you're on your iPad and out of the blue moment happens. Just my opinion, but would be nice to not pay for something you don't use.

 

[Mc0]

They will skip the A14 showcase when they introduce the new iPhones. Don’t see the point when they already introduced A14 with the iPad air 4.

 

[Ethosik]

I'd rather have a camera-less option for less money. Who is running around using iPads as cameras? A good front facing for Facetime yes, but rear? Almost no one uses the rear camera. Maybe if you're on your iPad and out of the blue moment happens. Just my opinion, but would be nice to not pay for something you don't use.

I agree. I also do not use the camera on my iPhone that much. I know a lot of people do, but this is why the iPhone since version 6 has not really interested me too much.

 

[Homme]

Has everybody just collectively forgotten about the iPad mini? It only seems to get stealth spec bumps on random days of the year with no fanfare.

An iPad mini sized device with a larger edge to edge screen like the iPad Pro would be my dream device. I personally know more people with iPad minis than either iPad or iPad Pro. The mini’s perfect for being able to fit in a jacket pocket, able to be held edge to edge by one hand, and use full iPad apps and iPhone apps. It seems to be the runt of the litter, nobody seems to care much about it.

Ming chi kuo recently said more iPads will get Touch ID onto the power button In 2021 hinting iPad Mini 6 could be edge to edge 😁

 

[CVUSA]

How come still at 720p FaceTime cam ?

 

[btrach144]

IMO promotion is worth the extra $200.

Very strange that a mid range product is getting the flagship A14 first though. iPhone will of course get it next year but it leaves the iPad Pro in a weird spot for the holiday season.

 

[kazmac]

Kaz, you’re an iPad Addict!

The funny thing is, it turned out that way. Mostly due to hardware issues, or mistakes such as me purchasing a 2020 11" iPP that I couldn't use for work and couldn't return. Hopeful the new, smaller A14 chip will circumvent the heat issues since it runs at lower power.

What keeps me on board: the Pencil. Love drawing on the iPad, very calming and it's fun. If that wasn't such a big thing for me, I wouldn't be so vested.

So if more RAM is a given, then yes, I'll order a new Air the first day they are available.

 

[GuruZac]

As someone who recently ordered a 2020 iPad Pro and still haven't received it, I'm eager to find out how A12Z compares against A14.
Since there's no benchmark on A14 yet, I did some calculations on existing benchmarks and Apple's spec.
A14 consists of a 6-core CPU and a 4-core GPU, and A12Z is 8-core + 8-core.
Apple says that A14 is 40% faster than A12 in terms of CPU, and 30% faster in terms of GPU. In comparison, according to Geekbench, A12Z (iPad Pro 11 2nd gen) is about 60% faster on CPU multi-core performance and 120% faster on GPU performance (Metal) comparing to A12 (iPad Air 3rd gen).
The caveat is CPU single-core performance, assuming what Apple says about A14's CPU is multi-core, then A14's single-core performance is (1.4/6)/(1.6/8)-1 = 16.67% faster than A12Z, but in the meantime, A13 (iPhone 11 Pro)'s single-core performance is about 18.69% faster than A12Z, it would be odd if A14's single-core performance wasn't better than A13, let alone slower. So in the other case where what Apple meant was actually single-core performance, A14's multi-core performance would be 1.4*6/(1*8) - 1 = 5% faster than A12Z, (A12Z's single-core performance is nearly identical to A12), which makes a little bit more sense IMO.
When we talk about GPU performance we generally don't care about that of a single CU, so I think the "30% faster than A12" is the combined GPU performance.

In conclusion, my (very rough) estimation is:

• A14 GPU is about 40% slower than A12Z.
• A14 CPU single-core performance is 40% faster than A12Z, and multi-core performance is 5% faster.

or​

• A14 CPU single-core performance is 17% faster than A12Z, and multi-core performance is 12.5% slower.

Can we also assume that, other than the modest 10% gain in GPU performance from A12X to A12Z, the 2018 iPad Pro is substantially more powerful overall than the iPad Air 4? Might be a good time to find a good deal on a 2018 iPad Pro 11” or even 12.9”. I have absolutely loved my 12.9

 

[CVUSA]

So iPhone 12 with side Touch ID ?

Face ID are so useless these days !

 

[effineji]

This is so much bigger an upgrade than I was expecting.
I really want a bigger screen + Higher refresh screen + FaceID, over what this one provides but assuming the next ipad pro large gets a price hike, that's €500 more (€400 if price stays the same) than this ipad air 4!! That's one ipad more for basically just the screen upgrade...

 

[topmounter]

They forgot the... iPad Air Mini... UGGH.

 

[tipoo]

Since their comparisons were to the A12 in the previous iPad Air, if you work it backwards it doesn't look like as large a jump as usual from the A13. Looking at around 16% faster CPU and 8-9% faster GPU? I wonder if this is why they debuted in an iPad Air first, since its much more impressive in comparison to the last Air than the last iPhone, where they can kind of say they already talked about it at the iPhone event.

Couldn't expect those huge single core gains forever, but from the iPhone 11 to 12 this looks like a smaller jump. If the iPhone 12 Pro had ProMotion that would have been an easy overlook if the added efficiency offset the higher refresh rate, but it doesn't sound like we're getting that this year.

 

[cr2]

I'd rather have a camera-less option for less money. Who is running around using iPads as cameras? A good front facing for Facetime yes, but rear? Almost no one uses the rear camera. Maybe if you're on your iPad and out of the blue moment happens. Just my opinion, but would be nice to not pay for something you don't use.

A story from 7-8(?) years ago. I was in Cambridge MA. I saw a bunch of international tourists who possibly came from NY as they were carrying B&H (A major photography store) Bags. Everyone took sat at the bench and opened their D800 camera boxes and lenses etc. D800 was just launched. With some struggle, they got it together. However, it seems that they had no idea on how to use the DSLR and so one of the guys decided to hell with it and took out an IPAD and to take pictures. Soon the other too put away D800s and started using iPad

As far as I am concerned, I can be happy with basic cameras (just in case). I don't remember using them at all.