New iPad Air Models With M3 Chip Seemingly Confirmed by Leaker

[MacRumors]

Apple's next-generation iPad Air and entry-level iPad models have seemingly been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass.

In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning unreleased 11-inch iPad Air, 13-inch iPad Air, and iPad 11 models. It is unclear where this information was obtained from, but Blass has a pretty good track record with leaks. In 2020, for example, he revealed marketing images for the iPhone 12 lineup and HomePod mini a few hours before those devices were announced.

Notably, the leak reveals the next iPad Air models will apparently be equipped with the M3 chip. There had been speculation that Apple might use the iPad Pro's M4 chip for the next iPad Air models instead, in a move away from chips manufactured with TSMC's expensive and lower-yield first-generation 3nm process, known as N3B. There was a six-month period in 2022 where both the iPad Pro and iPad Air had the M1 chip, so there is precedent for such a thing. Nonetheless, it appears the iPad Air will use the M3 chip.

The leak does not mention which chip the iPad 11 will use, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously said the device will be equipped with the A17 Pro chip and 8GB of RAM to enable Apple Intelligence support on the entry-level iPad.

The leak also seems to confirm the widely-rumored iPhone SE 4.

iPad 10 models have an A14 Bionic chip and 4GB of RAM.

Apple unveiled the iPad 10 in October 2022, with pricing starting at $449 at the time. Apple lowered the iPad 10's starting price to $349 in the U.S. in May 2024. It is unclear if the iPad 11 will start at $349, or if pricing will return to a higher level.

Apple last updated the iPad Air in May 2024 with the M2 chip, and it also introduced the first-ever 13-inch iPad Air model at the time.

Apple will likely announce these new iPads by March or April this year. No major design changes have been rumored for the devices.

The new iPads are expected to be accompanied by new Magic Keyboards too.

Article Link: New iPad Air Models With M3 Chip Seemingly Confirmed by Leaker

 

[abatabia]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

 

[Aka757]

M3 in the iPad Airs makes more sense to me than M4. Why would they jump from M2 to M4 in the iPad Air, when the Pros have the M4 (even if they update those to M5 later this year)? Doesn’t make sense from a product segmentation perspective, although I don’t know anything about the chip yield side that might play into that decision.

 

[ELman]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

They must have some new colors. I picked up an M2 Air when they were released and it's more the sufficient.

 

[abatabia]

They must have some new colors. I picked up an M2 Air when they were released and it's more the sufficient.

I have an M1 and it does all I need too.

 

[GMShadow]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

With M4 MacBook Airs coming, it'll leave the iPad Air as the sole product with the base M2 (Vision Pro is allegedly out of production now). I can see updating it from a manufacturing efficiency standpoint - the base MBA will then have the M3 so they can share parts.

 

[kingalien]

Apple is likely going to debut new keyboards for these models. The current iPad Air models can still use the old keyboards so no extra revenue from those of us that already have it. Thus the incremental changes internally but newer accessories.

 

[Spacegray]

Anyway a new display would be more helpful.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

Because the iPad line-up is receiving fewer and fewer reasons to upgrade to the more expensive models.

Segmenting the chips is a simple way for them to achieve this, just as they did with the A17 Pro in the otherwise nice iPad mini.

A lot of this is perspective, too. One of the most common questions on Macrumors is "Why not just put X chip in there" - it's not down to cost, its because Apple attempts to make the higher-end chips more aspirational, even though an A17 pro is clearly sufficient for every day use.

 

[longhorn2004]

Give the Air Face ID and the sales problem is fixed overnight.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Rearranging the deck chairs I see

 

[Student of Life]

Give the Air Face ID and the sales problem is fixed overnight.

A) Do they actually have a sale problem?

B) if one wants Face ID, just buy the previous version of the pro, it (historically) goes on sale for a price equal to or lower than the Air with all the features the air lacks.

 

[PsykX]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

It's already 2 years old... it's about time they finally take action on it.

An M3 chip totally makes sense, they can upsell the iPad Air with M4 to their customers.

 

[progx]

Strange update if you ask me. Why so soon? Why not wait for M5 and give it M4?

I agree. It could've been planned that way when Apple faced shortages during the pandemic. It was rumored Apple plans out for 2-3 years in their pipeline. We might be at the end, but it depends when those plans were made too.

 

[GMShadow]

A) Do they actually have a sale problem?

B) if one wants Face ID, just buy the previous version of the pro, it (historically) goes on sale for a price equal to or lower than the Air with all the features the air lacks.

If you listen to this board every Apple product is a complete sales failure and needs a total redesign to hopefully stave off Apple’s impending bankruptcy.

 

[Corefile]

It's completely pointless having these spec bumped iPads if the iPad OS still remains as neutered as it does. iPad OS is just a junk OS.

 

[JippaLippa]

Gotta offload them pesky M3s somewhere.

 

[ericinboston]

Give the Air Face ID and the sales problem is fixed overnight.

Face ID stopped working on my iPhone 13 Pro over a year ago. I am not dropping $400+ for Apple to fix it. When it worked, it was helpful. But I never saw the dire importance of having Face ID on any Apple device.

On a side note, what Apple should offer is the ability to disable (or change) Apple's "you've entered the incorrect password X times and now I'm gonna lock your phone for Y minutes". I despise this authoritarian lock. There are times that people (kids or someone just being a jerk) grab your phone while it's not in your hand and enter the incorrect code a bunch of times and POOF! now you're locked out for 15+ minutes. There should be a way to either disable this auto-lock completely or edit/cap the amount of time it will lock me out (such as 30 mins). There are some of us who aren't paranoid about the government grabbing my phone and downloading all my family photos.

 

[longhorn2004]

If you listen to this board every Apple product is a complete sales failure and needs a total redesign to hopefully stave off Apple’s impending bankruptcy.

Or just an exec team in Cupertino looking at sales numbers and tweaking the product...................nothing to do with posts.

We do not have access to the latest market share mix as they do.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/report-ipad-pro-popularity-cutting-into-ipad-air-and-ipad-mini-sales.2433182/

 

[longhorn2004]

A) Do they actually have a sale problem?

B) if one wants Face ID, just buy the previous version of the pro, it (historically) goes on sale for a price equal to or lower than the Air with all the features the air lacks.

A- Maybe, we do not have access to the latest sales numbers mix

Report: iPad Pro Popularity Cutting Into iPad Air and iPad Mini Sales

iPad Pro models accounted for the majority of Apple's iPad sales in the June quarter, up from the same quarter a year ago, based on the latest...

www.macrumors.com

B-What percentage of the market knows that? 10,20 or 30 percent?. If Apple wants to add Air sales, add Facetime. But it would dent Pro sales.

The base and Pro gets most of the sales per the latest public info. Maybe the Exec team is fine with the present Air market situation.

 

[longhorn2004]

Face ID stopped working on my iPhone 13 Pro over a year ago. I am not dropping $400+ for Apple to fix it. When it worked, it was helpful. But I never saw the dire importance of having Face ID on any Apple device.

On a side note, what Apple should offer is the ability to disable (or change) Apple's "you've entered the incorrect password X times and now I'm gonna lock your phone for Y minutes". I despise this authoritarian lock. There are times that people (kids or someone just being a jerk) grab your phone while it's not in your hand and enter the incorrect code a bunch of times and POOF! now you're locked out for 15+ minutes. There should be a way to either disable this auto-lock completely or edit/cap the amount of time it will lock me out (such as 30 mins). There are some of us who aren't paranoid about the government grabbing my phone and downloading all my family photos.

Sorry about that, no doubt frustrating.

 

[GMShadow]

Or just an exec team in Cupertino looking at sales numbers and tweaking the product...................nothing to do with posts.

We do not have access to the latest market share mix as they do.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/report-ipad-pro-popularity-cutting-into-ipad-air-and-ipad-mini-sales.2433182/

And we just had a report that the iPad Pro is a flop and Apple cancelled/pushed back the OLED MacBook Air.

Maybe we can realize that these analyst reports are made up?

 

[neomorpheus]

Give the Air Face ID and the sales problem is fixed overnight.

I dont know if they are not selling well, but agreed, add Face ID given the pricing.

I mean, some current iPad Air does break the US$1K barrier already.

 

[MrJM]

The day after I buy an M2 Air!

 

[Rychiar]

M3 in the iPad Airs makes more sense to me than M4. Why would they jump from M2 to M4 in the iPad Air, when the Pros have the M4 (even if they update those to M5 later this year)? Doesn’t make sense from a product segmentation perspective, although I don’t know anything about the chip yield side that might play into that decision.

why does the Mac mini have an m4 and the Mac Pro/studio are rotting with an M2? Apples release strategy is always ridiculous