Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPadOS 27 Drops Support for a Wave of iPads

Apple is dropping support for an Ipad with it's own chip? I was confused but I have the Ipad Air M1 and that is no longer being supported? Anyone remember when moving to the M-Chip was such a big deal? Also, the Ipad is not good on IpadOS 26 and they won't even clean it up for IpadOS 27? I just bought the Ipad like 4 years ago too.

It is compatible as 4th Generation or Later. I wonder why they don't explicitly say M1, or highlight it somewhere.
 
Last edited:
Apple's naming scheme is complete garbage. Here are the supported iPad Air models for iPadOS 27:
  • iPad Air 11-inch (M2, M3, and M4)
  • iPad Air 11-inch (4th generation and later). The 4th Gen is A14 Bionic. The 5th Gen is M1.
Then Apple decides to call the 6th Generation, M2, and so on with M3, M4. So understandable how people thought the M1 was left out because the M1 was called iPad Air 11-inch 5th Generation.
 
Glad My iPad Air with A14 made it. Really hope this new OS fixes the nastiness iPad OS brought upon it. I’ve had to force restart the the thing multiple times a week due to loss of fluidity or function of multitouch. Even reinstallation of the OS did nothing. Would like to get another 2-3 years out of it but if this update fixes non of that, a new iPad it is.
 
I’m just going to leave this here, from a different thread:

I will explain this and give some context:

People have been confused since Apple’s naming went (imo) in an appalling direction with the 3rd-gen iPad Pro.

Since it was the first full screen iPad, Apple pointlessly decided to call it the 11-inch (1st-gen) iPad Pro (with the A12X chipset). They went from there, which brought about massive confusion. Is the M1 iPad Pro the (5th-gen) (M1) or the (11-inch) (3rd-gen)? Apple used the latter.

Since the 12.9-inch iPad did not change screen sizes, they called the 11-inch M1 the 3rd-gen but the 12.9-inch M1 the 5th-gen.

With the Air, they only used chipsets starting with the M2! So, you have the Air (1st, 2nd, 3rd-gen, all with a home button); the 4th-gen (2020, A14 Bionic IIRC), and the 5th-gen (2022, M1).

But… Apple called the 6th-gen iPad Air (with an M2) the iPad Air (M2, NO version number).

Hence the confusion: iPad Air (4th-gen and later) includes both the 4th-gen (2020, A14 Bionic, first Air with a full screen) AND the 5th-gen (2022, M1, the one you and I have) but NOT the 6th-gen iPad Air (M2), which Apple refers to as “iPad Air (M2)” only, with NO version number.

Apple, maintain the generation numbering and add chipset if you like, but don’t do this!

I would’ve said, if you want to highlight M chipsets:
iPad Air (4th-generation)
iPad Air (5th-generation) (M1)
iPad Air (6th-generation) (M2)
iPad Air (7th-generation) (M3)
iPad Air (8th-generation) (M4)

iPadOS 27 compatibility list:

iPad Air (4th-generation) and newer

Like that, it’s extremely clear
 
  • Love
Reactions: BeatCrazy
Richy85 said:
I thought my 2018 iPad Pro 1TB (6GB RAM) was going to be updated for another year...it's a sad day
Click to expand...
Indeed. I couldn’t care less about the AI stuff but just for the claimed improvements in efficiency and stability it would have been great to get one last release.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Richy85
ikir said:
Because it needs more memory. It is not a performance requirement but a memory one. Still you will get a lot of improvements and what your device can’t do locally it will do it cloud-side.
Click to expand...
OK, so explain why a Mac Studio M2 Ultra w/192GB of unified memory also doesn’t support the ‘advanced Siri’ features?
 
Steve121178 said:
Dropping the M1 iPad Air when the M2 brought only very modest improvements seems unnecessary. If they apply that logic, why are M1 Macs still supported for macOS27? Weird.
Click to expand...

Apparently the initial reports that iPadOS would not support M1 are incorrect and this article has been corrected.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ikir
Some models are indeed not getting the update. The list is confusing especially because some M series models were named 'n' generation iPad. Also some Apple Intelligence features are available only on iPads with more unified memory!
 
  • Like
Reactions: mganu
Nice!

My M4 512GB IPP (which cost me well-over a Grand less than two years ago) seems to fall short by 4GB of the minimum RAM it takes to really take advantage of the fun On-Device AI stuff.

Real Pro Move, AAPL 🙄

Kinda reminds me of the 2015 MBP where the 'Mid' 15" got PCIe 3.0 nvme's, but the 'Early' 13"-ers were kept at PCIe 2.0 (guess which one I spent USD2,3K on...).

Such is the price we pay for a lack of foresight....
 
This article like many others gets it wrong about the dividing line for iPad support. The supported 11" iPad Pro 2nd generation has an A12Z. A12 is not the dividing line. The 3rd-gen 12.9" Pro has an A12X and is out. The A12Z had an extra GPU core and went from 4GB to 6GB memory. I'd suspect the latter caused the break.
 
This big supported model list chop is foreboding. Yesterday I was thinking about finally retiring my OG 2016 iPad Pro 9.7” (my “travel iPad”) and getting a 2022 M2 iPad Pro 11” because it’s the last model that still shipped with a nanoSIM slot.

But they’re still expensive (especially if you want the 1 or 2 TB models with more RAM) and with this kind of early obsolescence I feel like I have no choice but to buy the current 11” model (WiFi-only) instead and hotspot tether it to my iPhone SE 3rd gen, which still has a nanoSIM tray as well. (I know it’s hard to believe, but there are still some countries with issues using eSIMs. Physical SIMs always seem to work.)
 
arobert3434 said:
This article like many others gets it wrong about the dividing line for iPad support. The supported 11" iPad Pro 2nd generation has an A12Z. A12 is not the dividing line. The 3rd-gen 12.9" Pro has an A12X and is out. The A12Z had an extra GPU core and went from 4GB to 6GB memory. I'd suspect the latter caused the break.
Click to expand...
Since iPadOS 27 support devices with 3GB of RAM I don't get why they slash support like they do for the pro models.
Same thing happened with iPadOS 17 > 18 when they ditched iPad Pro 10.5 that had 4GB of RAM.

Not sure what Apples logic are more than "hey, its X amount of years old, lets ditch the fek*er"
 
  • Like
Reactions: arobert3434, aja_96 and Riot Nrrrd
Honestly this is the part that bugs me. Nobody’s asking a 2018 Pro to get every shiny new thing.

But leaving a still-capable A12X iPad Pro stuck on the worse-feeling 26 branch while 27 is apparently the smoother one just feels off. At the very least, Apple should keep the basic optimization story consistent between the 2018 and 2020 Pro models instead of making the cutoff feel random.
 
  • Like
Reactions: aja_96
noeXzTi_ said:
FYI, although in the Apple Developer site there's a common IPSW for both iPad Pro 11 1st gen (A12X) and the 2nd gen (A12Z), Finder will not let you restore the A12X one with this IPSW as it will complain that this iPadOS version is not compatible, so it is officially unsupported (I've just tried).

Edit: although curiously enough, the IPSW itself is named "iPad_Pro_A12X_A12Z_27.0_24A5355q_Restore.ipsw"
Click to expand...
Was hoping someone would try after I saw the name listed in the dev portal,
Thanks.

I also saw that they had an Apple TV HD ipsw listed, they have since removed it though
 
Also, the whole A12X/A12Z mess is exactly why people are irritated. The developer IPSW even has both chips in the filename, so the split already feels messy as hell. If Apple is going to draw a line, fine, but at least make it make sense instead of leaving 2018 Pro owners with a random-feeling cutoff.
 
  • Like
Reactions: arobert3434, yass31, aja_96 and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back